Childcare & STEMI Call Question...

[IndianaJones]

I am new to the CCL, internal transfer for ICU. I am NOT planning on even starting to try to have children for another 2-3 years. but I was wondering how people manage being on call if there is a situation where your SO is out of town. My husband is a doctoral candidate and will likely finish in 3 years, so ideally he will have a job or be nearly done with school when we have kids. We are well off financially even with just my salary and his small stipend (i.e. no debt besides our mortgage) so paying for FT daycare is not an issue if he is still in school. However, his field requires him to travel for research projects (archaeology). He plans on taking at least the first, potentially the second summer off after we have had our first kid. Both sets of parents live 24+ hours away currently. His research projects will be anywhere from 3-6 weeks, but likely on the longer end of that. Does anyone use creative solutions for childcare when they are on call for a weekend or weeknight? I really really am liking my job so far and would not want to lose this spot but would also see kids hopefully in the near future.

Things I have thought about: au pair, regular FT daycare with 2-3 reliable college/grad students that can take "call" along with me, stay at our house in spare bedroom if they want, get "paid" to be on call even if I don't need their assistance with kid. I know I would be shelling out an extra potentially 300-400 dollars a week on top of day care (we take about every other weekend and 1-2 weekdays). An au pair would be a yearlong commitment and 18-20k, aka like 5-8k more than regular FT daycare!!

[valx92]

My boyfriend is a cardiologist who frequently takes call in the ICU. He just doesn’t schedule himself for call on days he has his daughter. If they try to schedule him, he just says no. His mom and I both help out a lot as well. I think once you have kids, you’ll find a way to make your job work around your family.