No family support, anyone else? Help me find solutions.

This stage is hard for the majority of parents but you're right some people do have amazing family support in place and it's not unreasonable to feel sad and even resentful when your own situation is so different.

Having said all that, if you're in your late thirties as your post suggests and your kids are under 3 I'm guessing you've had a fair few years living life responsibility free? I would cling to that and plough on. Maybe book a regular professional babysitter so you can plan a few night's out to break things up and repeat the mantra 'the days are long but the years are short' till you're through this tough stage. Good luck.

I was a single parent until eldest was 16, worked full time with an abusive family.

I made a network - mainly through an active community church I went to. I was a teacher so I could offer to do some days in holidays.
Get to know other mums of kids the same age.

Honestly, the first thing you need to do is change your mindset or you will never be able to let go. I didn’t read your whole OP because I think the honest reality is you don’t have support and knew the situation before having children. Jealousy and comparison will just fester and you’ll be stuck in a negativity cycle.

Your feelings are valid. But try and remember how extremely lucky you are to have 2 beautiful kids. Some people would love to be you. Maybe they have experienced loss or infertility, this is why comparison isn’t worth it as you will always have it better or worse than others

Next would be to move forward and accept you’ll have less time away from the kids.

My DH has a night a week with his mates or to himself, same as me.

Make use of the fact you have each other - you both don’t need to be in together every evening

Make use of free nursery hours if your kids don’t go yet, try and find a reliable baby sitter for the odd date nights

You simply cannot rely on grandparents for help. Nice if you get ig but it isn't a right. People in their mid 70s can't be expected to cope with a 9 month old and a 2 year old.

Your social circle sounds unusual.

Mine - no one really has super regular childcare help from grandparents but everyone apart from us can call on grandparents for a wedding or a week over the summer, a child free long weekend once or twice a year at minimum.

A couple in our circle had a fairly remote childfree wedding and of the 24 couples invited, we were the only ones who didn't have grandparents willing and able to look after their children.

Similarly our removals company were just totally thrown by us having our two small children with us - they just kept saying "but why didn't you leave them with grandparents?' because they didn't offer..

I think most of the upset here is your understandable jealousy of your ILs. I would try to separate that from the practical problems.

We have a child with substantial SEN and long ago stopped being able to have childcare from GPs. Our solution is to tag team. Time away together is a luxury we don't have, it's that simple. Life is not awful, it's just different.

Things that work for us:

• I take a night or two away by myself while DH has the children
• taking one child each at weekends. The one with the easier child is having a bit of a rest!
• when they are little, early bedtime, wine and a takeaway together. Especially nice in the garden in summer. Just Eat will bring you lots of restaurant quality food these days.
• For holidays get a villa or an aparthotel so you have a little separation from the kids. Especially good in teenage years. Giving them separate bedrooms is also good for family harmony when old enough. You can get AI in an aparthotel.
• Build shared interests with the children. Take kids to things you like, get them into what you are into. I go to the theatre with my teenage daughter rather than my husband. She likes it, he is not that fussed and would only be keeping me company anyway.
• Shared rituals. Crossword and a bottle of wine, film night. A regular babysitter once a month and you go out for a meal.

You can do "time in" with your spouse without childcare, and you can have a break from the children without your spouse. It just might be difficult to combine those 2 things together for a while (18 years and counting for us...!). And I get that it must be very galling to feel your ILs give their other child more help than they give you and your husband. But this is your life, you can make it work for you and enjoy every day you can with your husband, unpaid childcare or not.

We had no help from parents, particularly as it became clear DC had additional needs and less easy to look after. This also meant that a lot of other childcare didn't work - summer playschemes didn't work as I would need to pick up after an hour, or not be able to leave DC at all.

All the poster saying to suck it up may not be wrong but you asked for solutions. What we did that worked was
Have a couple of trusted nursery workers babysit a couple of times a year.
Have DC friends over a lot, so I was less embarassed about asking for help when I needed it (playdate after school type help).
Tag team parenting - so you at least get some alone / free time. Very little time together as parents but it does help a bit.
Made friends with parents in a similar boat, created a network where we helped each other out.

I never returne to a proper job, I am self employed and work at home. This was not my original plan but it has been much better for me and the family.

DC is now 17 and my parents missed out on spending time with a wonderful human but that was very much their loss.

Your children are at the most hands-on exhausting ages, grandparents are mid-70s. I’m not surprised they’ve said they find it hard to cope. There’s a big difference in helping with a 6+ year old who only needs after school care.

I don't want to be rude but this sort of comment pisses me off. You did have family help. I would love grandparents to take them for a week every year, that's loads and you could have used it to go away if you had wanted to but even staying at home, you still got an annual week to yourselves.

That isn't the same as having no support at all.

We never had any parental "help" with our 2 children as we lived too far away from all the grandparents. One set had our two kids for 3 days when they were 8 and 5. The other set had them for about 5 days in the school summer holidays for a few years when they were at primary school.

We never went on a childfree break apart from that one 3 day occasion mentioned above.

I did baby sitting swaps with other Mums, or paid friends au pairs to baby sit for evenings out.

You seem a bit obsessed OP, like you're allowing it to really piss you off whereas in reality your situation isn't in the least bit unusual.

I agree with the reframing and it is what I do and it does help.

Also I flat out said to some of my close friends that I found it a bit hard hearing about their wonderful child free holidays etc and please could they bear it in mind. Obviously I haven't said that to more casual friends but my close friends get it

If you can reframe it in your head as you “go all that way” to visit and spend time with DH’s parents, rather than going with the expectation of them providing you with childcare, you might feel less annoyed and resentful.

Your DH is obviously ok with it and wants to spend time with his parents.

Maybe every third or fourth visit he can go alone and take the children, and then you get a weekend to yourself.

I'm another one who doesn't understand why anyone expects help. I never had any, and had 3 under 4 at one point. Yes, it's pretty relentless but we knew it would be. In laws are in another country and my DP aren't interested - which is fair enough. I'm not terribly interested in other people's toddlers.

I don't have GC (yet) but I'm retired and with a chronic long term condition. I won't be doing weekend babysitting for a baby and a 3 year old. It's way beyond my exhaustion levels at this point.

FWIW I don't know anyone whose parents helped out. All my friends were in similar situations - I certainly don't know anyone who had help that flew in from abroad and did 6.30am take overs. Or that went to Glastonbury for 5 days child free. That's a level of entitlement way beyond anything I could imagine. Frankly, once you are a parent of young children these types of activities go on hold.

it is tough but it will get much easier as the kids get older. in 4 years, they may both be able to stay with PIL for a sleepover of a couple of nights while you get a break.

other things that might help -

• a short term au-pair (4-6 weeks) gets you a bit of help over the summer holidays but it is not a long-term houseshare. and you can certainly go out for plenty of nice dinners while the au-pair is there.
• if you and DH both have a day when you wfh while kids are in school / nursery, you can have a nice adult lunch + more
• do stay close to friends in similar situations - you can do childcare swaps where you babysit for each other or one family has both kids over for a weekend sleepover and then you swap the next weekend. again, this will be much easier in 2-3 years time

I don't mean to sound nasty but I don't get why people expect family support. Young children are a big responsibility and one of the reasons DH and I have stopped at one. Another would have been great but it would have been a lot for us and a lot to expect regular help from my parents (and DH parents are not local). You had two children close together so yes you may have to pay someone to help if that would help you.

We’ve discussed moving out of london and we will but in a few years time. What if we moved closer for the help and their age doesn’t stop being a factor?

Do not move anywhere if the move is based around getting more help from your in-laws.

They've been very transparent about the help they're willing to offer (or rather, not). You've even said in your OP that the drive to yours is horrid. They are in their mid-70's. Looking after an 8 and 6 year old is a whole different ball game to looking after a 9 month old and a 2 year old. When their eldest grandchildren were babies and toddlers your in-laws were in their mid-50's. You're comparing apples with oranges.

You've proved that them doing an overnight 2 years ago when you only had 1 child was a disaster... They're 2 years older and now you want them to deal with a baby and a toddler while you have a weekend away? It's an unreasonable ask. We’d have been better off paying a professional to stay at ours. Correct - so do that. Nights away without your children isn't something anyone is entitled to, yes they're nice to have but unfortunately some people just can't.

Your only real option at the moment is to pay for professional overnight childcare.

It is crap, I found the summer holidays particularly rubbed it in our face that everyone else seemed to have some help as even remote grandparents had the kids to stay or went on holiday with the family.
we had two nights away together before ds was 14 and that was a friend who offered to have him- he went to pgl before that but it was as we needed to childcare to work. We used babysitters from nursery, then our cleaner would babysit, then a neighbour (who does babysit through Sitters but is an outdoor sports instructor) could be paid to take him out for a day and do activities. But overnight was something we couldn’t get, and memorably ds once had to go on a business trip with dh when I was away and it was demanded dh be in France for a 9am meeting.

So we don’t go away until they’re old enough for sleepovers and school trips I guess? But even then surely we need to be close by in case something goes wrong

Yes. Don’t know why this has only dawned on you?

We were in the same position. Closest family were a 5-6hr drive away, my parents a flight. No other family near and we had a few with SN on top. To be fair, most people we know were in the same position (minus the SN), so we just assumed it was standard. You just have to crack on with it. A lot of the things you talk about help wise, I don’t think a lot of people get anyway.

Yes, it’s a relentless grind. But, it is not forever, you just need to grit your teeth and march in with it for years inbetween. DH and I would go out for a movie or dinner when our youngest was mid-teens. We didn’t go away together until the youngest was 19yo. When they were young, the only time we went somewhere together was his siblings wedding, was the only time ours were babysat, otherwise we just went to weddings or out with friends separately, making sure it all worked out fairness wise.

My mum used to come visit once a year for a week and we used to get her to join us when we had a family holiday once every 3 years (dad was gone). We certainly didn’t use her for babysitting for morning lie in or going out to dinner, or off to a festival! She came to spend time with me, her child, with the benefit of spending time with my kids as well, not to be used as a skivvy! I would go out to dinner with her a few nights so we had time alone out of the house.

I think it's fair enough for PIL to not feel up to looking after 2 very little ones for extended periods if they're in their 70s - I'm 54 and would find it tiring! We didn't have any overnights away when our children were small - we both had nights out with friends but rarely together. Having babies and toddlers is relentless and there is not much time to yourself but it does get easier the older they get.

Could you try advertising for a 'mother's help/babysitter' at a local college that does childcare qualifications? I think paid help, if you can afford it, is the only way you'll get a break. And maybe do a sleepover/overnight swap with a friend with children on the odd weekend?