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?

If what she’s doing works for her, and she’s happy then that’s the end of it. Some kids (and their parents) benefit from a firm routine. Professional babysitters are an expensive luxury and personally I wouldn’t trust a stranger with a young baby.

I wasn't a slave to my child and my life did not revolve around nap times. I can understand not going abroad until the child is a bit older because it can be the opposite of relaxing, although I did take mine. I also completely understand her not leaving her child with anyone but her parents. Finding a reliable babysitter is hard and very expensive. Even then you never really know who you are leaving your child with and, let's be honest, few strangers are going to put your child first and foremost if some dreadful emergency happened. I never left my son with "the teenager next door".

I haven’t had a decent holiday in years 😭 yeah kids change absolutely everything.

I also don't have kids, and this is how most of my parent friends are.

Their whole life changes and they become different people. On the off chance they will actually make plans with you, it's often 3 months ahead and cancelled last minute because of babysitter/sickness anyway. If they do turn up to something it's usually with the kid and you won't be able to say a complete sentence to each other without interruptions. Once the kids are older than that, they want to listen to all your private conversations. If they turn up to something without the kid they only talk about the kid anyway.

It's hard but you have to accept that it's never the same friendship again. Best thing to do is make more friends with people who don't have kids. That way all your conversations don't revolve around poo, school or nursery applications or similar.

It's also a lot easier to not being there to deal with the trauma of someone you care about becoming a shell of who they were because their world gets incredibly small day-to-day (unless you find meaning in endless laundry etc) they lose all sense of who they are as a person and spend all day/night being stressed while trying to pretend they're not.

There is a halfway house of course! Take baby with you for meals round friends houses. Invite them over to yours. Meet for coffee. Hardly a big outing. Little babies and babysitting is difficult but by 18 months, it’s much easier to find a young adult. We used nursery nurses from DDs nursery from 2 onwards. It was their side hussle and they liked DDs. You can find a way if you want to see your friends. If you don’t, keep making baby excuses.

When you don't have DC and your friends are in the tiny-children stage is definitely a trying time for a friendship. But you absolutely can get through it if there's some patience, flexibility and empathy on both sides. I actively enjoyed seeing child free friends when my DC were tiny because it was nice to talk about music or politics or work with someone who had zero interest in potty training or childcare fees, and I tried my best not to be unduly flaky (which meant not committing to more than I could reasonably manage) and I'm sure they did patiently forbear through the odd story about the nanny being sick and my last-minute cancellations due to sick DC/sick me/being so exhausted I could barely string a sentence together. Now my DC are older and we're still friends and that patience is needed much less. And while my operating system had a major override during the preschool years, I was still me. It was a season and it passed.

I would agree that it's best for the non-child-having to build their childfree friend networks, though, as my capacity to emotionally support friends in the way I might have as a non parent plummeted. I completely understood that for my non parent friends, some fraction of their emotional support network had basically just announced "REBOOTING... COME BACK IN 4 YEARS... MAYBE" and they naturally weren't going to love that, but I didn't have it to give so it was best for everyone if they had other people to lean on more for a while.

No it doesn’t have to be.
I could never imagine planning whole days or months around naps! That’s what the buggy is for. My sister had a friend like this and she missed out on so many trips, days out and meet ups with other mums as she had a funny thing about getting her child to nap at x time every day. But it didn’t really seem to make her life easier as she never went anywhere anyway. Seemed counter productive.
Going out without kids can be hard though as not everyone has someone to babysit or may need to BF them etc

Not going abroad I get - it sucks when they're toddlers, its just parenting in another climate. We were expat for the first 4 years of his life, we travelled a lot.

But yeah, my SILs were the same about naps etc. It was so limiting for family get togethers as we all had to work around their feed and nap schedules. Ds was easy, he bfd on demand and napped whenever he liked. Didn't need a dark room or have to be in a cot (actually, he never slept in a cot) - car seat, pushchair, across the seats of two dining chairs, anywhere really!

We try to be home for our toddler's afternoon nap. We do leave our toddler with trusted baby sitters and we do go away on holidays - including abroad. We never ever take our toddler out for the evening, not least because we like to have a few drinks etc.

Parents are different and also children are different.

Hopefully it won't be too long before your friend gets comfy with using other childcare and gets out and about again. If you want to get back to way things were, try to understand and avoid judgement/disapproval of her parenting. Or broach it really, really carefully.

That said, I do find it hard when friends with kids won't use a babysitter, so we can't ever go out for dinner. But then I'm rarely out for impromptu drinks with childfree friends these days, so can't really judge...!

To add: some people's toddlers still don't sleep through the night. If your friend is one of these she might be struggling a bit generally, and need the lunchtime nap time at home to decompress, sleep or get chores done.

Can you try and compromise and meet for brunch or afternoon drinks, to avoid nap time?

I definitely don't think this needs to be the case and it's not been my experience personally, I'm a first time mom, my baby is 6 months old and he comes everywhere with me! We go on trips throughout the week, in the last fortnight we've done soft play, swimming, botanical gardens, library, nature centre... we've also done a holiday in Wales with him, trips to the beach, we're going for a weekend to Forest of Dean on Friday and got a holiday to Majorca booked for July! It definitely takes a bit more planning but babies can sleep in prams and be fed on the go, so don't worry it's definitely possible to still have some fun with them around, I love taking me little one everywhere and soaking up all the time I can with him whilst I'm on mat leave. Logistically it can be challenging but it's worth it getting to experience everything with them!

Mine was very portable as a baby but much less so as a toddler (from when she went to one nap a day) and it’s really hard to get a good nap in the pram now so usually try to have nap time at home. I find theres not much point going somewhere with a grumpy tired toddler if they haven’t napped well anyway as you can’t enjoy yourself. A bad nap can disrupt her night sleep for days and it has a big impact on me as my job is mentally demanding and I struggle so much when I’m tired. We have still gone on holidays but less frequent than before and try to avoid very short breaks like weekends away which are just not worth it.

Not everyone has portable babies/toddlers who will happily snooze away in their buggies.

I also prefer that mine get the best quality nap which is always in a cot, not a buggy or car seat.

Says who?

I used to split my days into part 1 and part 2 and meet up with friends in either of those blocks. This was between 1yr-2.5yrs old when DC had 1 nap a day; it was in the cot and essential for everyone’s health and well-being. I’ve never used a babysitter and don’t go out at night, and generally take the view that if my kid can’t come, neither can I. Not everyone feels that way which is fine, but I won’t apologise for it either. I actively chose to have DC and don’t want to waste my time not hanging out with them when they are so tiny and growing into such treasures.
None of my friends were ever rude or judgemental about it, including my child-free friends. I have no issue with my friend who limits trips because she can’t leave her dogs alone for too long, nor my friend who can’t cope in crowds, nor my friend who has no transportation and needs lifts or visits in order to meet up. I adapt and try to understand because they’re my friends and I actually like and respect them.

It’s different for all children and all parents.

DD was such a fussy baby…. Nightmare napper, nightmare feeder etc. it was so hard to do anything!

DS was an easy, happy baby who breastfed easily and slept anywhere. We could do anything with him and he’d happily go along with it.

now…. DD would be ok with anyone babysitting as long as she knew them. But DS is ND and we really struggle to get anyone except GP to babysit him. So we are limited in what we can do.

Depends on your child and how.you cope with no sleep. I ended up having g my day revolve around naps because ds was a terrible napper but if he didn't nap weirdly he then wouldn't sleep at night. If he napped mid afternoon then he would sleep through the night. It was bonkers and you would think it couldn't be true....but for some reason it was.

Naps are important but I think parents need to work at adapting a child to nap in different places. We were quite go with the flow with DS1 because he never slept at night no matter what we did however if we had had a breakthrough we probably would have been more rigid. As for holidays and babysitters, that is 100% choice. You may need to manipulate feed times for a while and think carefully about flight times etc. I know some mothers are very controlling and don't even let partners put baby to bed, then complain they never get a break. I have a very low tolerance of people like this. But a baby can't just be handed over to a stranger. You have to let them spend time with the baby and you and gradually work towards allowing them do night time routine. Or you put baby down then leave. It's all possible just a matter of your priority and motivation.

Every baby is different.

One of our antenatal group is smug as fuck about "you guys with your routines".

Her baby has slept through since early on, and will doze off randomly mid afternoon even if she woke up just 30m ago.

We're not precious about routine, but we know our son needs a certain quantity of sleep one way or another. He can do it on the move or at home so we're not that housebound. Our son had a late nap the other day and a very late bedtime - and was up all fucking night after.

We all have different approaches about what works for what we need and what our babies need. People who are smug about not being routined are just a bit dumb, frankly, because they don't understand that everyone is different.

Oh, and I don't find it boring or restrictive to follow his life and needs. I can broadly do what I want but not exactly when I want to. If you don't have the emotional maturity to bend your life around your child at least a bit, then you aren't ready to be a parent.

I think parents need to work at adapting a child to nap in different places

How many awful, broken nights with a miserable overtired baby do you have to live through before you can acknowledge that "adapting a child to nap in different places" just isn't working?

Well yes actually. My mantra was thou shalt not defy the sanctity of the nap.

Makes perfect sense since sleep promotes sleep, just like energy promotes energy.

That's what it's like for all babies. Weirdly, babies sleep way better when they aren't too tired. The tireder they get, the harder it is for them to fall restfully asleep.

If I stayed out right through naptime or up late into the evening, all of us would be paying for it for, no exaggeration, a week.

Getting on a plane with babies or toddlers has become a thing now though, hasn't it?
People keep filming screaming kids on planes when parents are trying or even adults scream in toddlers faces because the adult can't control themselves... it doesn't exactly help with any anxiety a parent might have about travelling with their baby.

Plus... there are still us mums out there who find talk about nappy rash and milestones boring too! 🙋‍♀️
I deal with it all day so I definitely do not want to continue talking about it when I get to have an adult conversation. I know my friends without kids aren't the slightest bit interested! Just like I'm not at all interested in their pets but they continue anyway. 😅

Me. The parent of said children who sleep better in their cots.

Of course it won’t be the same for all children. Mine are always grumpy and grizzly and wake up earlier than expected when they’ve napped on the go, if they nap on the go in the first place.

It just isn’t worth it.