Is it really like this having a child?

[Handsomesquidward]

A friend of mine has a toddler now and since he's been born, she won't even leave the local village without months of planning in advance because the entire day revolves around his nap at the exact time.
Zero spontaneity anymore, they have decided not to go abroad for the next few years either.
Everything planned very meticulously, they will only have a night out once every 5 months or something as they will only trust their parents to babysit.

I don't have children and this method obviously works for her, it just feels so restrictive. I cannot imagine living life that way, surely this isn't how it has to be?

People are prejudiced towards the experience they had. It's unlikely the OP's friend enjoys having her freedom so curtailed. Some babies and toddlers are more high needs than others and it's usually not a case of choice on the parent's part.

My son is nearly 3 and thrives on solid and strict routines. I have a friend who's son is like a little hippy love child who just hangs out with them at festivals and has no set routines. He's always happy. My son would crumble without routine and lots of sleep. It's just the way he is.

I do see some parents actively working against their child's natural personality type. I know some toddlers who's behaviour is atrocious and it's because parents are trying to be too relaxed and easy going when their child is clearly thriving a more set routine and is over exhausted. Everyone ends up miserable.

When it comes to babies, you don't know what you are going to get. Unless you have a lot of help from wider family then you have to go with what works for you to get enough sleep and down time. My youngest is autistic and thrived on routine. That started from around eight months old. My other two were totally flexible. I'm a believer in needs led parenting and shutting down the opinions of others, unless you've asked. My GC have additional needs (not educational) and no doubt we've been the subject of gossip. But we are now nine and seven years in and the children are thriving, so sod what anyone had to say while they were too young to be involved in additional support services (one now has a disability buggy).

I do understand this. I was the same with my four although it wasn't super restrictive really.
I used to take the eldest to school then was put and about 9-11.45 then home for nap 12-2, then free again after that.

The absolute hell on earth that ensued if they didn't get that nap just wasn't worth it. Plus I had three under four that would all nap 12-2 so I had two hours to myself that were so precious!

Regarding going out dh would have them I had no probs leaving them either with him or another family member we didn't use a sitter but only because we had other (free) options.

And yep tho those saying you don't know what you'll get. DS one total night owl, contact napper only, BF all day and night till quite old, didn't sleep at night, barely slept ever, but v mobile cos he'd just catnap on me. Thought I was v hard done by and in a way I was, so so so so sleep deprived, but am a night owl also and it fit my lifestyle. Then DS2 - still needs BF to sleep and me to be in contact but SCREAMS if it's not dark, if he gets off a regular routine, wants bed no later than 8 every night, only wants to sleep in his own bed. Difficult in a difficult way but though he needs a lot of help to get there he loves sleep. DS1 HATED sleep. You better believe I co-operate with how DS2 wants to sleep restrictive or not 😂Until you've dealt with years of that kind of sleeplessness torture you have no idea what you'd do to avoid it.

I wish I’d have been a bit more like that with my youngest, because then maybe, she wouldn’t still be a nightmare at 3 and a half who won’t sleep until 11pm.

some parents follow routines, some don’t. I didn’t with any of my 3, eldest is an adult and totally unscathed. I’ve never left any of mine with a babysitter though. We don’t have any family but dh and I have different friends anyway so go out separately so it’s not been an issue.

I couldn’t have lived my life around a toddlers nap time, but each to their own. They might find life a lot easier doing it that way.

It's not like that for everyone I'm sure but for me, we did schedule our lives around our children's naps when they were young. If they missed one, got over tired etc then it would really make the rest of the day harder! They napped at certain times of the day in their cot without fail, so yes it was difficult sometimes in the sense of not being able to do things, or go places but tbh I would rather have my sanity 😂

Having a child is as individual an experience as the two people involved. There’s no ‘standard’ method. That’s not how I lived life with a toddler. In part because I had a demanding FT job, and DH worked away most weekends, so DS and I would go with him, meaning everything couldn’t be routine-led. But some people do prioritise routines, or simply find their child is so unbearable without one that it’s an easy sacrifice. Similarly, travelling abroad. We’re not from the UK so DS was travelling to our home country and to see overseas friends, or attend conferences for my work, from a few months old, but some people don’t travel much, are anxious travellers, or have a child who reacts badly to unfamiliar surroundings/heat/ strange food. So again, it’s an easy temporary sacrifice.

We don't follow timed routines, but we have rhythms.

So we can be spontaneous, have loads of fun times. When the baby is showing signs of tiredness, we sing her songs and get her washed and changed for bed. She is old enough to start singing those same bedtime songs herself too.

We take our 18 month old to festivals, camps, gigs, parties etc. We are a unit. No screens.

Having had two very different children, nothing annoys me more than parents saying "the baby is relaxed because we're relaxed". Nope, the causality goes the other way - you're relaxed because you have a calm, flexible, happy-go-lucky baby.

(PS: the one mum in our group whose baby slept well, early, set up as a sleep consultant. She did the same the rest of us did, just got lucky with hers)

I'd struggle not to make a pointed comment @LividPink . Bit like my childless friend who helpfully tells me that she would just "tell her child not to do that". Oh, I'm sorry, I should tell the two year old to behave? Why didn't I think of that?!

It's how it worked for us!

People do different things depending on what they’re comfortable with. Until you have children you don’t know what things will be easy for you and what won’t. Before I had children I had certain ideas about things that were completely off the mark once I actually had a real life baby in front of me.

Personally, I’ve never spent a night away from DC. The oldest is 4 and will probably do a sleepover at grandparents soon, but I’ve never used a babysitter. My parents never did either. We’ve avoided holidays as well because the amount of stuff a baby and toddler needs is a lot and I don’t fancy sterilising bottles abroad. I don’t miss holidays at the moment, I’d prefer to stay home and do days out. Other people find it easy and go abroad without much thought.

Do you think I didn't try being flexible, napping on the go, in the pram, etc? I did. It didn't fucking work. He wouldn't sleep or he'd sleep lightly and for about twenty minutes, then completely refuse to nap again for the rest of the day, and we would all have a miserable night. I spent many a car journey yelling, "WAKE UP!" at the backseat and feeling like a maniac, because he would literally have a 5 minute nap in the car and then refuse ANY other sleep for the rest of the day. We tried the whole "stay out late on holiday and they'll nap in the buggy" thing. DIDN'T WORK. We tried the "keep them up later and let them sleep longer in the morning" thing. DIDN'T WORK. So yeah you better believe my day revolved around making sure he got his nap at home, because it was 100% not worth making all of us, including the baby, miserable, just so we could pat ourselves on the back for being flexible and chill.

We did travel and I really didn't have much trouble doing some solo evening socialising because DH was perfectly capable of being in charge. But I invite you to add up the cost of an evening out from, say, 7pm to 11pm at £12+ph for babysitting on top of the costs of drinks, food, etc. It's sodding expensive.

Agree that it comes from the child first. If you're on the ball you then, as parents, tune into that and positive outcomes flow from there.

My son craves routine. So we give it. This has led to a child who is secure, happy, pleasant to other children, exceptionally polite, well behaved. Because his needs are met and we put the hard work in to maintaining the strict routines he needs. I might like the idea of having a more flexible child who can just be brought along anywhere and will cope. But that's not the child I got.

Absolutely cringing for that mother though. First time mum with a chill baby by sheer luck and she sets up a sleep consultancy business? 😬 That's embarrassing.

Yes this is how is has to be.

Kids need routine and sleep to be healthy.

Most won’t trust them with an unrelated babysitter when young. Nor leave them for more than a few days so without both parents until much older.

They’re also exhausting and expensive (about 10k a year per child average, much more if you use full time child care), so this can be prohibitive to nights out.

It is a lot of work and a different way of life but it’s worth it.

Enjoy your freedom to do what you like and massive amount of free time while you can.

@Handsomesquidward Ive met a handful of people like this. One of our frutnds went down this route and became the most boring people and just dropped out from the friendship group. I guess they didn’t value friendships.

Our DDs had baby sitters and although you make adjustments to your life, dropping out altogether really means you don’t care much about your friends.

A neighbour would not allow baby sitters other than grandparents (lucky her) or allow dc in someone else’s car even at junior school. Most people thought they were weird. You need a certain amount of planning for a baby but dropping everyone else by making excuses is odd.

It doesn't have to be like that, but it's easy for it to be like that. If that makes sense.

I tried not to go five months, but I did dramatically cut down on nights out because they just weren't as worth it for me. We alternated nights doing the night wake ups for our son and our baby was very difficult. So it was never just "one night out", it had a knock on effect through the week trying to catch up the sleep (and look after baby during the day on mat leave). And being the one at home while the other went on a night out was super hard, so we didn't want to do that to each other too often.

We also decided not to take our son abroad when he was very small. Just wasn’t worth the effort to us. The type of breaks we wanted to do just wouldn’t have been worth the effort for us with a baby (city breaks, long haul travel) and we the easier package holidays didn’t appeal to us. We only took him to visit family once and to a wedding once, both very short flights and the trips weren’t massively enjoyable for us so I feel our decision was right. We’re taking him on a package holiday when he’s 3, because he can actually enjoy it properly then.

I understand the 5 months night out. You can't expect people to babysit all the time, it's not their responsibility. There are only 3 people I'd trust.

Not going abroad is usually because travelling with babies and toddlers is a lot harder and ten times more exhausting.

But no, I have never timed anything around my 4 kids naps. They either slept in the car or pram. Some toddlers don't like sleeping outside/in the pram. Mine have never been fussy though.

I will add that some kids are actually easier than others. My first is completely different to my second. Although they were both very easy babies and I breezed through it, my first had meltdowns that were an absolute nightmare! My second and third have never once had a tantrum and even at age two I could take them anywhere. So, parents have to adjust to manage their kids expectations etc. What would be simple with one kid might not be with another. The age my fourth is now is when my first started to have meltdowns but I've not had any of that with my fourth. They've all been parented the same way!

And we don't always plan days out. Sometimes we google and pick where we're going in the morning. The baby bag is always packed though so all we do is get dressed and go. I don't really know what you'd need to plan unless it's tickets...

In the first year we had a rigid schedule for DD with her feeding and sleep. Everything was planned around it.

I think we are a little more relaxed now DD is a toddler but still have things set in our schedule such as nap time (one a day) and wind-down for bath & bedtime.

We've been out of routine for a variety of reasons this last couple of weeks. DD is 2.5. We do try to be adaptable but her not napping at the usual time / at all, and her routine being off has had a knock on effect of none of us having slept more than 2 hours a night for the last couple of weeks. Exhausting.

As for the babysitting, I know you don't have kids but would you leave your most precious thing with just any random person? Or would you have to trust them implicitly?

You don't get to pick the type of baby you have. Some are very portable, others are a nightmare all day if there is any deviation from their routine and exhausted parents feel it is not worth the effort.

You don't know what type of parent you will be until you are in the thick of it. Some parents take a grizzly baby all in their stride, others find it difficult to deal with.

Everyone is doing what they need to do to get them through.

Every baby is different and every parent is different. I was quite religious about my baby's naps because she'd have endless meltdowns if she skipped one.
However, we didn't restrict our lives. We flew to Southern Europe wgen she was 8 weeks old. Took her to Asia wgen she was 11 months old. We've always loved to travel and nothing was going to stop us!

Bear in mind this doesn't last forever. They are not small for long. While they're babies and toddlers then yes, on balance many parents find their lives are net easier if they stick to a routine, even if it means not going on whole-day trips or having to do naps in a certain way. It doesn't make them precious, they've just found a system that works for them. You might find you can still have rewarding time with them if you fit in with them - lunch out if baby sleeps in the buggy, perhaps; or coming to them for dinner in the evening after kids bedtime.

My daughter dropped her nap shortly before turning 3 and that was also around the age I felt comfortable leaving her with more babysitters, confident that she was unlikely to wake and need us while we were out. Got a lot of my life back then. I don't regret the sacrifices I had to make for the sake of her routine as a baby/toddler and I'm grateful for the child free friends who got it and made plans that would suit us all.

@Handsomesquidward

I'm also interested to know if this is only your perception of things. You're surely not her only friend?

I have old friends I don't see as regularly since we all had children but that's because we live over an hour away from each other and all have kids at multiple ages and stages. Kids get sick all the time. If they're not sick, you're sick. If you're all well you still have kids to look after and every day life and jobs and a house to keep on top off. It can be hard enough prioritising each other as a couple and prioritising quality time with your family unit before thinking about various friends. Having children is hard work- maybe you'll experience it one day and understand.

Whereas in my own small town community I have a whole new friendship group of parents with similar aged children to me. We socialise with and without the children and it's easier because we all live in the same community. There's plenty to do here that's kid-friendly without a lot of planning involved: play cafés, multiple park, beach, local library, play dates etc.

Your friend may be socialising quite happily with other parents who are in the same boat and get it. She'll likely be struggling to please everyone.

It must be awful to live life so rigidly, and with so little spontaneity. Sympathy to those parents who have to do it for whatever reason.

not going abroad though, don’t understand that one! Why wouldnt you?! Especially given how shit the weather is in the uk these days!

My DS would happily nap anywhere so we were lucky. He also liked long naps which I wasn't too bothered about when he was very young. I know some parents would wake their children as they have a strict bedtime but that didn't matter so much to me until he was older.

We've only been abroad once when he was 2. We love travelling and miss it but didn't feel it would be enjoyable until he was a bit bigger.

We don't have anyone who would babysit for us so we have never had a night out together since he was born. I wouldn't leave him with a stranger for the sake of a meal and a wine.

So everyone really is different. In the early years it's about doing what you can to make life as straightforward as possible.