People who have no help

[BabaYagasLittleSister]

I know it was my choice to have children, and I don't regret it at all, and if I knew beforehand I would have no help at all I would still have them..

BUT

Does anyone else find it really really hard? All I ever see is friends with kids having date nights, going away for a few days without kids, nights out, day trips, having a job that doesn't have to fit around school hours. I don't know anyone else in real life who doesn't get help. It's hard looking at pictures on Facebook of other parents getting a break. But at the same time, you're not allowed to complain about not getting any help.

My husbands mum died when he was 15, and his dad shortly after our first was born. He has a brother but they live over an hour away and aren't close.

My mum died when I was 22, and my dad is still around but he's 76 and not in the best health. He has a wife, but we don't get on the best. She is quite jealous, and would never offer to help anything to do with my kids. I have a brother and sister in law who live about 5 mins away, but they are childless by choice and have never offered to help. Times I have had to ask they made it so clear it was a big ask I try to avoid it. They would probably help in an emergency, but not for us to go out.

My daughter is 8 and a half and I have spent one night away with my husband (our wedding night) , and one day trip when we had to pay a babysitter £200 for the privilege.

I guess I am more sad that I always think how different life would be if my mum was still around. She would have loved to be a grandma, and would have done anything for them. It's a constant heartbreak, that never gets easier.

I know I'm not the only one out there. Just need to get it out really, so please be nice. I know other people must have it worse and there are bigger problems.

I agree OP, it’s a sort of grief. My Mum is still with us but very unwell and she would have loved to be an active grandparent.

Usually we muddle along OK but I’ve found it very difficult when people don’t believe me when I say we don’t have anyone to look after our daughter. Or found people don’t understand that unless you have regular babysitters it’s much more of a big deal to leave young children with someone unfamiliar than someone they see every week.

All I ever see is friends with kids having date nights, going away for a few days without kids, nights out, day trips, having a job that doesn't have to fit around school hours

This wasn’t particularly the case when my kids/our friends’ kids were little. People had babysitters pretty rarely for nights out, day trips would be with the children and most jobs people have used childcare so they weren’t doing a job that fitted around school hours.

Could you join Sitters and try to find a local babysitter you like and use them for the odd night out?

Remember, what you’re seeing on social media is the PR version of everyone’s life, try not to compare that with your own reality.

We have all 4 GPs but tbh they’re not really interested. At a push my FIL would take the eldest to a restaurant for a meal, that would be his version of babysitting. My mum will have them reluctantly but will complain about it so much that it isn’t worth it for anything except an absolute emergency. BIL and SIL have said they’ll have them when the youngest can wipe his own bum so we’re maybe a year off and they’re so busy it probably wouldn’t happen anyway. Rest of the family live abroad and wouldn’t be interested anyway. I’ve made my peace with it. We each take an individual holiday with our friends at least once a year. We pay babysitters. Sometimes take a day off work to go for a really nice lunch whilst they’re at school or nursery. Take holidays like skiing where the kids have their own schedule for the mornings and then it’s family time in the afternoon. Yes it would be lovely if the family wanted to be more involved but I genuinely don’t feel hard done by.

It is hard. My mum, who was the most wonderful and loving grandparent, died last year. My husband's parents died before we had children. My dad is still alive but three hours away and would never have the kids on his own anyway.

We do have some lovely, generous friends who have said they will happily take both DC so we can have an evening out or night away at some point, but it feels like a huge ask when people have their own families and lives. So we sort of have just made peace that one of us goes out for an evening etc at a time.

I just wish my mum was still here.

I agree, it’s really hard. I was in this situation as a single parent. Do you have any friends who you could do babysitting swaps with? I had friends who would babysit and in return I sometimes looked after their DC in the school holidays as I had a term time only job.

We have all the obligations of parents but no help. Both sets of parents expect visits and hosting but they offer no help and I wouldn't leave my kids with someone who doesn't want to look after them.

I realise this depends on your financial resources but I really recommend taking the odd day off together when they are in school or nursery.

My pil died before I met husband, he was late teens when they died. We had two children 18 months apart, our choice I know, but my parents didn’t want to know. We were very short of money but they never even offered buy a pair of socks, never mind shoes. My children always received a birthday card and tiny present days after their birthday. As if my mother was making a point. Only grandchildren they ever had so they really missed out.
Yet they showered my brothers , one older who still lived at home, and a younger one with gifts and made sure I knew.
Tbh I never expected any offers of help but I always felt sad for my children that their only grandparents didn’t care about them.

I'm sorry op that must be really hard. I think the kind of support you're talking about is overlooked and under appreciated. People often obsess about the kind of help that reduces childcare bills, that's not something I've ever had nor even felt frustrated at not having, my family is too young and dispersed (still working) to provide that, I also don't really agree with family getting lumbered with a lot of regular childcare responsibilities. But it's the ad hoc care; weekends, school holidays, that has really help my sanity and marriage and it must feel quite over whelming or isolating to not get that reprieve sometimes. Hopefully as your daughter gets older she will make friends with families you're comfortable doing sleepovers with.

Yup, it’s hard but tbh we just get on with it, never been away for even an hour. I did feel a bit jealous about people who got help for a bit but it’s ok. We are tired but we are plodding on.

We joined a babysitting circle.

So we did get nights out but we had to babysit other people's children in return.

Quid pro quo and all that.

I'm a lone parent, my ex and his family are not involved, I am NC with my dad and I have no siblings or wider family.

I have a mum, but she has a full time job and also suffers with her mental health so I very rarely asked her to help out with DS as she has enough on her own plate.

I didn't have a night out or anything for years. Luckily I have very understanding friends who didn't drop me for being unable to do child free things for a long time.

DS is 16 and I have my life back now pretty much. Hang in there, it is hard.

It’s entirely normal in my experience, We had DS in another country to our home country, so all family were overseas. We paid for every moment of childcare if he wasn’t with either parent.

As your DD is now 8 this would be a great time to do play dates to lead to sleep overs where you can find a good friend and do swaps. So one time you have their child over night, the next they have yours. School residential trips started in my DC's primary in year 4 so lots of parents started their children doing sleep overs so those children would share rooms on the over night residentials and be used to each other.

You could even do a "movie night" where they don't sleep over but stay up a bit later giving you some breathing space for part of an evening or a weekend day and again the other parent returns the favour. Ds1 had a best mate and we would do this to help each other out. I also used to look after both her children on inset days as I was a sahm and her Dc2 was in the same class as my youngest child too so they all knew each other and got on. There was no childcare for inset days and she never took the piss, just had my children to her too.

It is harder when you need your holidays for childcare but once they get old enough you and Dh can take a day off and spend it together, using that precious holiday for yourselves.

It's really hard - and expensive.

We are lucky in that we have my parents within an hour's drive and they are very helpful. They don't really cover for us to go out socially but they have taken them overnight once or twice when we've been invited to big events eg weddings/on my 40th bday or if we both have evening work commitments on the same day (my DH often works evening/night shifts). They would always help in an emergency.

But if we want to have a date night we do have to pay a babysitter so we don't end up doing that much.

My parents are the only family we have: the rest have passed away.

I see people who have lots of family (eg local siblings to do shared babysitting rosters with) or who can afford a nanny able to prioritise their relationship and it makes me sad. I feel like my DH and I have nowhere near enough time together

We had very little help with childcare from family. We lived 2 to 3 hours drive away so it wasn't ever going to happen.

For nights out I did baby sitting swaps with mum friends, or paid a baby sitter for the evening. Dh and I never once had a romantic weekend away together ... not our thing at all! 🤣

I feel for you all, especially the people who have family but they just aren't interested. That must feel awful.

I think we struggle too, as my son (6) is autistic and has global delay, so days can be very stressful as he tries to control everyone and what they do. I know one day things will get easier, but I will have probably aged about 30 years in the 10 years it takes to get there!

I don't have many friends who would be interested in joining a babysitting circle, as most people I know have lots of family help. I don't want anyone to feel like they have to help when they don't want to - I just wish there was someone who actually wanted to spend time with them, and the children wanted to spend time with them back. Another lovely family relationship for them, but they have no one. It's very sad.

We had some help with ILs but never hands on, they would babysit after kids in bed for example. They would visit together so MIL never really engaged with me personally. Never made a meal or helped out when I had a newborn. Dad was uninterested as always. mum died the year before I had DS and it used to feel like a punch in the gut to see women everywhere with their Mums.

The hardest thing for me was having no one at the end of the phone.. no one who said he looked like me or would smile and say you did the same thing. At medical check ups they might ask was I an early walker teether whatever and I didn't know. I found that to be very sad.

What happened to friends? When our DC were young we had several friends who would take one or both for a night or even a weekend and we would reciprocate. Could you at least spend more time with friends as families so your DC build a relationship with others that way?

I feel like this too. My dad doesn't remember anything about me as a baby as he was always working. I've also had no one to give me any parenting advice, or tell me I'm making wrong choices! Nothing, I've had to figure it all out alone. When the kids were toddler and baby my husband had to work away weeks at a time and I had to do it all completely alone. Trying to get toddler to sleep with baby on my knee who kept wriggling and waking toddler up again... Neither of them slept well. Son didn't sleep through consistently until he was 5! I have no idea how I done it looking back.

Most friends already have family who help them. Some have offered help, but they already have their own busy lives and so I feel bad. Also, it's more tricky with an ASD child. For instance the friend who has offered has a daughter, and my son gets insanely jealous of this little girl and my DDs relationship, screams at them, doesn't want them to play etc.

This was me when my kids were young. We never got a break. The sad thing is we moved closer to my parents hoping they would be more involved, but it didn’t work that way. Even when parents are nearby, sometimes it doesn’t work the way you think. Families can cause a lot of upset and stress as well as offer help, so at least you don’t have an interfering mother in law or a mother you can’t stand. It’s really hard, but you just have to get on with it really. Look at the advantages because there are some. So many people dreading spending Xmas with in-laws on this board!

Virtually all of our friends have grandparents who take their kids for weekends/school holidays so they don't really have any interest in having a reciprocal arrangement like this.

I know almost no one with day to day family childcare but virtually everyone else seems to have more ad hoc help.

A good friend got married recently and had a child free wedding - it was really depressing being the only person there on my own. While we do pay for babysitting - this wedding was just too far away

I don’t have much help either and I haven’t had one night away in 8 years. My children are 6 and 8 now and my one bit of advice would be to go out in the day time when the children are at school. You and your DH should take a day off as annual leave and spend the day together. That’s what we do. We also take a Monday off in the run up to Christmas and go the our nearest city or Christmas markets, go for a lovely lunch, buy something for ourselves.

We rarely go out on the evening, but day time lunching is our thing.

Of course it's hard. It would be wonderful to have extended family to not only help but enrich our kids lives. But practically there are other options. Can your child go on a sleepover occasionally? Of course you will have to reciprocate. Babysitter?
I had 'no help'. My parents lived abroad and my in laws not interested. Most of my friends didn't have that kind of support either as their parents lived too far away, were too elderly or not interested or had passed away.
I do remember being on a train and two grandmothers, who looked in their 60s, with two girls about ten off for a weekend trip to the big city (NY as this was in America). I thought wow how great to be young enough to enjoy your grandkids and have such a relationship with them. I'm in my 60s and my youngest is still a teen so it will be a while yet for me!

I get it OP. DH and I have never had a night away just the two of us since we became parents and DD1 is almost 8. We've had a handful of date nights when friends have babysat for us but I feel it would be too much to ask of friends to have both of my DDs overnight. Especially because they don't need us to reciprocate because they have family help.

DH's mum died many years ago and my mum would love to help but we live hours away from her. DH's dad is still around and local but not at all interested so my DDs don't have grandparents that are actively involved and they see regularly.

I know these things can't be helped and I wouldn't change DDs for anything but I also admit I get jealous hearing friends' plans for weekends away or holidays while grandparents have their DC.