he started daycare in march. since then: two colds, one stomach bug, and one fever that my mother insists was teeth. each time he's home for two or three days and one of us is home with him. we've been taking strict turns and i'm down to four days for the rest of the year. how did you get through the first daycare year without running out?
Strict turns look fair, but they ignore whose day is easier to lose. We switched to deciding each morning by whose calendar was lighter, which annoyed us both less. Also check whether your company has separate family-care leave. Mine didn't, my partner's did, and we only found out a year in.
partner has more leave left than me, which is being treated as a moral victory. checking the family care thing now.
The first daycare year was the worst for us too. By the second he was sick maybe a third as often. Or we got better at not noticing.
Can some of the sick days be work-from-home with him? You won't get a full day done, but you'll get some, and it doesn't cost leave. Ours also go to the grandparents on their usual days when they're a bit unwell, unless there's a fever.
Teachers can't work from home, so in my son's first daycare year I took half days wherever I could: mornings with him, afternoons at school. Messier than full days, but the leave lasted twice as long. Worth checking whether your policy allows half days.
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