Travelling overseas for work with young baby.

[FlyingCat]

Hello oh wise hive mind, I'm wondering if anyone can give me some ideas of how to make this work.

So I recently went back to work after my send child. I'm in a senior professional role and after being made redundancy I'm in a new job in a new company.

I've been asked to travel overseas (us) for a week to meet my team, do training, hold meetings etc. It will be fairly detrimental to my job to not go and I really want to try and make it work.

However I have a 1yo and a 6yo at home and my husband suffers from panic attacks/ severe anxiety. He also can't get time off work to come with me.

The 6yo is at school and she's struggled settling so really don't want to take her out to bring her with me.

The 1yo still breastfeeds at night and the one time I had to go away overnight she screamed all night long for me and my husband did remarkeably well to hold it together and not panic.

So I'm wondering about bringing the 1yo with me and leaving 6yo and dad to fend for themselves at home. Has anyone (maybe single parents?) ever had to travel for work and bring a child with you? Did you find childcare locally or maybe bring a sitter with you? How did it work?

God I miss the days when my biggest logistical challenge was which shoes to wear!

[FlyingCat]

Argh - sorry for all of the typos... amazing that I hold down a job at all!

[ringle]

Good for you. Where in the US?
Does the place you are visiting have a crèche?maybe they could take in baby for a week.
If it's a big company you could contact its HRdepartmemt for leads.

[HRHPrincessMegan]

I personally haven't done this but I know a woman who returned to work 12 weeks after each of her 2 DC. As she breastfed exclusively and had to travel a lot for work, she took her baby and nanny with her.

Who currently looks after your DC while you work? If you have a nanny, you could ask her, if bringing your DC is really that important to you.

I would think long and hard about it though. You're in a new job, it's going to be a rough week, you'll be jet lagged and you will still have to be 100% on it and impressing your bosses and peers. Will this be possible with an out of sorts 1 year old in strange surroundings that probably only wants to be with its mum?

[CMOTDibbler]

I think in your situation, I'd get a temporary nanny and leave your children at home. When ds was little (like under 1) I did take my mum and him with me on a couple of UK trips and it really wasn't ideal tbh as all I was thinking about was getting back to them, wasn't really going out in the evenings and so on. I bf until ds was 23 months, but leaving ds with dh was much better (for me at least, but dh coped and never takes time off when I'm away)

[Fishinthesink]

I travel a fair but for work and have a BF 1yo and a 4 yo. I think I'd agree on getting a temp Nanny if you can afford it. I don't take mine - I travel to insecure locations quite often- but I wouldn't want to be dealing with a jetlagged baby overnight and trying to concentrate on work.

[ThomasRichard]

I think leaving your 1yo at home would be ok. I was in the same situation with a 1yo BFing at night and thought that would be the end of it, but she and my milk supply survived my week away. I did need to hand-express once in the shower as it got a bit painful but that was it.

My main worry would be your DH not coping. Do you have parents/ILs/siblings who might be able to stay for the week?