Dh working away - effect on ds?

[elka78]

I'm not sure if this thread is in the right place, but anyway. My dh works away at sea, only for short bits at the time (9 days on/6 days off). My 5 year old ds gets sad and misses him a lot while he's gone. I often worry about what effect the intermittent absense of his dad will have on him. Would it be bad? On the other hand he enjoys more 'quality time' with his dad than most of his friends, as my dh is able to spend a lot of attention on him when he's home. Any thoughts? Or does anyone know anywhere I can find more info on this type of thing?

[ghosty]

Hi elka ...
I didn't want to ignore this post and I could see it was going down to the end of active convos.
My DH is working away at the moment and I have to say it is particularly hard on my DS ... he is nearly 7. We get to see him every fortnight for a day and a half at the moment
You are lucky in that your DS gets 6 full days with his Dad ... and if he is an only child he gets him to himself, DS has to share DH with his 2 year old sister, so we have lots of screaming habdabs ...
The one thing that helps DS is that we have a calendar next to his bed and every night he crosses off a day and counts to when he will next see Daddy. Also, I have managed to enrol a couple of my friends' DHs to play surrogate at weekends for a couple of hours ... my DS thrives on adult male 'rough and tumble' play ... so that helps.
It is hard when you see your DS so sad isn't it? Lots of phone calls help and I get DS to write letters to Dad (or dictate an email to me) to which DH replies, which makes DS feel good.

Ours is a temporary measure (we will all be together again in January) but that is difficult to explain to a young child when a week is like a lifetime.

When your DH comes home, make sure that DS and him spend some really good 'bonding' time together .... doing blokey stuff helps my DS.

Suedonim (another MNer) has years of experience of this and she has been so helpful to me when I had a desperate thread going a few weeks ago about DS's behaviour which had taken a dramatic downward turn when DH went overseas. Maybe she will come along and give some more tips.

Thinking of you,
ghosty xx

[suedonim]

Hi, Elka. Ghosty's right, I do have experience of living apart from dh for much of the time. I'm sure your ds will grow up just fine, despite the intermittent separation from his dad. The fact ds is sad is good in one respect, it shows he loves his daddy despite the separations. I wrote quite a bit about about this subject in Ghosty's thread so if you read through that there may be something of use to you. Do come back to me if there's more I can help you with.

Ghosty, thank you for your sweet words, you made me go all warm and fuzzy! Hope you're all doing ok and that ds is in better health.

[swedishmum]

Hi Elka
My dh has been working away during the week for years, and dd3 (2) really misses him for the first day. She's a real daddy's girl. Just wanted to reassure you that my older 3 who are now 12, 10 and 9 are well-adjusted and happy, and we try to make the most of the time he's home by doing fun stuff. They see their dad almost as much as friends who have dads who commute. Just make sure you don't run yourself ragged - I think I'm the one in the house to suffer the most.

[ghosty]

Swedishmum ... I would definitely agree with your last sentence
DH came home at the weekend and I had to take a back step to let the children have his attention ... I had to carry on with the boring mummy drudgery stuff that I do all the time anyway ... meanwhile wailing inside, "What about Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee????"
He did get up with the children both mornings though so I caught up with some sleep and cooked dinner on Saturday, so although we didn't have any specific 'us' time I did get a bit of a break ....

[belgianmama]

Thanks for the messages. I've read the Ghostly thread (only took me about 2 hours in which time I totally neglected my dc's. shame on me).
But anyhow, I found it nice to see that there are other people in a similar situation. My ds's behaviour was actually quite bad when he was 2-3. He would always play up when my dh was home. I found it was my dh's fault as he felt very guilty about being away (month on month off ath the time) and therefore spoilt him. My dh also found ds far to cute to tell of at the time and he could not ignore tantrums, like I did. After lots and lots of talking with my dh I managed to make him understand that giving ds attention during a tantrum caused him to only have them more. Now he (ds that is, not dh!) is as good as gold. Although I don't seem to exist anymore during the week dh is back. That's OK though less fetching drinks, making snacks, wiping bottoms,... for me!
I also found that while dh is gone ds benefits a lot from getting some mummy play time and lots of cuddles every day too. He is still letting me kiss him as well!
Dd was never all that bothered about dh being gone, but I think that's because she has her big brother as a sort of replacement daddy. Hopefully she stays this way, as she's only 2.9 and very strong willed, so who knows what might happen in the future.
I recognised Suedonim's comment of circling around eachother for 48h too. It was worse when dh and I first living together and during his month on month off periods. Now it's more like a 24h settling inn period.
PS if anyone is confused I've changed my name from elka78 to belgianmama.