Backup Care - what do you do?

[Deleted]

I haven't even thought about this. I guess I should. My work is pretty flexible and DH can WFH if necessary...so I guess we're covered for the most part. If she's sick multiple days DH and I can alternate being home or call my MIL, who could come stay with us overnight if needed.

I wish we had a sick drop-in center. I've heard they exist in some places.

[jackie011]

Our plan is for DH to WFH as much as he can. I can call in from time to time, but DH's job/boss are far more flexible than mine!

[karinothing]

DH's work offers sick backup care so we have that. If that didn't work out I guess I would find someone off sitter city before we were in a panic situation so I could feel them out in advance.

[pugz]

dh has 6 weeks vacation so he'll have to stay home if she's sick on a day I have to work. This is one of the primary reasons I am only going back part time, we only get like 6-8 "occurances" a year so having a kid in full time daycare getting sick all the time would probably lead to me losing my job :\

[CloudBee]

My ILs are elderly (80's) so we can't count on them. I assume my husband and I may tag-team a bit, and split half days with the kiddo and at work.

[ijack]

You should see if your area has a sitter service, and you can sign up and have some preferences in place before something happens. We usually tag team, though we're lucky enough to have family in the area.

[hocus]

We have a back up sitter, DH's dad can often fill in, otherwise we take off. It hasn't been a issue thus far to be honest.

[froggy76]

DH and I tag-team and I can stay connected (and work a little) at home. DH can make up time on the weekends, if necessary. My parents and ILs are all 2.5 hours away, and someone can come stay with us for a couple days if we really need help.

DD's daycare is closed 4 weeks a year, plus all holidays (it's a Montessori school), so we have to plan for this a lot.

[hannamaren]

This was my biggest fear. It happened today. We have a nanny so we could have left her home with the nanny, but it was such a terrible night of wakings and she is so clingy, that I called in sick. I am also feeling crappy.
Luckily today I was working late so there was time to find someone to cover for me. Otherwise, I planned to go to work for 2 hours and come home.

[Ashley&Scott]

We have been trading off, but DH's job is very inflexible so usually I stay home. DH is only allowed 8 "unscheduled" days per year before getting fired. Once he gets to 6 he gets written up. Right now he has 4.

I can pretty much miss as long as my manager is in the office.

[h]

One of us takes off, or we tag team. More often than not we play the "I can take him until noon, but I have a lunch meeting I can't cancel," "I can take him during your lunch, but need to make a 2:30 conference call" game and end up juggling schedules. Sometimes it involves passing off a sick kid downtown en route to meetings. A couple times I have even resorted to laying a sick kid on a blanket in my office with the portable DVD player and just locking my door. If one of our kids has a prolonged illness or we know ahead of time that school will be closed, we try to fly one of our moms in. We also have access to backup care through my employer. I have used it on occassion when their school is closed, because in that situation they can do drop in care at a licensed day care center. I will not use the work backup care for sick days, though, because it involves them sending a sitter to my home to stay with my child, and I refuse to leave my kid alone with a stranger, especially when sick.

I find dealing with this issue to be one of the toughest parts of being a working parent. It sucks a lot, and inevitably our kids get sick on days when we are super busy or have meetings we can't easily cancel. They never seem to get sick on days when I don't have much to do and am just dorking around on here.

[pinkdutchtulips]

i've always hoarded PTO time the best i could in case dd got sick and couldn't go to daycare. thankfully h is self employed so when i couldn't stay home, he could rearrange his schedule to watch her. so far so good, the only time we REALLY sweated this was her first year in DC. the # of colds has dropped off TONS the older she's gotten.

[zarapipe]

I take off as my job is very flexible. DH can run to get her if it is an emergency if she needs to leave daycare because he is closer but his job isn't very flexible. Luckily my boss if very understanding and I have a lot of leave time available. If it is a long illness we call on friends/family but I prefer to just stay home. Too many times my sick child has gotten my SIL or FIL sick when they were watching her.

[schrodinger]

We have a few options:

Work just added a benefit this year to provide dependent care services at a co-pay rate. They will use a center (which our city doesn't have) or a nanny. We pay $20 for the first 4 or 5 times we use the service.
DH or I can take time off. His job can be more flexible than mine, but he also travels more.
We have a nanny service in town that we set up an account with. They are pricey ($15/hr), but will take care of sick kids on short notice.

[discombobulated]

My employer has an amazing sick kid daycare staffed by nurses. I'm very grateful.

[raylongivens]

If DD is sick (but not terribly sick), our nanny takes care of her.

If our nanny is sick or calls in for some other reason, we have a few options.
1. We have a commuter college student across the street that is our weekend babysitter.
2. My work offers 20 days at a back-up center (Bright Horizons). It's only been full a couple of times - usually on school vacation weeks.
3. I can work from home, but I hate to do that because I don't get much done. So I typically take a sick day and work as I can.
4. If I have meetings or calls that I can't miss, DH will work from home. Or, we'll both work from home and tag team a bit.

DH has very little PTO, so he rarely takes a day off if we can at all avoid it. I have unlimited sick time, but it's very rare that I'd actually take a sick day and not work for at least 1/2 the day. We have lots of family nearby, but none of them will help out without a stink, so we stopped asking.

[pamela]

We just have to stay home. In an absolute pinch if it's the summer, my coworker/friend's mom can take him or my boss has volunteered his wife for times like Thanksgiving when we almost both had to work and daycare was closed.

[starlily]

Both of our employers let us use sick leave in these circumstances, so we take turns taking days off if necessary. H's work won't even dock the hours if he puts in at least 4 hours, so if we get a midday call for pickup, he does it.

If we both absolutely had to go on, we have a couple friends nearby we'd ask, as well as two babysitters we use occasionally. Worst case scenario we have family about an hour away.

[fortmyersbride]

This is a big part of why we moved back close to family. DH and I both have jobs that we can't call in for. It's also why we havent been able to use daycare, as we can't stay home when the kids are sick.

Before we moved back close to family, DS went to work with us a few times when emergencies came up with our nannies. He did pain rounds with me one day, hung out at the OR desk another day, watched cartoons in the recovery room, and was pawned off on the surgery intern for a few hours. I'm very happy we don't have to scramble like that anymore, even if it means being closer to family than I care for at times

[w2w]

We have one backup sitter who can do it about half the time. Other times, we either split the time, or if we have advanced warning (like nanny vacation days), we fly in a grandparent.

[barefootcontessa]

Jan 2, 2013 14:43:59 GMT -5 littlespitfire said:

Hmm, interesting. We have lots of vacation, but it's not a "vacation" day if you call in that morning or the day before. We both work in the same building, but it's across the river and a 45 minute commute, so it's not so wasy to pass off the kid to one another. I'm going to hunt for a sitter service like the one suggested above. Hopefully that will provide us with some insurance.

I live in a pretty small city and even here there are services for same-day sick service. You have to pay an annual fee, complete forms, etc. and then you have access to their screened nannies.

[Deleted]

Sorry, I'm no help, we have family nearby, so usually my mom or MIL is available to watch her. There have been times I've had to take off, though.

[Deleted]

I've had to take off every time DS has been sick so far. It sucks, but we have no family and DH's job isn't very flexible most of the time. I like the idea of backup sitter services but I haven't tried that route yet.