Who looks after your child/ren when they are too sick to go to school?

[samy23]

Do you take the day off work? Have a relative look after them? Pay a babysitter? or ?

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

It depends on the day and the circumstances. Both DH and I have some days where we can work at home, or just totally take off. But we also both have days when one or neither of us is able to do that. In those, thankfully rare, cases, we have been known to use relatives first or a paid emergency sitter as the last resort.

I definitely recommend having a plan in place before you need it since these inevitably happens on the day when you are least prepared and most stressed.

[GuildJenn]

Everything Evan&Anna's mom said

[Holland73]

Me, and me alone.

Thankfully, I work in a single parent, child-friendly environment. I am an elementary school teacher with many colleagues, and even a principal, who are also single parents, so they are all very helpful, understanding and wonderful collaborative problem solvers.

In case of a more long-term sickness, ie more than a week, my mom would drive the 7 hours down from OR to stay with him.

I am a little nervous to write this, so I am going to be doing some serious knocking on wood, but my son is proving to be amazingly healthy. He wasn't sick a single day last year (kindergarden) and only 2 days the year before that in preschool.

[gabry]

Dh or I take off (sometimes we'll split the day) or work from home. In Belgium there is this great service where health insurances also provide a "sick kids babysitting service" for like 2 dollars an hour. They usually need at least half a days notice though, but it's already proven a big help to us several times.

[StephandOwen]

We are very fortunate in this situation. My DP can sometimes work from home, so that's usually our first choice. If he can't work from home then I call my boss and beg her to give me the day off Fortunately my boss is exceptionally nice and understands (I work in a daycare- half the employees have kids so this is an issues that comes up pretty much every week in the fall and winter so the owner usually has a backup plan if someone calls in sick or with a sick kid). If ds gets ill on a school day for me (Tuesday and Thursdays I take classes while ds is in school) and dp can't work from home then I'm forced to skip classes that day. Thankfully that's never happened yet (I have had to skip one class one day this year due to ds being ill and dp could only watch him for my first 2 classes that day).

[Ceinwen]

Another vote for 'depends'.

If I have a heads up, I can occasionally wrangle my mom into watching either (both? lol) of my dds when they are sick.

Having said that, if they're sick enough to miss school/daycare - they usually need me to stay home with them.

[Alyantavid]

Usually, dh keeps them home. But he's working very part-time right now and has that flexibility. Or I'll stay home until dh can be home with them and then go into work later.

[caenach]

DH and I usually take turns staying home. We have fairly flexible schedules, understanding employers, and both of us can do some work from home.

[calpurnia]

i cover it. because dp's studies are more important

[LilMomma83]

Usually I take off - that is mostly because I have the milk lol I imagine when they are older DH and I will take turns...every once in a while my mom watches them. They had swine flu and I have been off almost everyday for about 2wks because I don't feel comfortable asking someone else to watch them.

[Love_My_Bubba]

My DH is pretty much self employed so it's very rare that he can't work it out to stay home when DS is sick. Sometimes if he has a meeting he'll drop DS at my office for an hour or two. I work alone in a sattelite office so as long as I don't have clients in the office I can bring him with me occasionally. So here's our emergency plan in order:

1) DH keeps DS and works from home, dropping him at my office for a few hours if necessary for meeting, etc.

2) MIL/FIL. FIL is retired but works part time supervising the writing of standardized tests for Social Workers and travels about 2 times a month to meet with the team he supervises.

3) He comes to work with me

4) I ask to work from home

We try to have an established game plan at the beginning of each winter and it tends to make last minute illnesses a little bit less stressful for me since DH is worthless when it comes to handling most situations that require decisions to be made

[Elecampane]

Originally Posted by caenach

DH and I usually take turns staying home. We have fairly flexible schedules, understanding employers, and both of us can do some work from home.

This is us, too.

[HollyBearsMom]

Another one for "it depends" and you need a good solid back up plan.

I get 8 paid "personal" day at work so that covers alot but there are time when I can't use them due to critical meetings, deadlines, etc.

My husband doesn't get paid days but he can do a lot from home so he can still "work" when the sick one naps, veggie out w/ a movie etc.

We have regular sitter who works about 17 hours a week. She can often cover whole days as need. Prefer not to go this routes (too much addtional $$) but it is nice knowing I have her if I need her!

[rcr]

Me. I have the more flexible job. It actually makes me very angry - just because my job is flexible (I can basically work whenever I want as long as I get my work done) - it does not mean that it is less important than DHs, yk.

[Happily Blessed]

I am in this very situation right now. While fixing my lunch to take Monday morning, I heard Dh say "guess who's staying home with Yahootie today?" Yahootie, DS, 2.5, had a fever of 103.8. It took 2 days to get it down and by the time we took him to the doctor on Tuesday, they diagnosed him with having the flu. I was sick also. I haven't been this sick in over ten years. So I went to the doctor to have some labs done and they wanted me off for the rest of the week. Unfortunately I am out of sick time and vacation, and am afraid I am going to be fired from my job. Which should be interesting because I can see the headlines "School District Employee Fired due to being sick with possible H1N1."

Anyways, if DS is sick, I take the day off. If its more than one day, Dh will take the second day off, etc. My Mother has no immune system as she is on immunosuppresants due to a lung transplant, and there is no one else to ask. Most babysitters I know will not watch a child who is sick.

I wished I could be a SAHM. Maybe if I am fired, my dream will happen.

[zebra15]

My sitter will take sick kids (with in reason) DS is 9 and can pretty much manage himself when sick so most days he can go hang out at the sitters.
Most times when sick its asthma related anyway (knock on wood)

[kirstenb]

I have to take it off, most of the time. DH is hardly ever able to take off work with his job right now. We don't have family in the area, either. If DH is on leave then he'll obviously be able to watch him. Luckily I have a lot of PTO to use and understanding bosses.

[annekevdbroek]

This is part of the reason I choose a nanny instead of a childcare center. Dh can't get days off (he really can't get off work even when he is sick) and its very hard for me to do it too. This way we have care at home in the case that either kiddo is sick.

[JL83]

It depends on alot of factors.

In general we trade off days. We can both work from home if we needs to, so it's not normally a full day off. If DD is really sick, then she sleeps and we can work. There have been a few days where I've taken DD into work with me because she's too sick for daycare (they are really strict) but I've had something that I had to finish and DH had a meeting or something. We take the portable DVD player, some toys/books, and a blanket and she rests in my office. I normally head home at lunch time.

It hasn't happened yet that neither one of us could stay home. But we're lucky and my in-laws are retired so I'm pretty sure that one of them would come and stay with her.