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

Comparing your situation to others doesn’t help anyone. I lived abroad from my family and just had to get on with it. Never went on a work trip with husband. Family would never come out and help. We paid babysitters though. Always went out at the weekend for dinner. It was something. Maybe start with that and then leave them for a weekend. There are qualified Nannies out there who do it.

You have to just crack on. We never had a night away without our DC until the eldest was 12. We had about 6 hours help with childcare over the entirety of our DCs' childhoods. Maybe 9, if you count evening that we put the DC to bed at the ILs and they sat downstairs watching TV while DH and I went out for a meal...

I used to get really pissed off with other mothers who were able to 'get Mum/MIL to pick up the DC every Tuesday so I can stay at work/ go to the gym/ have some downtime' or 'say 'the ILs have having Ollie and Emmy all weekend for us to go to X's wedding', and then moaned constantly about how Mum/MIL/ILs were annoying/demanding/too strict with the DC.

I spent a lot of years biting my lip... But them's the breaks. Life isn't fair.

You just get on with it. Dh and I have zero outside help. We both work full time. We've never has a night away from the kids, and probably 5 nights out in the lady 10 years.

But surely you would have known this before you had children? And yet, you still decided to have them! I'm struggling to have much sympathy.

Stop comparing yourself to others and just get on with your life, your circumstances. I had three under 2 and no help from family. (When I was expecting the twins I read somewhere that it was "not possible" to do it without lots of help: we had no family and not much money.) It sucked and was really hard, but you can get through it. When we had a bit more money and were able to we paid for help.

We don’t have time away as a couple is the answer. We do support each other to have holidays and get breaks, but we have them alone or with friends/family.

Neither of us have family who can provide any support. I am NC with my family who aren’t safe to have around dc anyway. We do have MIL, but she isn’t really capable of safely caring for them. We’ve tried it a few times by bringing in another family member to babysit MIL while MIL looked after dc. Besides being logistically complicated as no family is local, the kids still weren’t really properly looked after (youngest put himself to sleep in the middle of eldest’s floor because MIL was mostly downstairs on her phone and drunk). So we don’t do that anymore!

We both do lots of lovely things. I go abroad on holiday every year. We just either do them individually or we do them as a family. We take time off during the weekdays and go to lunch and that’s the closest we get to a ‘date night’.

We used to have a babysitter we used for a dinner out, but now dc are old enough that they would still be awake when a babysitter arrived and I just don’t feel comfortable leaving them with someone to supervise showers and getting ready for bed. And frankly, I have no desire to eat dinner at 8/9pm either. I’d rather be home in bed myself! So for the hassle and expense, it’s much easier to do lunches out a few times a year.

That said, I have friends with a lot of family support. My one friend has 50/50 with her ex and then her parents have the kids 1-2 days/nights a week, so she only sees her kids maybe 2 days every 7 because her parents do everything on her contact days. As nice as it to have most of the week childfree, she’s missing out (and actually her kids are a nightmare because they don’t have proper supervision or roots anywhere).

On you visiting the in laws I’d seek to agree with DH to visit them less often as a whole family whilst DC are so small, but keep the offer open to host them (as guests, not for childcare)

Lots of people have no family help. It’s not easy. We paid for childcare, took turns to go out etc, juggled holidays separately for a long time.

I’d not move closer to in laws like the ones you describe.

I think for now, you’ll need to just forget about it. Or if you really are desperate for a night out paid childcare so you can go out for dinner is a great option.

When they’re older and you’re looking to go away for a whole night maybe you might have the option of arranging for them to have a sleepover at a friends house. It would be great if you had someone that you could trust.

I felt very similar to you when mine were so young. But now they are older I honestly have accepted it. The only thing that does make me sad is that my children don't have the relationships with their grandparents that the vast majority of their friends have.

I used to long for being able to go away child-free, but now they are older travelling with the children is much more enjoyable, and I can always go away without them once they're grown up.

I do understand that it's hard.

Agreed. Once you go over one, you need to accept that nobody will be happy to help unless you pay for it.

I think you might be seeing other people's lives with rose-tinted glasses. I don't actually know any families who can unconditionally drop off 2 (or more) at grandparents so they can go on holiday or child-free weddings. Even those with very loving and generous grandparents.

We decided to stay with 1 for exactly this reason. We don't live in the same town as either grandparents so have no help on a day-to-day basis. But they're are happy to have DD if we have a holiday planned. Even one potty trained and (reasonably) well-behaved child is a huge amount of work for aging GPs and we would never expect them to take an extra toddler or baby on top.

Oh and my dc came with me basically - we socialised with our dc, we went to festivals with our dc etc etc. it’s was a sad day they outgrew the double buggy as it made evenings out easier

I am a lone parent. I moved out of London for a bigger house and had a live in nanny as I had to travel for work occasionally. It was a huge help. I had a nanny for ten years (the same one) until DD went to secondary school. I had no family help so it was the only way I could manage my career, but it also gave me some time to myself occasionally.

I know you say you don’t want a live in, I think I thought I’d hate it but I didn’t. It was a life saver.

Honestly, having no help is the norm. We were on a different continent when my dc were your kids age. Zero help so you pay for what you need and construct your life around being self sufficient.

we did come back and my parents would help a little but lived 3.5 hours away and they worked full time so it was sporadic and I never expected them to get up with the dc etc. in their whole childhood they did take time off work and stay at ours twice for overseas weddings, my now ex in-laws didn’t babysit for even an an hour and visited a handful of times in 15 years despite us being 45 minutes away, you can’t choose your relatives

We didn’t have any family help either. They’re all either too distant, disinterested or dead.

We created own support network. In London for the first two years it was our NCT friends. Then we moved out of London and started again in a village. I threw myself into Parent Helper roles at toddler group, preschool and primary school, so I could make friends.

Lots of parents here in the same boat, with no family help, so we all helped each other. Someone set up a babysitting circle which was invaluable. If I was running late for a pick up, or had to take one child to A&E, or something, there was always a pool of other parents I could call on for help. When one parent was diagnosed with cancer, we all came together to sort out a rota for cooking for them, doing their school runs and making sure their kids had what they needed on which days.

I feel very lucky to have had this support, but we all made it happen; none of us had childcare on a plate. They’re still my closest friends and support network now were into the teenage years, and don’t need childcare any more.

We had to just get on with zero help and make a mental note to treat our kids differently, when they have kids, and help them out.

Also - if you have them in daytime childcare like nursery then both take the odd day off to spend together while they're at nursery, it is a nice way to get some grown up time!

I think the ages you have does make it much harder. We get help from my parents with DS (who's 5) now and a bit when he was younger, but my parents would never have been able to cope with a 3 and 9 mth old at the same time so if we'd had two kids that would have been out the window! What about your BIL etc if they have kids they may be an option when yours are a bit older perhaps? We've never had help from my husband's family but now DS is 5 they have actually offered to have him for a day, I nearly fell off my chair lol

We don't have family support either and can't see us having a night without the kids for a long while. My advice is stick with two, I don't think big families are a good idea without support.

I don't know what your work plans are but it's really important to not compare yourself with parents that have family childcare at the drop of a hat. You aren't less capable, just working with different rules.

It does suck and most people do have a lot more family support. I remember vividly our removals company saying "well, with kids this age, people just leave them with the grandparents for the weekend" - yeah because we were moving house with a baby and toddler with us completely out of choice!

Most people don't understand it. I can't tell you the number of times people have said "oh it is tough, isn't it? My parents only have them for a couple of weeks a year" - I would love to have one weekend with DH without the kids but it's not going to happen until they are much older.

Having said that, PP are right that all you can really do about it is get on with it.

We use a lot of different types of paid childcare:

Babysitters for the odd evening out

Day off when they are both at nursery/school - or something shorter, both had a quiet WFH day today so had a nice lunch out together

When they are old enough, we plan to send them to summer camp

All very true. It does suck. I'd love to go abroad with DH and leave the DC with family, but it'll never happen. Sucks. I used to get really upset when I heard about the gushing grandparents, but am at peace with it now. It feels like more of a fact of life.

Get paid childcare.

You knew the situation when you chose to have kids. Your mom is not fit and your inlaws are past it and done with caring for a baby and a toddler. They've aged out.

You can look at others and be jealous and resentful but that doesn't help you. Deal with it and set up paid childcare and sitters.

I never had family support. My parents were older by the time I had dd and had health issues involving lots of hospital appointments. Tbh dh and I didn't have dd for our parents to look after her. We just juggled childcare between us. Most of my friends were the same. Only one has a mum who lived down the road but she didn't want to ask too often as felt her mum needed to enjoy her retirement. You just accept it and juggle or change jobs to suit.

i mean it’s a choice you made - you could have had no children or stayed at one child.

this is the consequence of that choice.

Likewise. Also just had to accept it. It is part of life and complete luck of the draw I am afraid. Better just to crack on and put in place as much as you can afford in terms of outsourcing and wait for the kids to grow up a bit so you can do swaps with other parents and sleepovers and so on.

For what it is worth, I don't regret not having had the wrap around stuff from family. Yes it would have made life easier but it wasn't a hardship doing without.