Double booked feel guilty

if you were my friend, i would forgive you

Good idea

It was mean if you booked a holiday after you had agreed to have the kids. Unreliable.

You made a commitment. You fucked up. If you were my friend, i’m not sure how I would react - it would depend on why I’d asked for help - but there’s a real chance I would end our friendship if I were relying on you.

That’s the way I see it .
who what’s a flakey friend who lets you down .

Why be so nasty?

This feels like a lot of drama. Of course it's not ideal, but you've got plenty of time to let her know and perhaps help with a solution. depending on the relationship and the reason you are having the kids, perhaps offer to pay for childcare. Or offer to take them at a different ime if she can reschedule her plan.

Yes, you made a mistake and she might well be upset, but I think this is all being hugely overblown.

I am wondering whether people commenting its no big deal and offering to have the kids another time have forgotten how tricky it is to sort childcare.
Whatever arrangement was made, be it the OP offering to have the children or the friend asking and the OP agreeing, the friend would believe they had childcare sorted and this might have been a relief to them if they had been finding it hard to find somewhere.
I don't believe the not checking the calendar before booking as you would want to make sure you had no commitments for yourself that you had forgotten (things like dentist) so it's a poor excuse.
My mum used to do this with inset days where she would say she might be able to look after my children. I told her that it was no good her telling me she might be able to help, and I always found another arrangement as I knew I couldn't rely on her if something better came up.
I think you have been very inconsiderate to your friend by committing to looking after the children and now letting them down.

You were unreasonable OP and if it were a genuine mistake (which honestly I don't believe) you need to work on managing your time better.

You say your battery went on your phone. When? The moment you were booking your holiday? Couldn't you have put it on charge and then double checked the calendar before booking?

No, this is madness!

Offering free childcare as a favour is huge and shouldn’t come with strings attached. It was a favour not a work contract.

This is a bit of an extreme ask.

Free childcare is a huge favour and if my friend had to cancel on me because they had the opportunity to go on a holiday that happened to fit over those dates I would understand and make new plans. Her friends got enough notice to do this. It’s not as if the OP has let her know the night before.

If it would ease your guilt @TheOpalFox you could offer her two other days instead.

Just had another thought. If nursery age, could you pay for a couple of days nursery fees for your friends children?

OP. These things happen to everyone - don't beat yourself up too much!!! Apologise to your friend. Offer to have her kids another time, get her a gift and apologise profusely. If a friend did this to me I'd be annoyed, but if I knew them well, the friendship would still be in tact.

If I was your friend and it was to enable me to work then yeah I’d be frustrated and annoyed but what could I do really - and yes it would probably affect how I thought of you going forward.

i bet the op only reluctantly agreed in the first place anyway. It’s a big ask

In my circle, it’s normal for us to offer to have each other’s kids for a couple of days in the holidays when one of us if off and the other is working. It’s not a ‘big ask’, it’s part of being a supportive community and it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Now it may well be the case that the OP is always the one doing the favours and her friend doesn’t reciprocate, in which case I’d agree it’s a big ask if it happens regularly.

I don't get other posters saying you should set yourself on fire over this.

If you let her down last minute when you knew you couldn't or wouldn't do it, thats awful. If you have form for making generous offers and then backing out or flaking on them and her specifically, thats bad form.

This is your family plans have changed and you can't do this, and here is almost a month's notice with an apology. But I would make sure not to let her down again.

Can she afford childcare? I dont know your friend but I can imagine it could upset her if she has to work and relied on your help

How did she take it?

It’s a big ask to have someone look after your kids. You’ve given her quite a bit of notice and it was a genuine mistake.

If she lets that affect your friendship, then it’s her that’s being unreasonable.

Looks like there are a few unreasonable people on this thread.

i bet the op only reluctantly agreed in the first place anyway. It’s a big ask.

How could you book a holiday if you didn't have access to your diary on your phone? Sounds like a whole load of baloney to me and I'm sure that your friend will be of the same view. You booked a holiday for yourself knowing that you had made commitments to mind your friend's children on two of those dates.
That was mean and shitty and you let your friend down Own it!

Are you here for people to tell you its ok?
Its not, I think you have to work with your friend to find (and pay for) an alternative

No one is saying she has a legal obligation, just that it's a shitty thing to do and it will damage her friendship. Of course any arrangement can fall through but that doesn't mean it's consequence-free. The consequence here is that op will presumably go down in her friend's estimation and hopefully acknowledges in her own mind that her behaviour hasn't been the best here. That doesn't mean she needs to beat herself forever but hopefully she'll be more thoughtful next time.

Also getting friends to look after kids is a perfectly solid childcare arrangement when the friend is question is actually reliable. The friend hasn't been remiss here and had been badly let down.

Can you take the children on the holidaynwith you? Assuming it's a driving/train trip kind of holiday rather than a flight away.

Nah, that just sounds like a crap excuse.

Very limited people who would take kids for 2 days. Really shit to agree then book holiday. Of course it was an accident but friend will be understandably upset.

Do you and your friends never do favours for each other when they’re stuck? I often have a friend’s child in the holidays if I’m off and they’re working, and vice versa. It takes a village and all that.