To leave DC's with in-laws so DP and I can have a weekend away?

[snowchic83]

DD1 will be 21 months and DD2 will be 3 months. DP and I are thinking about a weekend away in the Lake District at the beginning of October. His parents have offered to look after the DC's which I am completely happy about as they are great GP's and the girls love them. We are thinking of leaving on the Friday and coming back on the Monday.

Would you leave your baby for the weekend at 3 months (she is FF)? I am also worried that DD1 will wonder where we are and get upset and I hate the thought of her missing us (she as stayed with the ILs a few times overnight and been absolutely fine but 24 hours is a bit different to 3 days).

I have the booking open on anther tab just waiting for me to click but I feel v guilty about it and can't quite bring myself to go ahead!

Am I being over anxious about this? Should I just go ahead and book?

WWYD?

That's ok join. I think it's a touchy subject. With DD1 I went back to work full time after 9 months off and I'm planning on going back 22.5 hours a week after 9 months off with DD2. How was your DC after 3 months? How long was it before he/she settled down?

X- post. Sorry just read that this isn't a touchy subject for you and there's me banging on about what a sensitive post it it.

How was she?

It's hard to know with such a small baby.

She settled down very quickly. The first couple of days she was pretty upset though.

I rang the CM the first day and heard her breaking her heart crying and I felt like I was going to be sick.

That's when I realised that it if I was going to stick with it, it was better not to know every detail of her being upset. Which is kind of what I was trying to get at earlier, but I was being flippant because I was answering somebody else's question.

She is VERY attached to the CM she had at that time. Even a couple of years after moving to other childcare.

TBH she settled quicker than my others did at more advanced ages. But I think it's a different kind of unsettled at 9 months or a year than when they are still very small.

x-post

Funnily enough, for all of saying that it wasn't a touchy subject for me, thinking about little DD1 at the CMs has made me a little teary.

Maybe I'm going soft in my old age? :o

It is a touchy subject in general though, you're right.

And that can mean there is pressure both ways and it can be very, very hard to know what you even feel yourself at the end of it.

It's really cool that your DDs have such involved GPs. Regardless of what you do now, that will really come into its own as they get bigger and more independent. :)

join DD1 has been with our CM since she was 9 months old and I went back to work full time. Our CM writes a brief diary of what DD1 does everyday and for some reason it makes me feel better.

Does it? :)

My CM has started doing a little diary and I NEVER read it.

Well sometimes I catch up on a few weeks' worth in one go.

I guess I just don't really care what they get up to when I'm not there as long as they are safe and well-looked after

That's probably really weird.

It is way easier doing the childcare thing second time when you are leaving your baby with someone you have built up a good relationship with and trust with your older child.

It does for some reason.

The main reason I asked for my CM to keep a diary is so I know what DD1 is eating (another thread entirely!).

Yes of course your DP is relaxed about this. Not because men feel less attached to their children, but purely because absolutely no-one judges them if they decide that as long as their children are in safe care, they'll spend time away from them.

I'm so sorry you've amended your plans OP, especially if the reasons for that are connected with some of the frankly insane posts on this thread.

Seeing as I accurately predicted that your DP wasn't getting any of this guilt-tripping and therefore felt no guilt, I'd lay bets that none of these posters who are saying your break is 'too long' or your children 'too young' have ever said the same to a father.

The reason you're getting these ridiculous posts is because of outright sexism, together with an absurd culture that's emerged where it's assumed that children will wilt and wither if their mothers aren't tending to their needs 24/7.

It's madness.

Even the old explorations of attachment theory which were written when few women worked outside of the home (and fewer still had overnight leisure stays) had to concede that infants' attachment was secure when their caregivers ensured continuity of love and meeting their needs. So it didn't matter if there were 4-5 such caregivers. What mattered was continuity.

All of this guilt is manufactured by others. It's massively self-defeating because it perpetuates the effect of keeping women down, unable to pursue their own interests, talents or other relationships, simply because they are mothers.

Trust your own judgement. Trust your partner and fellow-parent's judgement. Trust your in-laws.

Mistrust sexism.

Ds is nearly 4 years old and I have only ever spent one night away from him, when he was around 1.5 years old, to go to a good friend's hen night. Would love a weekend away with dh, but no help available local to us. Even when we visit gps, it is apparent that ds is tiring dm and df out after a while (dmil and dfil have passed away). I would feel guilty asking them to look after ds for longer than a few hours, unless it was for something really important. I would also feel guilty, because I'd worry about ds who is very sensitive.

It's great that you've got the support and offer for babysitting. Consider yourself extremely lucky. So, do what you feel comfortable with. I, personally wouldn't leave a 3 month old baby for longer than 1 night, though. But that's just me.

It would be really helpful if posters who are saying they couldn't personally leave children of this age would disclose honestly whether their partners (if male) feel the same way.

If they don't, why do you think that is?

And whether they do or don't feel like you, in your experience, has anyone ever queried it if they have spent a night or so away from their children, either by choice or because of work?

My partner doesn't feel the same as he doesn't have the necessary equipment to feed babies the way we choose to. Nothing sexist about this - simple biology.

I used to babysit for a lovely family regularly overnight when I was a teen, from when their littlest was about 8 weeks. She was absolutely fine, so perhaps it is just different for ff babies.

In answer to leavenheath my dp has just turned down an all expenses paid trip to New York through his work because he doesn't feel he could be away from the dc for 12 days.

A 12 day trip thousands of miles away and the biology of feeding aren't really comparable though are they?

So what I'm trying to do is compare like with like. How would your partners feel about between 1-3 nights away within a drive away, leaving children behind who others could feed?

My partner feels far worse than me.

He struggles to do a night without blubbing :/ me? I'll take a week away please!

DS is 5 months.

I've done 2 nights at a festival (with OH), 2 separate hen nights, a night with my friend and 7 nights working another festival (with OH) - but we had to go visit DS in the middle of that week so OH could cope.

He's done the above plus one night at a friends, when he got a 4am train home and a week away working where he went completely insular and worked double and triple shifts so he didnt have to think.

OH is the primary care giver though. So perhaps there's the difference

Ok, to be clearer then, dp would not like to be away from the kids even in the situation you describe. It's nothing to do with feeding and everything to do with emotional security and developing a strong attachment.

Admittedly he is more used to leaving the dc for short periods, but that's a result of our society's set up - short paternity leave, partners not allowed to stay in hospital after the birth etc.

As I said before, I accept things may be different for others and that my belief that my babies would be distressed may be a result of their personalities or my family set up.

"It would be really helpful if posters who are saying they couldn't personally leave children of this age would disclose honestly whether their partners (if male) feel the same way."

I wouldn't leave a 3 months old overnight, even with DH.

But he would leave our 3 month old with me, if I was happy for him to be away overnight.

That's because at 3 months I am still their primary caregiver and they are more attached to me than either their father or other regular caregivers.

Both DH and I would probably leave a 22 month old overnight, but neither of us would leave a child that age for more than one night with anyone other than the other parent.

I would leave a child of that age for far longer than that (and in fact will be doing soon) if they were with DH. At 3 months, I'm the primary attachment. By 12 months or so, he's a pretty close second.

I don't think it is sexist to think that babies feel safer and happier with their mothers around. In fact I think the attempt to deny the importance of a mother's bond with her baby and the baby's dependence on her can be sexist.

For example, I would argue very strongly that a 3 month old baby should not have to be made available for overnight visits even with his own father, if the parents were separated. I think part of feminism is recognising and celebrating what women can do with their bodies and what that means for them and the babies they create.

I think it is absolutely fine to leave your children with other people if you want or need some time away from them. But trying to justify that by saying that babies don't notice when the person they are with 24/7 just vanishes from their life is silly.

Completely agree with Leavenheath. It is sexist to judge mothers for leaving their children. I left DS at 5 months for a weekend away with DP, grandparents loved looking after him and we had some well needed time alone together. Just do it!

If DP gets a week away without kids then I insist on the same. I fundamentally disagree with all the judging levelled at mothers. If you don't feel comfortable, fine don't do it but don't judge others...

Do it! They will be with people who love them more than anything else on the planet. They'll be clean and well fed and adored, what more could you ask for? I've been leaving my dd at either my mums or my pils since she was about 3 months and it's a relief to know if dh and I need a break they're willing to have her and as she's so used to it, she's more than willing to go to them. Have fun on your weekend.

I wish I had said what JoinYourPlayfellows said. She put everything a lot better than me!

attheend, your post was very well expressed and unusually sensitive to the bad feelings this kind of conversation can bring up :)

snowchic hope you are not too tired after being up so late last night :o

It's impossible for me to say whether I would leave a 3 month old that others could feed, because I've not had that experience. I rather think that I wouldn't, but I don't know how much of "but my baby NEEEEEEDS ME!" is tied in with the fact that I am the only one that can feed them iyswim.

By the time others could feed my babies every single time they needed feeding, they were no longer babies, and were old enough to cope without me for longer periods.

I was certainly absolutely the primary caregiver for both of mine when they were babies, and, frankly still am. They are 9 and 7 now though, so I am absolutely fine with leaving them for the weekend, or indeed for an entire week. However, I am more happy to leave them with MIL than DH because she is retired and sees time with them as a treat (generally speaking, and we are talking about 1 weekend a year), whereas DH works very long hours and needs his downtime at weekends for good of his mental health.

I don't think it is sexist to think that babies feel safer and happier with their mothers around.

It most certainly is sexist.

What wouldn't be sexist is if you said

babies feel safer and happier with continuity of caregiving

Not all families operate with the mother as the primary caregiver. Even when she is, many families find it is more sensible to share the care as much as possible so that fathers/grandparents (and childcarers generally) can bond with the child so that the infant doesn't have to rely on only one person for their care. It's a bit of domestic resilience that makes sense if the unthinkable happens (or even a crisis which means the primary carer is unavailable) and also increases a child's range of loving relationships.

As a secondary consideration, it means that the primary carer (whether male or female) doesn't have to sacrifice their whole life to parenthood.

"I don't think it is sexist to think that babies feel safer and happier with their mothers around.

It most certainly is sexist.

What wouldn't be sexist is if you said

babies feel safer and happier with continuity of caregiving"

I wouldn't have said the second thing instead of the first, because while I think they are both true, I don't accept that they are interchangeable.

I think the attempt to pretend that motherhood is unimportant, a mere accident of biology and no big deal is profoundly anti-feminist.

It very much feeds into the MRAs' agenda.

I am not just my children's "caregiver", I am their mother.

I grew them in my body, I breastfed them.

"many families find it is more sensible to share the care as much as possible so that fathers/grandparents (and childcarers generally) can bond with the child so that the infant doesn't have to rely on only one person for their care."

Yes, families such as my family.

Where my husband and I share care of the children and we both work.

We also share care of our dc 50:50 when I return to work, but while dd2 is tiny and I'm on ml I am the primary carer.

Posted too soon!

I also think there is a uniqueness to a young baby's relationship with their mother at first, connected to having them inside you (and bfing if you do that). This does not last forever, dp and I are very equal parents to dd1 (2.3), but not yet to dd2 (6 months).