Child Care?

[jiminy]

Hey, I just thought i would share this lovely thing with you guys, hubby and i were talking the other night about what we would do about maternity leave after bubby is born, I said that i would like to take a few months off but would probably speak to my sis about doing 1 day a week swapsy babysitting for each other with the babies so we could each do a days work(she has a 3 month old), and hubby turns around and says i could take off a day a week to look after it so you could do 1 day at work, and i was like na thats silly as you are so busy as he works for himself, but he is so excited to do this that he'll set his boys up for the day(hes a tradsman) and then stay at home 1 day a week with jnr.

isn't that the most beautiful thing that you've heard of???,

man i am a lucky chickadee!!!!!!! :)

What is everyone else doing about maternity leave?

[Lousli]

That's great! My husband is a stay at home dad and he really loves it. I do too. I went back to work when my dd was 7 weeks old, which was very hard. This time, I'd like to take about 12 weeks (we can't afford more than that). Dh will continue to look after our daughter and somehow manage to feed the new baby expressed breastmilk at the same time, LOL. I would stay home if I could, but I make more $ than dh did when he worked, and I'm working my rear end off on a Master's Degree right now that I want to put to use!

[Parker'smommy]

I'm a sahm mom now and am SO glad and lucky to not have to think about this this time around!! But with ds, I took ALL of my maternity and then exhausted my Family Medical LEave until the very last day! THen dh quit his job and stayed home with ds!!!!! We practiced living on my income during the pregnancy ( as I made more money and had better benefits) and then used all of dh's saved income to live off when I no longer was getting disability insurance $$.

Luckily, 2 days, yes, 2 days into the situation dh got offered a job. It didn't pay enough for me to stay home so he turned him down. THey came back with more money!!!!! he started 2 weeks later and we put ds in a home daycare down the street from my school where I worked for 2 months while we waited for his insurance to kick in. I've been home every since.

Good luck with your decsions. That is very cool that your dh is going to help out by staying home with your ds one day a week. It will create a cool bond with baby and dad and he will also appreciate everything that you do while taking care of a child!!!

[Periwinkle]

I. Have. No. Idea... None!

:D

I am seriously clueless about what we're going to do. I worked like crazy before dd and ds were born - 80+ hour weeks - then after they were born I took 1 year off (mostly unpaid leave). I went back to work part-time when they turned 1, a schedule that remains now a year later -- I work three 6-hour days M-W and am off Th and Fri, and I do a couple hours work at home while they're asleep to make it 20 hours/week (the minimum at my company for keeping full benefits).

We have an amazing, kind, very AP nanny who takes care of dd and ds while I am gone (everyone's always like "Wow a nanny that must break the bank" but it's cheaper than daycare when you have more than 1 baby/toddler).

Anyway, I really love what I do, and it also is good that I'm continuing to pay into a 401K, plus we have terrific health benefits through my firm. The downside is, after paying the nanny, there's not a ton of take home pay left - not so much anyway that we couldn't survive without it if we really scrimped. But... like I said, the health benefits (the benefits through dh's work are TERRIBLE) are really good, and the impact of paying *any* amount into a 401K at this age cannot be underestimated. And with the economy the way it is and so many friends and their dh's getting layed off... it's a financial back-up: I could go back to work full-time tomorrow and be the primary breadwinner for as long as it took dh to get a job, without losing the house, the car, the savings, the benefits... Plus, and this is highly personal and admittedly a little patheticly pessimistic, and, oh I'll just come out and say it, it totally freaks me out to be 100% dependent on dh financially - yes we love each other so much but something like 65% of marriages end in divorce and I would feel sort of irresponsible not to mention terribly vulnerable if I gave up my career and stopped growing and staying current, making re-entry into my job market difficult, and then dh and I started having marriage problems. So the last two get at the financial security aspect, which is a big issue for me. MY own issues, I know. But there it is, out in the open.

Sooo.... ok, back on topic (sorry for my venting about not knowing whether to stay working or not!). I literally cannot imagine going back to work any sooner with this baby. If I do go back to work (and would not be any more than 3 part-days like it is now), we would use our current nanny as childcare for all three kids. I plan to send dd and ds to preschool next fall (when they're 3 and 1/2), and there would only be a couple of months at most where our nanny had to take care of all three. Not that she couldn't handle it, but obviously, the fewer the better. But, dh is looking for a new job right now and if he gets paid enough $$ then I may just quit altogether. I truly love being home with them in the mornings/afternoons M-W then all day Thurs and Fri, and when our nanny goes on vacation, I take off from work to stay with them for a week or two (sometimes unpaid leave since I don't accrue that much vacation working part-time) and I am always terribly sad to go back to work.

So, um, what I said before: I have no idea what we'll do. :)

(Sorry for the looong response - guess it felt good to get it all out "on paper" to see. :innocent )

[HydeParkB]

I am really hoping that dh & I can find a way for one of us to be at home.

Does anyone know of any informative articles or good worksheets to figure out how to calculate if we can do it? I'm especially wondering how the tax picture will play out.

[mehndi mama]

Anyone (with a very few rare exceptions) can afford to live on one income. It just depends on what you are willing to sacrifice to do it.

FWIW, I've stayed home with my kids since I got married. We lived, as a family of 3, 4, and 5, on a single pizza-delivery income. We didn't starve. We had a car. We had clothes. We were not miserable.

It can be done, no matter what.

[HydeParkB]

I believe we can do it - I grew up in a one-income, four-child household where we when to parochial Catholic schools. We wore hand-me-downs and rarely ate out, but we certainly didn't know want.

I'm having trouble convincing my husband that we won't be eating ramen noodles every night. I'm looking for something other than my own word to help convince him.

[mehndi mama]

In that case, you should both write down every penny you spend, and what it was spent on for a week or two. Nothing identifies frivolous spending better than this, and if you do it when you're paying your bills, it helps you see if you've got money being thrown away in that area, too. (Things like storage, club dues, and things like that can be big kickers.)

No lifestyle is worth maintaining at the cost of having to have others raise your children. It's my bet that you'll have to do a bit of digging to find out what he's really afraid of letting go. Once his fears are identified, it's easier to reason.