Doing this as a single parent — anyone else, and how do you handle it without local family support?

Not solo in the same way, but my partner travels constantly for work so I’m effectively handling most logistics alone day to day — the mental load of “what if something goes wrong right now” is exhausting either way.

No advice, just solidarity, this sounds genuinely exhausting.

Found another solo parent through a nursery WhatsApp group and she’s become my actual emergency contact now. Didn’t expect a parent chat to solve that specific problem.

OP here — thank you all, especially Anna’s suggestion. Going to try the nursery group route, hadn’t thought of it as a way to actually build a backup network rather than just get updates.

Sending strength, no useful advice from me, just following.

Not a parent myself, but a general point that might help: leaning on paid help occasionally isn’t a failure. Took me a while to stop feeling guilty about outsourcing things I “should” be able to handle myself, in a different context, but the guilt wasn’t doing anyone any good.

How are you handling school pickup on the days something goes wrong at work unexpectedly? That’s the part that would panic me most.

Priya — honestly not fully solved. Currently relying on a paid emergency-backup arrangement through an agency, which isn’t perfect but means there’s always a plan B on the bad days.

Not a parent myself, but I know two solo parents locally who swap school pickups on alternating weeks — sounds like it might be worth proposing to another parent even informally.

Following, no advice, just admiration for how you’re handling all of this.