When Clare Stirling went back to work part time as a nurse after the birth of her twins, finding care that worked around her shifts was almost impossible.
"Overnight family day care or a private nanny are really your only options," she said.
"Nannies are not cheap – and you don't want them to be cheap – but financially it was not possible for us."
With no family day care centres available in her area, Ms Stirling would get one of two babysitters or her parents to look after the kids when her husband or long day care were not available.
"My husband's work essentially had to flex to accommodate."
Many of her colleagues, particularly single parents, end up leaving the hospital system altogether because doing shift work with young children is "unmanageable".
"You get a lot of experienced nurses leaving."
Families 'patching together' care
University of Sydney associate professor Elizabeth Hill said for Australian shiftworkers, finding childcare was "a real challenge".
"On the whole how this problem is solved is left to individual households and they have to patch together their own kind of solution," Dr Hill told the Conversation Hour.
"And I have to say they patch them together at their own expense; there is no Commonwealth subsidy for those kinds of private, individual solutions."
With modern workplaces increasingly requiring employees to be available outside of standard hours, Dr Hill said the early childhood education and care system needed to adapt.
In 2018 the federal government introduced a small in-home childcare program.
Capped at 3,200 places, it provides up to 100 hours of subsided care per child per fortnight.
"That was specifically designed to provide in-home care for those workers who are geographically isolated or do non-standard hours – so particularly for emergency service workers or shift workers," Dr Hill said.
While the program acknowledged the need for flexible early childhood education and care, Dr Hill said it was a very small program and there was a high barrier for entry.
Government data suggests the program is not fully subscribed, with fewer than 2,300 children accessing the scheme in the last three months of 2020.
"We need to really shift to thinking about the needs of children," Dr Hill said.
Need for affordable, flexible options
Ms Stirling investigated in-home care when her three children were under five but said the process was "arduous" and still "way too expensive" for her as a nurse.
"I was trying to have some continuity of care for my kids, and for them to be at home rather than always having to shift the kids into an external environment," she said.
Melbourne nanny Nikki Umana-Tate said if the in-home care scheme was "easier to manage" it would be "amazing for families" and the workforce.
"It was a lot of paperwork, a lot of hoops for families to jump through and often they ended up being out of pocket the same amount [as if they hired a nanny without the scheme]," she said.
Policy analyst at the Grattan Institute Kate Griffiths said child care was "really tricky" for shift workers and expanding the childcare rebate to nannies would be a good first step.
"It's still not super affordable, but it is more affordable at least if there is access to that subsidy," Ms Griffiths said.
"We already know that there is about 10 per cent of parents who want to work more and can't because of childcare timing and the lack of flexibility in childcare services."
The ABC has contacted the Minister for Education and Youth, Alan Tudge, for comment.
