Pissed off at lack of support on family holiday

[Belleende]

Some background. I am the youngest of 4 siblings. We are currently on a family holiday with my parents. I have 2 kids, 4 yo and 20 month old. The rest of the kids are all 10 and older.

Myself and DP have zero family support around, so very rarely go out, and as our 2 are vv early risers never get a lie in. This holiday has been particularly bad with neither of them sleeping well. I have been getting 2 to 4 hours sleep a night, with 2 totally sleepless nights. I have been on my knees.

In the time we have been here my siblings have offered only once to mind the kids so me and DP could go out and even then only after we had put them to bed. We have not been invited to any group activities. No one has even come to the beach with us.

Before my own kids came along I babysat regularly for both my sisters, have supported them unstintingly, dug my eldest sister out of numerous holes (including collecting her kids from the airport this trip just hours after we had arrived).

The final straw came last night when I discovered that everyone has booked a day trip today that is totally not suitable for my two, and it is our last day here.

AIBU to let rip and put a dampener on the last day of the holiday, or do I just quietly withdraw?

Sorry I had thought I had posted another post, but it didn't go up. DP always pulls his weight including cooking for everyone twice. We had already planned to take the early shift in turns but hadn't bargained for the kids waking multiple times in the night. The little one hated the travel cot and my eldest had some nightmares (her room was a bit creepy so not surprised).

Catching up on sleep was tough as our room overlooked the swimming pool, and the doors of the villa slammed in the wind, that woke me up several times. I am no stranger to sleep deprivation, but that is the worst I have ever been.

Back home now, and will speak to my sister at some point, but biggest lesson is never again, and to stop extending myself for family so readily.

It also seems like different people and families have different expectations, which is fair enough, but the history of my family has always been that we pitched in, but not it seems when it comes to me.

Seriously?That has nothing to do with what op is talking about.Why try to be unnecessarily hateful??

YABU
Your kids your responsibility
Get them into a sleeping routine so you can have more time to relax.
Sorry I’m being harsh but I don’t see why your family should look after your kids on their holiday. They could help, I’m not saying that, but if your kids are a handful that’s up to you to sort out

Oh I think 2 posts didn't go up. The cashing in my chips comment came as part of an e mail chain before we went. I organised the villa, got shopping delivered and told my siblings, they said, you are amazing, I replied, I am being amazing now because I intend to be disgraceful on holiday, I am cashing in all my babysitting chips. Then the title of our what's app group was changed to the babysitters are coming (not by me).

Also to be v clear on my expectations. I did not expect the teens to have sole charge of my two. I offered the eldest £20 to take them from 7 to 9am so me and DP could have a lie in, but no deal, so fair enough.

I also didn't expect us all to do everything together, we never do, but one trip to the beach with my little'uns and her big cousins I don't think was too much to expect. The days they went to the beach we simply weren't invited. If we had been we would have gone, even though their choice of beach was tricky for wee ones.

Their day trip sucked BTW, spent hours in traffic and queues and actually didn't get to go into the main attraction.

I think everyone has different expectations of holidays. Perhaps your family felt the one night babysitting plus cousins entertaining younger ones in the day was helpful but you obviously felt it was not enough. Expecting teens up between 7am for babysitting is a tall order even for £20! it is their holiday too.

Having said that, if I saw that my DSis was struggling with little ones and no sleep I would offer to help and have done because I have been there but not everyone feels like this.

But they did babysit for you. You had a night out with your DH. This I replied, I am being amazing now because I intend to be disgraceful on holiday, I am cashing in all my babysitting chips makes it sound like you wanted a permanent babysitting service for your kids while you and your DH did what you wanted. That would have put my back up tbh after all it is their holiday and time to relax as well

This is tough op with such an age gap between children. Unfortunately although in my experience people are prepared to look after relatives children before you’ve had any yourself, once you e been through it you don’t really want to go back to looking after small ones.

Your family should have made an effort to go to a suitable beach together at least once but unfortunately older children become more wilful in a vocal way and they will have wanted a more exciting beach.

The last thing teenagers would ever want is to babysit an early morning , i’m Afraid it jus5 wasn’t realistic for the others to look after yours but unfortunate you were the outlier with children’s ages.

It's always a mistake to believe your relatives will take over babysitting on holiday, IME, especially a shared one. I've been on several cruises with my family (my nieces are much older than mine, too), have two kids one with SN and I didn't get nights out or lie-ins (that's why cruising is so fab, kids' clubs!). It's just the way it goes with young kids, no one really wants to spend their holiday waking up early to spend it with toddlers.

You made a mistake in this. Next time you arrange for your own holiday to suit your childcare needs (I highly recommend cruising but of course it still doesn't give you time off from early risers but short of hiring a nanny that probably won't happen).

I have a teen right now and she would rather eat dirt than get up at 6.30 to look after toddlers. I wouldn't have responded well to 'I'm being disgraceful on holiday' or 'cashing in my babysitting chips' comments from my own sister, tbh, but I'd have said something because I don't go on holidays to babysit. I don't care for that age range and I'd rather be open about it so no one gets the idea I'm game for getting up early to babysit toddlers or be the default babysitter whilst you go out with DP.

It's a hard go because my son's behaviour is awful but well, them's the breaks. Have to suck it up. I have a supportive family but they're ultimately not responsible for my kids, I am.

Yes, as I suggested upthread, you clearly expected this holiday to be about you having babysitters on tap- you even stated that beforehand and it sounds like someone in the group changed the name of the WhatsApp group as a laugh because they realised you were being cheeky as hell.

Stop seeing everything in terms of transactions - I did X therefore you must do Y

Sounds like you were the one pushing the holiday not them, and now you’re complaining because they didn’t all do exactly as you wanted

And rather than offering cash to the teenage relatives on their holiday to get up at the crack of dawn, save it for organising some proper babysitting through the year so you and your dh get some time together and you don’t end up worn out and resentful and feeling your family ‘owe’ you

If you do go cruising, my top tips are to take silicon earplugs, extra sockets and a powerful fan so the white noise drowns out all the ship and people noise and you get to sleep better - actually I take these on all holidays because every single place you go is going to have different noises, some of them irritating.

Tbh OP you do sound quite hard work.

You say that you’ve always felt overlooked within the family, and that everyone else’s needs have always come first.
If this is true I find it hard to understand why you’d even agree to go on a family holiday if it was offered you. But you didn’t simply agree, you say yourself that you took the lead in booking it and making it happen. You then, in the group chat beforehand, Stated that you intended to be ‘disgraceful’ and to ‘cash in all your babysitting chips’!!!
I mean, seriously, what did you expect to happen? If your version is true, then did you honestly expect the whole family to change their habits of a lifetime and start offering free babysitting and taking your kids off your hands the whole holiday?

I suspect what’s nearer the truth is that you’re pissed off with them and you were deliberately provocative- ‘cashing in your chips’ is a pretty rude thing to say in the group chat and it’s clear that others thought so too and changed the group name as a bit of an ironic piss take.

It honestly sounds as though the things that are pissing you off are primarily not any fault of your family... it’s your kids not settling in travel cots, being woken by them multiple times a night and the noise from the villa doors slamming and disturbing you. Those things plus the fact you seem to not use babysitters throughout the year so that you get some couple time, and ended up investing huge amounts of expectation in the family holiday.

You admit you offered £20 to the teenagers to mind your kids in the early morning (I mean, seriously? You don’t have to know much about teenagers to realise they’re going to much prefer a lie in and doing their own stuff!)

My advice is to save your cash for paying a babysitter now and then during the year. Get some quality time with your dh (btw it’s entirely Normal to put your own kids to bed before the babysitter arrives.) And dont organise a family holiday again: choose something that suits your family. Your children are massively different in age from the others; it’s no one’s fault, it’s simply that kids at different stages have different needs. Your kids don’t trump anyone else’s, and it’s just not right to expect others to forego what they’d like to do just because you deem it unsuitable for pushchairs and don’t want to use a sling or backpack carrier. Oh and lastly a villa with pool would be my idea of hell with a toddler - even with a fenced and alarmed pool I as the parent would not be able to relax for one minute! It just sounds as though you chose to go on an entirely unsuitable holiday with people who you claim have never been willing to help you out in the past, which seems a strange choice to make

People assume if others do things it's because they want to. So sis s assumed you were happy babysitting their DCS because you wanted to not because you were expecting payback 10 years later.
And you sound like a people pleaser - doing a lot to arrange the holiday. BBUt it sounds like thebabysitting joke got out of hand with the WhatsApp name change. So people are deliberately not helping you.
Stay at home next year and pay babysitters for days out just the two of you.

QueenBeee

‘People assume if others do things it's because they want to’

YES to the above

I’ve never understood this kind of tit for tat mentality...that if you do someone a favour they ‘owe’ you. It reminds me of those threads where people say that the grandparents aren’t willing to act as unpaid childminders, and a few other posters pitch in darkly with ‘well, just remind them that you won’t be available to look after them in their old age...’

Relationships are not transactions. Before we had kids, we regularly looked after our nephews, even taking them for days out, because we wanted to. It was quite a novelty back then. When we had kids later, I didn’t expect my SIL to be all over them and taking them out for days because she’d done all that with her own toddlers, who were now in their pre teen years and demanding in other ways.

Of course, in any decent relationship there is give and take, which is freely given and totally different from this concept of being beholden. Therefore, as the OP did a favour by picking up the SIL’s kids from the airport, it made sense that the SIL would want to do something nice for the OP, and my understanding is that she did: the OP got and evenings babysitting (though even then she complained that it was after she’d had to put her own kids to bed!)

If the family dynamics are truly a one way street where some members accept lots of help from others and never return it, then that sucks, but like I said, why on earth would the OP plan and book a holiday (and goad the others with comments about expecting babysitting) it that was the case?

However the bottom line is that relationships should not be tit for tat; you don’t do things to help others for what you’re going to get back. I think it’s very sad to see family life that way

The other issue is the siblings' roles in the family which are fixed into adulthood ime. My DSis is the youngest and is still treated as the pesky, spoilt little sis by my siblings - even if she is now in her 50s. I suspect the OP is the youngest and treated the same.

Great posts from Gatoadigrado.

That comment in your group chat was pretty shocking, tbh, if meant seriously (which you clearly did). I think if I had been your sibling, I would in my perplexity have taken refuge in treating it as a joke too, then made damn sure to organise the holiday to avoid having your dc dumped on me at every opportunity.

For the teen, was that every morning you expected them to get up at 7am, or was the payment per morning shift? Even so, that's the last thing a teen (who also needs to unwind from school etc) would want on their holiday.

You are very tired and it is clouding your judgement. I have every sympathy with you but advise that you don’t ‘let rip’ while you are so angry and exhausted. Don’t go on the trip but stay with your own children and have as nice a time with them as you can.

Don’t go on holiday with your family again while your children are small a sit is clear they see them as your responsibility, you helped your sister when you were younger and childless but she cannot reciprocate in turn as she had the kids first and has her own to care for.

We found foreign holidays terribly stressful with young children. The solution is to hire holiday cottages in the UK while they are small. Everyone sleeps better. It’s not too hot for them and facilities are on hand in the accommodation when things get awkward. There are plenty of rainy day things to do and small children love a bucket and spade day. If the youngsters get ill you can go home without worrying about buying flights. Lower your expectations and enjoy the holiday more.

Totally agree with Gatorade come back when your kids 11 and 13 and someone wants you to spend your precious holidays looking after their toddlers. It’s different dynamic when you are childfree childcare novelty fun when you’ve done it yourself it is not. It’s one of the disadvantages of being g the younger sibling and nobody’s fault.

Have never known a teenager get up at 7am on a holiday for love or money either.

Also agree with teacher when our kids tiny we stayed in uk it’s not a real holiday with kids that age. Actually when kids 1 and 3 we spent the holiday money at a really nice local spa hotel while my parents had the kids. We got more out of that 3 day break than a 2 week family holiday. Kids so young they don’t care where they are

Sorry that you didn't enjoy it as much as you had planned. I always keep holidays simple and am only just starting to enjoy them as my youngest is 4.

I do feel that your expectations were a bit high. It's their holiday too and no one is expected to give up their time to watch your DC, especially if you didn't specifically ask/state your needs before you went. I would maybe have asked my sister to watch the kids once so DH and I could have a few drinks but generally on our family holidays DH & I watch our DCs.

And it's a shame you didn't want to consider a sling. They are amazing and it isn't too much of a burden. I carried mine everywhere, as did other family members. I hardly used a pushchair, esp on holiday.

Anyway, I hope that you are home now and that you have had some sleep. This isn't your families fault, alluding towards things isn't the same as actually asking for help, so I wouldn't withdraw from them.

Think a disaster learning curve holiday with toddlers is common. We took a pfb toddler on a package deal holiday and it was the worst holiday ever. Scaled back in location and expectations after that one

Holidays-any holidays really-are not fun with very little kids. It's just moving the work to another location and increasing stress.

I don't think your family are doing this deliberately although I understand that you just want them to recognise how knackered you are and offer to help. But honestly they probably just can't see it-they are just at different life stages to you.

Next time just gently ask for help. Pick your most sympathetic sibling and explain to them that you are exhausted and can they help at all? I bet they would if it were spelled out to them.

With re the day trip-could your DH take the kids for one day so you could
Go and have some family time without the kids? That's what we used to do when ours were tiny-one took them one day, the other another so you get at least a break.

Family holidays are not great in my experience anyway. But then that's maybe because my experience was going with my ex in-laws

Don't let them spoil whats left of your holiday.
Maybe its affecting you more because of your lack of sleep.
Book the next holiday without extended family if you still feel the same way.

I have family that are very keen for us to go on a group holiday. My DCs are a lot older than theirs and there have been lots of comments about how great it would be as the older ones can babysit and entertain the younger ones. Much as my DC love their little cousins I have am not going on holidays so they are used for childcare

Cashing in your chips? Oh dear, OP, I think that’s the root of the planned activities. While you might have expected babysitting in return, you made it sound as though that’s why they were there! It would annoy most people tbh. tSounds like you’d got their backs up before you left and may explain why they’ve been arranging things they want to do.
As others have said, there’s a big difference between babysitting etc when you’ve not got your own kids, and babysitting when you’ve got your own to mind too. From experience, the former has a novelty to it, it’s not the same feeling when you’re a tired parent yourself. Even if teenagers. Just back from a break with ours - they’ve been exhausting.
To be fair, they did offer to babysit one night. From the way you’ve described your children’s sleeping habits, I can understand why they wanted you to put them to bed first though.
Don’t understand the comment about the activity you desperately want to do - are you saying that one of them should stay and babysit so you can go? That’s pretty unreasonable.

Wow 2-4 hours sleep. Sounds awful. I’d concentrate on getting every bit of sleep I could get and not on going out. I’d be too tired. Missing the point slightly...