By Dr. Julie Franks (Estimated reading time: 6 minutes)
Returning to work after having a baby is not just an emotional transition – it’s also a logistical one. For many parents, one of the hardest parts is figuring out what happens when their regular childcare plans fall through. The unpredictability of illnesses and the subsequent impact at work can quickly become overwhelming and unsustainable.
Having a plan before the inevitable strikes is key. While every family is different in terms of flexibility, benefits, and needs, it helps to know your options and create a plan before you are in a last-minute scramble. I’ve provided some tips and guidelines here.
From the State and Federal Perspective. Washington requires paid sick leave for employees, including part-time workers, with accrual of at least one hour for every 40 hours worked. Washington’s Family Care Act also allows employees to use paid leave offered by their employer to care for a child with a health condition. In some situations, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) may also apply, especially if your child has a serious health condition, or you are still within your postnatal period.
Employer-Specific Policies. Talk with your manager or HR as soon as you can about the way caring for a sick child is handled at your workplace. Many workplaces offer flexible arrangements that are not guaranteed by law, such as flexing hours, working from home, or working partial days. It’s worth noting that self-employed parents or some workers with less traditional arrangements may have fewer built-in protections.
Families can use a combination of strategies, including:
Create a list of 3-4 backup sitters who you can text or call with short notice. This can be family, trusted members of your parenting community, or paid childcare providers. If your child feels ill the night before, it can be helpful to contact these people to determine their availability in case it’s needed. When speaking to potential sitters for sick-day care, ask directly about their comfort level with common symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea, or coughing, as well as their typical availability. Because this community, whether family or paid providers, often has other employment, they may not always be available or comfortable with every type of illness. Emergency sitters can also charge a heftier hourly rate than others.
Utilize your family’s sick day benefits to care for your child. If you have a partner or co-parent, discuss in advance how you can collectively use your sick day benefits to care for your child. Some families alternate each illness. Others rotate by day if a child is sick for several days. Some decide based on whose work schedule is more flexible that particular day or week. The benefit of talking about this before illness happens is that it creates space to work through logistics without the immediate stress of a sick child, which can reduce stress and conflict in the moment.
For parents with non-traditional schedules, backup care often needs to be even more intentional. If you work in the medical field, for example, long shifts, rotating schedules, or overnight hours may make typical childcare options less realistic. In these cases, you may need a layered plan that includes more than one caregiver or type of care to cover the overlap of traditional and non-traditional work hours. For example, you might have one backup sitter who can stay during the afternoon and another who can stay overnight.
If you are a military or single parent without consistent partner or family support, leaning on your community is especially important. This might include trusted friends, fellow members of your PEPS Group, or other parents in similar situations who are doing it alone. This works best if you can support them when needed, as well.
It can help to think in advance about how you want to communicate with your manager when sick days come up. Depending on your workplace culture, you may feel comfortable being honest about what is happening at home. In other settings, you may prefer to keep things more private to avoid the backlash or judgment that parents sometimes face when home life appears to affect work responsibilities.
A good general rule is that you do not need to share many details to communicate clearly and professionally about your need to take time off. You also do not need to be overly apologetic. For many parents, this can be a real shift, especially if they are used to saving PTO for vacations and appointments planned well in advance rather than using it for the unpredictability of caregiving.
Here are a few ways you might communicate that need:
Ultimately, the goal of preparing for unexpected is to have a plan in place that works best for your family, setting expectations with your work team and utilizing the benefits you have.
Dr. Julie Franks (she/her) is a perinatal mental health therapist and founder of Nurturing the Sisterhood, a perinatal therapy practice that exclusively works with women who are trying to conceive, pregnant, postpartum, or in the early years of motherhood across Washington State. With both clinical expertise and lived experience in infertility, postpartum anxiety, birth trauma, and working motherhood, she helps clients navigate the mental load and identity shifts that come with this season. No woman should have to face the early years alone.