The Closure Survival Guide: Studiedagen, Holidays & Sick Days
The working parent's playbook for every day the daycare or school is shut — planned, unplanned, and the ones you find out about at 7am.
Somewhere on a calendar you haven't opened yet, there is a studiedag with your name on it. And a national holiday. And two weeks in summer, and a week at Christmas, and — at the worst possible moment — a feverish toddler who cannot go anywhere. You cannot stop the closures coming. You can absolutely stop them ambushing you. This is how.
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Last updated: 24 July 2026
Closures are not the exception — they're the schedule
Every working parent eventually notices the same thing: the childcare year is not a smooth line. It's a line with holes punched in it. National holidays, study days, summer weeks, the Christmas stretch — and then the unplanned ones, when a child spikes a fever or the location closes for a day you didn't see coming.
None of this means anything has gone wrong. It's simply how the Dutch year is built, and every family around you is quietly solving the same puzzle. The parents who look unbothered aren't luckier — they just did the boring work early: they know the dates, they have a backup plan with names in it, and they've read the two words every Dutch employee should know (calamiteitenverlof and zorgverlof).
This guide is that boring work, done for you. It won't invent free time you don't have. But it will turn "oh no, it's closed" into "right, that's the Tuesday plan" — which, on a hard morning, is worth a great deal.
Know the Dutch closure landscape
Most closures aren't surprises — they're patterns. Once you can see the shape of the Dutch year, you stop being ambushed by it. Here are the usual categories. The exact dates always come from your own location's calendar, so treat these as the map, not the timetable.
National holidays
Fixed, known a year aheadThe Netherlands has a set of official holidays — think Koningsdag, Bevrijdingsdag (celebrated as a day off in some years more than others), Hemelvaart with its famous Friday bridge day, Pinksteren, and the Christmas days. On these, most childcare and schools are closed. They repeat every year and are published far ahead, so they're the easiest closures to plan around — if you actually look them up.
Study days (studiedagen)
The sneaky BSO-age onesOnce children reach school age and use the BSO (after-school care), the school's study days enter your life. These are days teachers use for training while the children are off — and they rarely line up with a national holiday, which is exactly what makes them ambush you. They're usually known at the start of the school year, but you have to go and find them. This is the single most common "I forgot" closure for working parents.
Summer & Christmas weeks
The long onesSchools run fixed holiday weeks — a long summer stretch, an autumn week, the Christmas fortnight, a spring/May week. Daycare for younger children often stays open through school holidays, but staffing thins, groups sometimes merge, and some organisations close specific days (frequently the Christmas–New Year gap). The long holidays are where the childcare gap is biggest and where a plan really pays off.
Unplanned closures
The 7am phone callNow and then a group or location has to close at short notice — too few staff available, a facilities problem, extreme weather. These are rare and out of everyone's hands, but they're the ones that test whether your backup plan is real or theoretical. This is exactly the scenario calamiteitenverlof exists for (more on that below).
Where TK's own dates live
- Ask your location for the year's closure dates at your very first intake, not in December
- Check whether the daycare and BSO follow the same closure days or differ
- Note which days are TK closures vs. school-only study days — they're not the same list
The backup-care pyramid
When a closure lands, you don't want to invent a plan from scratch at 7am. You want to walk down a list you already made. Think of your options as a pyramid: cheap, easy and close at the top; more effort or cost as you go down. Start high, drop a level only when you need to.
1. Partner alternation
Cheapest, first to checkIf there are two working parents, the first question is simply: who can take this one? A quick shared rule — "you take the studiedagen, I take the sick days," or straight alternation — removes the daily negotiation and the resentment that comes with it. Half of closure stress is deciding whose problem it is; decide that once, in advance.
2. Grandparents & family
Free, but don't burn them outGrandparents are the classic reserve — and often delighted to be asked. The trick is to treat them as a treasured, finite resource, not a default. Give as much notice as you can, save the emergency asks for genuine emergencies, and say thank you like you mean it. A grandparent who feels appreciated says yes far more often than one who feels taken for granted.
3. The parent-swap network
The underrated superpowerOther parents from the group are facing the exact same closed days you are. That's not a coincidence to complain about — it's a resource to organise. Two or three families who trust each other can cover a studiedag in rotation: one parent takes four kids for a day, and banks three days off for later. Building this is the single highest-leverage thing in this guide (there's a how-to further down).
4. Gastouder & oppas services
Paid, worth pre-arrangingA gastouder (registered childminder) or a trusted oppas (babysitter) can cover days your network can't. Some gastouders take incidental extra days; some agencies place a sitter at short notice. The catch is that the good ones get booked — so find and vet one before a crisis, not during it. A registered gastouder can also matter for kinderopvangtoeslag; check the current rules.
5. Calamiteitenverlof (work)
Your legal backstopWhen everything above fails and a closure is genuinely sudden, Dutch law gives employees a short emergency leave — calamiteitenverlof — to bridge the moment and arrange care. It's meant for the acute scramble, not a planned studiedag you knew about in March. Know it exists so you use it when you truly need it (the next section explains it in plain language).
Extra days at TK?
Worth asking your locationSome childcare contracts allow swapping days or booking an incidental extra day when you're stuck — and some don't. It's always worth asking your own location what's possible before you assume the answer is no. If a swap or an extra day is available, it can quietly solve a closure that would otherwise eat a whole day of leave.
The rule that makes the pyramid work
- Write the names and numbers down now, while it's calm — a pyramid you have to invent mid-crisis isn't a plan, it's a panic.
- Reciprocity keeps it alive: whoever helps you this month, you help next month. Nobody's goodwill is infinite.
Your two rights, in plain language
Two Dutch leave types cover most closure emergencies, and most parents mix them up. Here's the simple version — but leave rules and pay have conditions and change over time, so for your own situation always check the current rijksoverheid pages linked at the end and your own contract or CAO.
Calamiteitenverlof — the emergency hours
- For a sudden, unforeseen situation you must handle right now — like your child falling ill during the day, or the daycare closing unexpectedly.
- It's short by design: enough time to deal with the acute moment and arrange onward care, from a couple of hours to roughly a day depending on the situation.
- Think of it as the bridge, not the solution — it buys you the hours to organise, it doesn't cover a whole week off.
- Generally paid, but tell your employer as soon as you reasonably can; the exact terms can sit in your contract or CAO.
- It's for the genuinely unforeseen — a studiedag you've known about since September isn't a calamity.
Kortdurend zorgverlof — caring for a sick child
- For when you need to care for a sick child (or other close person) yourself over more than just the first emergency hours.
- A common pattern people describe: the first acute bit is calamiteitenverlof, and if the child needs you to keep caring for them, it can roll into kortdurend zorgverlof.
- It's capped per year relative to your working hours, and typically paid at a percentage of salary (often described as around 70%) rather than in full — check the current rule and your CAO.
- It's care leave — meant for when you are the one who has to look after your child, not simply a way to top up holiday.
- There's also langdurend zorgverlof for longer-term, serious care needs; different rules, look it up if that's your situation.
The honest summary: calamiteitenverlof is the "help, right now" button for the first hours; kortdurend zorgverlof is for keeping a sick child at home when they still need you. Neither is a substitute for planning the closures you can already see coming — they're the safety net for the ones you can't.
Build the swap network before you need it
The parent-swap network is the highest-leverage move in this whole guide — but only if it exists before the closure, not during it. Here's how to build one from a cold start, plus the one calendar ritual that keeps the whole year from ambushing you.
Find your two or three families
Start small and trusted
You don't need a village — you need two or three families whose kids get along and whose parenting you trust. Look at the group your child is already in: those parents have identical closed days to yours. A first opener is easy — "the studiedagen are impossible for us too; want to team up on them?"
Agree the ground rules once
Clear beats casual
A swap network runs on clarity, not vibes. Settle the basics up front: how many kids anyone hosts at once, food and allergy notes, screen-time norms, pick-up and drop-off times, and what happens if a hosted child gets hurt or sick. Written down in a shared chat, boring and explicit — that's what lets everyone actually relax.
Keep the ledger roughly even
Reciprocity, not accounting
Nobody wants a spreadsheet of debts, but the network dies if one family always hosts and never gets a day back. Keep a loose sense of balance — roughly even over a term is plenty. If you notice you've been on the taking side three times running, offer the next two. Fairness felt is what keeps people saying yes.
Do the annual calendar ritual
One evening, once a year
Once the school and daycare closure dates are published, sit down — ideally with your partner and a drink — and put every closure onto one shared family calendar. Colour-code who covers each: partner, grandparents, swap network, gastouder, a booked day off. An hour of this in September buys you a year of never being ambushed. Then share the swap days with your network so everyone plans around the same grid.
- Closures become scheduled events, not 7am emergencies
- Your leave days are spent on what you choose, not on gaps you forgot
- Kids get playdate days out of it — the closures become something they look forward to
- You always know who to call first, because you decided months ago
Sick kid: can they go, or must they stay?
The 6:45am fever check is one of parenting's great dilemmas. General daycare norms give you a rough compass — but every organisation sets its own line, so the deciding voice is always your own location's policy. Here are the questions parents wrestle with most.
How high a fever is "stay home"?
A common rule of thumb around childcare is that a fever of roughly 38.5°C or higher means a child stays home — they feel miserable, they can't join in, and a fever is often the body fighting something catching. But the exact threshold, and how it combines with how the child seems in themselves, is set by your location. When you're unsure, call and ask before you set out; it's a normal question they hear every day.
What about the contagious classics?
Some illnesses keep a child home not because they're desperately ill but because they'd spread it fast in a group — think ongoing vomiting or diarrhoea, certain rashes, conjunctivitis, or anything a doctor has flagged as catching. For notifiable or contagious conditions, daycare and the GGD have guidance on when a child can return. Your location will tell you the rule for the specific bug going round.
They've got a runny nose but seem fine — go or stay?
A plain cold with no fever, in a child who is eating, playing and themselves, is usually fine — daycare-age children have a gloriously endless supply of runny noses, and keeping every snotty child home would empty the group. The honest test most parents use: could they comfortably join in the day? If yes, they can probably go. If they're clingy, hot, or clearly not right, that's a different morning.
What exactly is Teddy Kids' sick-child policy?
Teddy Kids has its own clear policy on when a child stays home, when we'll call you to collect a child who's fallen ill during the day, and when they're welcome back after an illness. Because these details genuinely matter for planning your week, ask your location for the specifics and keep them somewhere you can find at 6:45am — the fever threshold, the rule after tummy bugs, and how quickly you'd need to collect if we call.
They're too sick for daycare — now who covers work?
This is where the two rights from earlier come in. A child who wakes up ill is the textbook case for calamiteitenverlof for the first scramble, rolling into kortdurend zorgverlof if they need you to keep caring for them at home. Meanwhile your partner-alternation rule decides whose day it is without a fight. A sick day is stressful enough; the one thing that shouldn't also be up in the air is who's staying home.
Working from home with a small child: harm reduction, not childcare
Let's be honest about the plan everyone secretly relies on: "I'll just work from home and watch them." You can't. A toddler is a full-time job and so is yours, and doing both at once means doing neither well. But sometimes it's the only option on the table — so here's how to make a bad day less bad, without pretending it's a good one.
Set expectations honestly — with yourself and your boss
- Tell your team it's a childcare day, not a normal one — a quick honest heads-up beats a day of half-answered messages.
- Pick the two things that truly must happen today and let the rest wait; a closure day is not the day for deep work.
- Block your real focus work into the nap and the early morning, and accept the middle of the day will be shallow.
- Forgive yourself in advance. You are not underperforming; you are doing two jobs with one pair of hands.
Practical harm reduction for the actual hours
- Front-load the day with your child, not your inbox: a solid hour of real attention first buys you far more independent play later.
- Rotate a small set of "special" activities kept only for these days — new stickers, a water tray, a busy box they don't see otherwise.
- Batch your calls into the nap window and mute notifications the rest of the time; a distracted parent satisfies no one.
- Yes, screen time is allowed to exist on a day like this. Use it deliberately as a tool for the one call that can't move, not as a guilty background hum.
- Tag-team if you possibly can: even a partner taking a two-hour shift, or a grandparent on a video call reading a story, resets everyone.
Official sources & extra support
For anything about leave rights, pay and exact rules, always go to the official source — they're kept current and your situation may have its own conditions.
- Rijksoverheid — Calamiteitenverlof: what it is and when you're entitled to it
- Rijksoverheid — Zorgverlof: kortdurend and langdurend care leave, rules and pay
- Rijksoverheid — School holidays overview per school year (plan the long closures)
- BOinK — the Dutch association for parents in childcare, rights and guidance
- Your own location — the only source for TK's actual closure dates and sick-child policy
One important note
Closure calendars, sick-child rules and day-swap options differ per organisation and can change from year to year, and Dutch leave rights come with conditions specific to your contract, CAO and situation. Treat this guide as an orientation, not a rulebook: for closure dates and sick-child policy check with your own location, and for anything about calamiteitenverlof or zorgverlof check the current rijksoverheid pages and your employer. When in doubt, ask — it's always the faster route than guessing.
Teddy Kids is here for you
As your twins grow, we grow with you — with warm, bilingual childcare in Leiden.