How do you manage?

[Leannah5]

Lovely DP and lovely DSD. He only has 4 weeks annual leave every year, I have 5. He's asking me to take two of my 5 to look after DSD, he will be using all 4 of his for school holidays. Totally fine, I knew this from the start. I'm due to be on maternity leave from September and will be taking a year so we don't really have to worry about this year as I'll be around to have her. She's only 6 but very excited for baby and I'm sure she'll be a great help (in between being a pain in the arse!) - my question? How do you sort out your leave to cover all of the school holidays and still have a little bit of time to yourself (even if it's just a weekend!)? Asking re having a little one too as well as DSD. Is time to yourself a thing of the past? We don't have much family nearby but would love a week/weekend away to ourselves occasionally!

[RunningBean]

If you werent planning on having kids I'd say keep your time how you want it and just help the amount you want to.
But seeing as you're going to be a family unit/parent within that unit you should be having equal free time to DP, which in this situation sounds like none unfortunately! Unless you can maybe cover a few days of his and have the same yourself?

[Leannah5]

@RunningBean it's frustrating as I have a very flexible job. I can build up flexi to my heart's content and take a week off, can choose to work bank holidays and save these etc so I'm not too worried about me. DP gets very little leave unfortunately. If it's none then it's none, which is ok! Was just wondering if anyone had any hints/tips on having time to yourselves...

[RunningBean]

Regarding weekends away etc, you likely won't want to when the baby is young anyway, but down the line you said not much rather than not any, so could the family members nearby help?
Or depending on how things are with DSDs mum once shes 3-4 having sleepovers at her sisters could be fun for her occasionally, though that would depend on how well you all manage to get on!

[RunningBean]

I think the only easy way of having time to yourself with a baby is having grandparents/siblings/someone youre close to nearby and willing to babysit. We don't have that but to be honest you get used to it, I don't really miss having time to ourselves out and we have the evenings to ourselves each day anyway.

[lunar1]

Who will be having your child? If they are from your DP's side then they could look after both.

[Digitallife27]

Grandparents help out and rare rare "you" / "couple" time/weekends.

[user1493413286]

In general since having DD all my annual leave goes on time with her; in theory I’d love the odd day off to myself but I feel massively guilty about doing that while she’s at childcare so any time to ourselves is when family looks after her.
Before DD we used to take leave primarily during school holidays to spend time with DSD but also the odd few days for time to ourselves or to go away. DSDs mum doesn’t work so in theory we don’t need to share school holidays down the middle but obviously want to see her as much as possible

[takeittakeit]

Why don't you need to share the holidays - because DSDs mum does not work.

[Greendayz]

Most people use some sort of holiday club to cover art least some of the holidays, unless you have grandparents on hand. You can do a bit of childcare swapping with other parents, especially if you work part time, but I'm guessing that might be hard for you to arrange if you don't yet know many other parents.

Where I live there are loads of different holiday clubs covering sports, craft, acting, dance, etc. As well as some more general ones with a mix of activities. Some you can book just individual days on. My kids have generally enjoyed the holiday clubs they've done, especially the ones focused on their interests.

[Greendayz]

So to answer your question about time to yourselves - you're not really going to get any once you have the new baby, but it's not unreasonable to save one week's leave a year to have time together without DSD. Pick a time when either she's away with her mum, or at school and you wouldn't be having her anyway. DH and I have generally done that every year. The rest of our leave goes on the kids