To think 13 months old is too young to leave DC with grandparents for 7 nights

[lavenderdillydilly]

Would you leave your 13 month old with their grandparents to go away for 7 nights with your DP/H to Vietnam/Indonesia?

Not me, but someone I know is doing this. I have a 7 month old and I thought holidaying along with DH was a thing of the past for us. But is it normal/common to leave baby DCs behind? I would feel uncomfortable but then I have been told I very much treat DC like a PFB - I don't want to be like that though and appreciate my hormones are slewing things!

Edit to say relationship with grandparents is good and they see their grandparents a couple of times a week for daycare.

Nope I wouldn't have done it. Too long and too far away if anything happened

Would I have done it personally? No.

Would I judge someone else for doing it? No.

@OldTinHat

lol I hope you’re joking!!

@Isthisreasonable

people need holidays 🤷‍♀️ so yeah it is hard to sacrifice them. Yeah there might have been decades before kids but so what?! Could we say the same about weekends for example? Oh you’ve already had decades of weekends, you can do without for a couple of years?! No! Cos people need breaks, changes of scene, etc

My 15 year old would pay me to go away for 3 nights so he could do what he wants 😂😂

I could not agree more. 👏👏👏

It’s absolutely none of your business. My son is 2, I’d do it now for a week my mum has offered to take him so we can have our honeymoon next year. I’d have probably done it when he was 13 months if the chance was there. Maybe try focus on your own life than what everyone else is doing with theirs.

I wouldn’t do it myself but certainly wouldn’t judge anybody that did.

I might do a week at a push if it were a very special occasion, but I think about 4 days max would be my limit. A week to myself sounds amazing but in reality I think I’d miss the little rotters after a couple of days.

If it's not your child why would it matter?, we didn't but only because we never thought too really, I have absolutely no issue with the idea

I’m not really sure how what another parent does with their children affects you (apart from knowing a child was abused or neglected, then inform social services)? If you don’t want to leave your children then don’t. I’m sure you’ve felt judged by some of your parenting decisions, it’s not a nice feeling.

The majority of parents are trying their best and make decisions for their family and what works for them. They don’t need your judgement.

Life is too short to judge other people's parenting choices.

It's not your business and you are being too judgemental. You do you, leave others to do them.

FWIIW their are babies and young children who are brought up by their grandparents and suffer no damage at all.

I wouldn’t do it out of guilt that my baby would miss me and be confused. But on a purely selfish level I would have absolutely loved the opportunity to go on a weeks holiday after surviving the tricky first year!
My parents sent me at age three to my grandparents and my ten month old sibling to an aunt for a week so they could go on an overseas holiday. It never occurred to me until I had my own baby how wild this was.

This in spades - it very much depends on everyone involved.

We went away for five nights when DS1 was 14 months - he had a whale of a time with my parents and they still have a close relationship. It was the maximum I could manage away from him but the break did us such good, and my Mum has such fond memories of it.

Yes. I left mine with my parents in law at 7 weeks old for a fortnight while I went on holiday.

It’s a personal thing, surely. It isn’t about what is ‘too young’ really. It’s more about how you personally would feel about being apart from them for that length of time at that age. (Also, a week of baby care is a huge ask of the grandparents, frankly.)

I don’t think I know many people who would have been comfortable leaving a one-year-old for a week, even with grandparents, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong or harmful or weird.

YABU because it's none of your business. It's up to the parents and grandparents. You're not a martyr or a better parent because you wouldn't do this.

YANBU for not wanting to do it yourself but YABU to care if other people do it.

Leaving a child with their own grandparents for a week is hardly neglect or abuse or something to judge anyone for.

@LuckySantangelo35

Think you responded to the wrong poster!

Mine are 4 and 2 and I don't leave them for more than a night or 2 max but only if they were with their dad. I do know people who leave kids for much longer though. Personally it's not for me.

I wouldn’t.

I was in the hospital for a week, and even though his dad brought him to visit, my then toddler wouldn’t have anything to do with me when I first came home

Are they perhaps from a different culture? I well remember being 😱when a friend from a Mediterranean culture told me that she and her dh had gone away on holiday for a month when her first baby was just 4 weeks old!
No way could I ever have done that!

But in her culture (certainly at the time) babies and children were often left with grandparents. Someone else I knew (same culture) sent her little boys of maybe 2 and 3 to her mother (in a different country) for months at a time - because she couldn’t cope with them! She wasn’t even working. Admittedly they were a pair of rampant human hurricanes, but still….

Mine will be 1 next month and I've left him for the weekend a few times, the first time he was 6 months. He is used to Grandparents looking after him, he's had overnights there from 6 weeks.

More than a weekend hasn't happened yet but I'd be comfortable with it.

Not at all unusual in my culture, although it seems to evoke strong opinions in the UK. My parents went on holiday without us (as well as holidays with us) from when my brother and I were young and it was completely normal. We enjoyed time with our grandparents and it’s genuinely never occurred to me to something at all problematic 🤷🏻‍♀️

It depends on whether the grandparents are fit and able and the relationship the child has with them. My late mum was like a hands on second mum to my son and my brother’s two girls. She was so experienced because she’d had three children and she worked with children every day in her career. She helped with bath times etc and often cared for her grandchildren. I left my son with her and dad for a week when he had asthma and was not allowed to fly at 11 months. Mum & dad offered to look after him and we went alone. She also looked after him for two weeks when he had chicken pox at five years old and I had to work. He was covered in spots but over the worse i.e. no temperature or fever. When he came home he said he would like to be retired when he was older because he’d had such a good time pottering around the garden & allotment with them and looking after dad’s many animals. They are now aged 37 to 50 and often reminisce about days out with their grandparents on Dartmoor or visits to holiday parks.