Support bubble with child under 1

[Milkandchocolate]

Why have they limited this to child under 1? While I welcome this news for those parents it does seem to miss a large number of parents who are also isolated and at risk. We know from the research out last week that rates of loneliness of parents of children under 5 have risen substantially.
Postnatal depression can persist well beyond the first year of a child’s life.
There are children who are over 1 who have spent the majority of their life in lockdown, haven’t mixed with others outside their household so the practicalities of forming a childcare bubble where you are not present is not simple.
Not all parents return to work after parental leave so they are left isolated.
Things don’t change overnight when a child turns 1. This seems to be recognised by the fact that once formed these bubbles can stay beyond the age of one as long the child was under 1 on the 2nd a December. So a child who is 13 months now can’t benefit, but one who will be 13 months in January will and will continue to do so. (Let’s be honest nothing will have significantly changed by then).
I know we need to be reducing social contact but I can’t help but think that if you are a mother in this situation it is pretty crap. There has to be a cut off at some point but not sure that aged 1 is right- particularly given they are allowed to stay if you meet the criteria on the 2nd December.

Ewww so many typos!
Sorry

I think it you get the gist though. I'd honestly take triplets in lockdown over a 2-3 year old.

Doesn’t this thread just highlight the issue though everyone’s experience is different and I don’t think it’s right to downplay someone else’s experiences because yours was different.

If every household could bubble with another then that should mean nobody is left feeling isolated which is surely better than some sort of “but I had it worse” race to the bottom?

@Racoonworld I do appreciate how difficult it was to have a newborn without the support over those initial days and I am so glad that these bubbles do now exist for these up and coming new mums. I don’t think a cut off of a year of maternity leave makes sense though- I’m now on the annual leave accrued during my maternity leave and not returning to work until my LO is 15 months. This is not unusual. I have friends who returned to work after 9 months of maternity leave who are less isolated than I am now. The cost of childcare is prohibitive for many returning to work and SAHM are isolated as a result. I also find my son much harder work now than I did when he was 5 months. My day is much more restrictive. He isn’t walking but won’t stay in the pram for long so going out for long walks seeing others isn’t an option. He was 4 months when lockdown started- he to hasn’t met half his family as they live across the country and have been in higher restrictions when things did ease. The newborn stage is awful but the need for support doesn’t disappear just because my son is now 1. I really do welcome this development and don’t want it taken away from others but I think that there needs to be thought for us who have also have been raising babies through lockdown who have been also had our support limited.

DS was 1 on the 20th of November but I don't think it applies in Scotland anyway. I'm still trying to get over PND. I'm glad people with children under 1 get this benefit but my goodness am I jealous. This year has been probably the worst of my life and it's not getting better. I'd have loved to be able to see my family. My mum and sister live together at the moment and I miss them so so much.

@Milkandchocolate that’s why I think it’s unfair they didn’t include under 1s in the initial support bubbles. You would have been able to have one now if they had. It’s a huge oversight as so many people have been left isolated and struggling at a time when they are trying to recover physically and mentally from birth too. But now there has to be a cut off and where do you put it? As pp said there is argument for everyone to be allowed a support bubble as everyone has different reasons for wanting one but I guess that would be too much mixing.

@Popgoesthebubble I don’t think you’re having a pop, don’t worry! I guess hopeful desperation!! But anyway, we will do what we have been doing, and wait for the days we can meet again (probably when I am back at work!).

OP and the others unhappy with this please write to your MP.

Only because people rushed to complain to their MPs did they change children under 5 counting during lockdown.

@Racoonworld personally I feel that when free nursery hours kick in would be more appropriate. The cost of childcare means many women (as it is mainly women) cannot return to work after having children. It is also more likely that those above that age are already used to being care for my people outside their household as these children will have been over 2 when the first lockdown started. Childcare bubbles exists but how can I leave my son with someone who hasn’t held him since he was 4 months old. Yes I understand that there needs to be a cut off and that it would of been nice to have introduced them earlier but they didn’t so now we have to ask how we can make those who were and remain just as isolated during this pandemic the help that is needed- by either applying it retrospectively (which I’m not sure the law allows) or by choosing a higher cut off that would incorporate these families.

After reading the messages here and knowing I’m not alone in feeling this way I have decided to write to my MP about it. He won’t be able to change it and I’m sure others will tell me he has more important things to do but if we don’t highlight these issues nothing changes. At least it will make me feel like I have raised it, and hopefully some thought will be given to those who fall just outside the window or are SAHM.

@Racoonworld

They have to cut it off somewhere and it’s probably because the first year is often maternity leave and is so hard and isolating. As a first time parent with a newborn in lockdown it’s been so hard not to have any help or company and I think people who had newborns before all this kicked off don’t quite understand how hard it’s been for us trying to get through the new born stage with no help whatsoever. Half our family haven’t even met dd let alone held her and I’ve been alone since my DH went back to work at two weeks apart from the odd walk when the weather was nicer. I do think it’s unfair though that this wasn’t brought in when the original support bubbles were made as now it means that new parents have missed out on help and now miss the cut off age. I’m lucky my dd is 5 months and so we get to have a support bubble but I have friends with babies just over 1 who cannot and they have struggled all lockdown with a young baby, but I do see why the cut off is 1 and not older.

I had my first DD in a foreign country, we moved there when I was 7 months pregnant (DH’s job). I had no friends or family there, DH worked 12 hour days and I didn’t speak the language initially so making any friends was extremely difficult. It was really fucking hard. But so is having a toddler in lockdown. Having a newborn in lockdown being hard doesn’t take away from that fact. And allowing people to have a support bubble when they have a pre school child wouldn’t take anything away from those on maternity leave. It’s not a competition. I have three children and have been through some really tough times as a parent, but having a toddler this past year has been up there with the toughest. My nearly 2 year old hasn’t socialised with another child his age in 9 months. When he sees my dad (from a distance) he screams and hides behind my legs. He’s forgotten who all his extended family are. When you get to that stage, you will see that it can be just as hard as having a newborn.

The needs of young children and their families have been completely shat on from a great height with least benefit from the impacts.

It is good that parents with u1s have finally been noticed, but really all households need the opportunity to have a bubble (although that brings the problems of actually arranging one and in the absence of local family, we'd be sidelined by friends who do have local family, but hey ho)

Children should NOT be included in the rule of six. How on earth is it illegal to meet another family of 4 (making 8) for a walk, when it is legal for me to stand in a park running a brownie group?
Unfortunately many of the people I know are keen to follow the rules and not overlook a couple of surplus children. They were also over-cautious in the summer and reluctant to meet for the couple of months when we could so it's been grinding social isolation since March. DS(7) is having friendship issues at school and during November it was illegal for him to have any other social outlet to ease those difficulties. How can this be allowed?

I've not forgotten the baby/ toddler years. DS1 was a hard toddler (ASD not diagnosed until nearly 9) and being pregnant with SPD in a long, hard winter was tough. My friends all worked. DH had long hours and lots of travel. We had a few groups/ activities, and due to DS1's multiple allergies there was a lot of trekking around umpteen supermarkets. By the time I was on crutches, our idea of a treat was a supermarket cafe. Many of my lifelines like that or the local library are stripped away from mums at the moment. I found it tough then and hats off to mums with young children plodding through this.

School has helped my DCs massively and is respite from the DCs, but we still have informal social needs. I had points in June of regular sobbing from being completely peopled out by the household and total neglect of any external input into my social needs. DH ensconced upstairs working (and tiptoeing around his conference calls) and children fixated on Pokemon and nuclear war did not really hit the spot! I was still glad that they weren't 1/3 or 2/4 any more. I think that would have been a final nudge into depression.

Tbh if they are going to have to cut it off somewhere (which I accept) it should be the age when the start to get free nursery - I’m sorry I’m not sure when that is as mine are older now. I think it’s age 2 or 3?

None of the politicians making the rules have probably ever been at home with their kids alone!

It’s much better than back in March / April when they really should have thought of things like support bubbles before lockdown 1, which was terribly isolating for many, and had a sense of real unfairness about it in the way it affected some much more than others. But always room for fine tuning!

@Racoonworld

A small baby doesn't get bored with just mum or dad around. Its easy to chat to another parent out on a walk with baby in a buggy or sling. Mum might feel isolated, but she's only managing her own isolation.

A two year old gets bored. They crave spending time with children their own age. They need it for their development in a way that babies don't. You have less option of going for a walk with friends because they after less tolerant to bring pushed and carried around, interrupt and take constantly etc. The only half chance you have of a chat whilst they are awake (and they nap less than babies) is at home, when playing with another child.

You aren't just managing your own loneliness, but theirs too.

Personally, if I could choose I've year of a child's life for bubbling, I'd choose 2-3 -before the free hours kick in, but when they funded loneliness intolerable. Even though one child of mine is too old for this bracket, and one too young right now.

I think you are looking at this through the eyes of someone who hasn't been there yet, which isn't surprising, but honestly if you think lockdown with toddlers or preschoolers is easier than a young baby, then I think you'll come in for a big shock in a year or so, though hopefully Covid will be all over by then.

Its really pissed me off they've not included preschoolers and I'm betting it's because of an "you can send them to nursery and go to work" attitude

DD is two and thankfully now in nursery but it's need relentless, she stopped napping at the start of lockdown one so no let up all day and now going to the playground is cold and miserable. I'm so glad she gets to play with other kids at nursery and I want kids who's parents can't send them to nursery to be able to have something and for their poor parents to get a flipping breather.

There's no bubble for SN kids is there?

[quote Popgoesthebubble]@Racoonworld

A small baby doesn't get bored with just mum or dad around. Its easy to chat to another parent out on a walk with baby in a buggy or sling. Mum might feel isolated, but she's only managing her own isolation.

A two year old gets bored. They crave spending time with children their own age. They need it for their development in a way that babies don't. You have less option of going for a walk with friends because they after less tolerant to bring pushed and carried around, interrupt and take constantly etc. The only half chance you have of a chat whilst they are awake (and they nap less than babies) is at home, when playing with another child.

You aren't just managing your own loneliness, but theirs too.

Personally, if I could choose I've year of a child's life for bubbling, I'd choose 2-3 -before the free hours kick in, but when they funded loneliness intolerable. Even though one child of mine is too old for this bracket, and one too young right now.

I think you are looking at this through the eyes of someone who hasn't been there yet, which isn't surprising, but honestly if you think lockdown with toddlers or preschoolers is easier than a young baby, then I think you'll come in for a big shock in a year or so, though hopefully Covid will be all over by then.[/quote]
You've hit the nail on the head here - twice recently I've been for a walk with a friend who had her tiny, sleeping baby in a sling, while my toddler was wanting to inspect leaves for half an hour and interrupting our conversation every 2 minutes (as toddlers do), then having a meltdown, so it ended up being super stressful which was the exact opposite of the intention of the walk!

@Milkandchocolate my PND is now much better thank you, although the latest lockdown did test that! I hope you're coping okay with it.

@Candycats I’m doing ok thank you. I know that getting out for a walk first thing helps me even though it is a challenge with DS. I’m hoping he will like the push trike he is getting for Xmas so I can go out for longer. And CBT helped. Perhaps being back at work will also help but given my job is very stressful at the best of times and even more so now there is a pandemic who knows. Just have to see.

@RedMarauder I followed through on what I said and wrote to my MP while DS napped on me today (we’ve had a bit of a set back with sleep recently). I’m not sure I will get a reply but we shall see.