No family support, anyone else? Help me find solutions.

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Feeling alone and exhausted. We have 2 kids, 2 years apart: youngest is 9 months (crawling, fussy), eldest nearly 3 (terrible twos).

Both parents useless, dead or alive. One has passed, but wasn’t any help when alive. My mum is alive but may as well not be, only met my eldest once 2 years ago, has never met youngest, won’t visit, and her house isn’t safe for kids. She’s an alcohol and mental health problems, possibly the most draining self centred person you could imagine and all caused by my late father who abused her emotionally and rumoured, physically but no idea if that’s her wild imagination or the truth. Don’t care at this point, she has failed me as a mother since the day I was born and I’ve been left with troubled siblings which only adds to my stress. Yes I have by now distanced myself/cut them off for my own sanity…

In-laws (mid-70s) are helpful with other grandkids (now 6+ and up to uni age) but say how much harder it is now at their age and find it hard to help as much as they did with the other grandkids (19, 16, 8, 6). They live 2 hours away but will happily drive 2 hours to BIL’s to do school pick-ups, give dinner, and drive home just because BIL/SIL are working late and “don’t trust anyone else.” But visiting us in London? “Too much traffic.” It is straight motorways to BIL but their only solution when we say we’re struggling is “come to us.”

When we do, we get fed and it’s nice to have a change of scenery, kids like the big garden and not worrying about food is nice, but help is minimal: no mornings, no overnights, no weekends without us. We’re still hands-on, plus have to pack for 5 (including the dog), deal with travel car sickness, overtired kids, and disrupted routines. Yesterday we left at 6.30pm, home by 8.30pm, no one slept in the car, toddler vomited, everyone overtired. We walked back into a messy house because we’d been too busy packing to tidy before we left. Honestly, not worth it.

We get more help seeing local friends with kids, where toddlers play and people happily hold the baby. DH agrees but won’t push back when PIL suggest visiting them. Just says we only do it every couple of months, it’s manageable, the drive here is horrid hence why we don’t enjoy it and they’re old. We’ve discussed moving out of london and we will but in a few years time. What if we moved closer for the help and their age doesn’t stop being a factor?

Meanwhile, others I know have grandparents flying in from abroad to take grandkids at 6am so parents can lay in, having them for the weekend while grandparents go to weddings, 5 days at Glastonbury, and holidays of their own. Dream scenario. We have to pay for every minute of help to have any kind of life….. I’ve not found anyone who can do double bedtime successfully yet. Given the age of the DCs they just want mum and dad or grandparents would be ideal but here we are.

DH turns 40 later this year. PIL say they won’t have both DCs as a full weekend including bedtime and mornings is ‘too much’ in case they might be unwell or not sleeping for example and even still would only help if we drive up rather come here.

For context, 2 years ago for a child-free wedding we rebooked flights to leave from near PIL, dropped off DC1, (2+ hours), packed for him and Us, their nearest airport we could leave from was 90 min away and all in return for 2 night stay. They ignored our messages when it was going badly sleep-wise. Non stop worry. We’d have been better off paying a professional to stay at ours.

I’d love to ring “mum” for help but don’t have one, never have done. I made my peace but this weekend everyone seems to be off without DCs and we feel exhausted from visiting PIL.

Any advice? We don’t want an au pair as the house isn’t enourmous being in London and someone would drive me mad living here, but I’m starting to think we need to hire someone so we can stop begging family for scraps of help and finally get a break.

what have others done in this scenario? No siblings my side as I established but DH has an older sister who is almost an empty nested, eldest off to uni in September. So left with her 16 year old. Could be an option but we’ve never asked.

We didn’t have any family help either. They’re all either too distant, disinterested or dead.

We created own support network. In London for the first two years it was our NCT friends. Then we moved out of London and started again in a village. I threw myself into Parent Helper roles at toddler group, preschool and primary school, so I could make friends.

Lots of parents here in the same boat, with no family help, so we all helped each other. Someone set up a babysitting circle which was invaluable. If I was running late for a pick up, or had to take one child to A&E, or something, there was always a pool of other parents I could call on for help. When one parent was diagnosed with cancer, we all came together to sort out a rota for cooking for them, doing their school runs and making sure their kids had what they needed on which days.

I feel very lucky to have had this support, but we all made it happen; none of us had childcare on a plate. They’re still my closest friends and support network now were into the teenage years, and don’t need childcare any more.

Honestly, having no help is the norm. We were on a different continent when my dc were your kids age. Zero help so you pay for what you need and construct your life around being self sufficient.

we did come back and my parents would help a little but lived 3.5 hours away and they worked full time so it was sporadic and I never expected them to get up with the dc etc. in their whole childhood they did take time off work and stay at ours twice for overseas weddings, my now ex in-laws didn’t babysit for even an an hour and visited a handful of times in 15 years despite us being 45 minutes away, you can’t choose your relatives

I am a lone parent. I moved out of London for a bigger house and had a live in nanny as I had to travel for work occasionally. It was a huge help. I had a nanny for ten years (the same one) until DD went to secondary school. I had no family help so it was the only way I could manage my career, but it also gave me some time to myself occasionally.

I know you say you don’t want a live in, I think I thought I’d hate it but I didn’t. It was a life saver.

Oh and my dc came with me basically - we socialised with our dc, we went to festivals with our dc etc etc. it’s was a sad day they outgrew the double buggy as it made evenings out easier

Agreed. Once you go over one, you need to accept that nobody will be happy to help unless you pay for it.

I think you might be seeing other people's lives with rose-tinted glasses. I don't actually know any families who can unconditionally drop off 2 (or more) at grandparents so they can go on holiday or child-free weddings. Even those with very loving and generous grandparents.

We decided to stay with 1 for exactly this reason. We don't live in the same town as either grandparents so have no help on a day-to-day basis. But they're are happy to have DD if we have a holiday planned. Even one potty trained and (reasonably) well-behaved child is a huge amount of work for aging GPs and we would never expect them to take an extra toddler or baby on top.

I felt very similar to you when mine were so young. But now they are older I honestly have accepted it. The only thing that does make me sad is that my children don't have the relationships with their grandparents that the vast majority of their friends have.

I used to long for being able to go away child-free, but now they are older travelling with the children is much more enjoyable, and I can always go away without them once they're grown up.

I do understand that it's hard.

I think for now, you’ll need to just forget about it. Or if you really are desperate for a night out paid childcare so you can go out for dinner is a great option.

When they’re older and you’re looking to go away for a whole night maybe you might have the option of arranging for them to have a sleepover at a friends house. It would be great if you had someone that you could trust.

Lots of people have no family help. It’s not easy. We paid for childcare, took turns to go out etc, juggled holidays separately for a long time.

I’d not move closer to in laws like the ones you describe.

On you visiting the in laws I’d seek to agree with DH to visit them less often as a whole family whilst DC are so small, but keep the offer open to host them (as guests, not for childcare)

We don’t have time away as a couple is the answer. We do support each other to have holidays and get breaks, but we have them alone or with friends/family.

Neither of us have family who can provide any support. I am NC with my family who aren’t safe to have around dc anyway. We do have MIL, but she isn’t really capable of safely caring for them. We’ve tried it a few times by bringing in another family member to babysit MIL while MIL looked after dc. Besides being logistically complicated as no family is local, the kids still weren’t really properly looked after (youngest put himself to sleep in the middle of eldest’s floor because MIL was mostly downstairs on her phone and drunk). So we don’t do that anymore!

We both do lots of lovely things. I go abroad on holiday every year. We just either do them individually or we do them as a family. We take time off during the weekdays and go to lunch and that’s the closest we get to a ‘date night’.

We used to have a babysitter we used for a dinner out, but now dc are old enough that they would still be awake when a babysitter arrived and I just don’t feel comfortable leaving them with someone to supervise showers and getting ready for bed. And frankly, I have no desire to eat dinner at 8/9pm either. I’d rather be home in bed myself! So for the hassle and expense, it’s much easier to do lunches out a few times a year.

That said, I have friends with a lot of family support. My one friend has 50/50 with her ex and then her parents have the kids 1-2 days/nights a week, so she only sees her kids maybe 2 days every 7 because her parents do everything on her contact days. As nice as it to have most of the week childfree, she’s missing out (and actually her kids are a nightmare because they don’t have proper supervision or roots anywhere).

Stop comparing yourself to others and just get on with your life, your circumstances. I had three under 2 and no help from family. (When I was expecting the twins I read somewhere that it was "not possible" to do it without lots of help: we had no family and not much money.) It sucked and was really hard, but you can get through it. When we had a bit more money and were able to we paid for help.

But surely you would have known this before you had children? And yet, you still decided to have them! I'm struggling to have much sympathy.

You just get on with it. Dh and I have zero outside help. We both work full time. We've never has a night away from the kids, and probably 5 nights out in the lady 10 years.

You have to just crack on. We never had a night away without our DC until the eldest was 12. We had about 6 hours help with childcare over the entirety of our DCs' childhoods. Maybe 9, if you count evening that we put the DC to bed at the ILs and they sat downstairs watching TV while DH and I went out for a meal...

I used to get really pissed off with other mothers who were able to 'get Mum/MIL to pick up the DC every Tuesday so I can stay at work/ go to the gym/ have some downtime' or 'say 'the ILs have having Ollie and Emmy all weekend for us to go to X's wedding', and then moaned constantly about how Mum/MIL/ILs were annoying/demanding/too strict with the DC.

I spent a lot of years biting my lip... But them's the breaks. Life isn't fair.

Comparing your situation to others doesn’t help anyone. I lived abroad from my family and just had to get on with it. Never went on a work trip with husband. Family would never come out and help. We paid babysitters though. Always went out at the weekend for dinner. It was something. Maybe start with that and then leave them for a weekend. There are qualified Nannies out there who do it.

I think it's fair enough for PIL to not feel up to looking after 2 very little ones for extended periods if they're in their 70s - I'm 54 and would find it tiring! We didn't have any overnights away when our children were small - we both had nights out with friends but rarely together. Having babies and toddlers is relentless and there is not much time to yourself but it does get easier the older they get.

Could you try advertising for a 'mother's help/babysitter' at a local college that does childcare qualifications? I think paid help, if you can afford it, is the only way you'll get a break. And maybe do a sleepover/overnight swap with a friend with children on the odd weekend?

So we don’t go away until they’re old enough for sleepovers and school trips I guess? But even then surely we need to be close by in case something goes wrong

Yes. Don’t know why this has only dawned on you?

We were in the same position. Closest family were a 5-6hr drive away, my parents a flight. No other family near and we had a few with SN on top. To be fair, most people we know were in the same position (minus the SN), so we just assumed it was standard. You just have to crack on with it. A lot of the things you talk about help wise, I don’t think a lot of people get anyway.

Yes, it’s a relentless grind. But, it is not forever, you just need to grit your teeth and march in with it for years inbetween. DH and I would go out for a movie or dinner when our youngest was mid-teens. We didn’t go away together until the youngest was 19yo. When they were young, the only time we went somewhere together was his siblings wedding, was the only time ours were babysat, otherwise we just went to weddings or out with friends separately, making sure it all worked out fairness wise.

My mum used to come visit once a year for a week and we used to get her to join us when we had a family holiday once every 3 years (dad was gone). We certainly didn’t use her for babysitting for morning lie in or going out to dinner, or off to a festival! She came to spend time with me, her child, with the benefit of spending time with my kids as well, not to be used as a skivvy! I would go out to dinner with her a few nights so we had time alone out of the house.

It is crap, I found the summer holidays particularly rubbed it in our face that everyone else seemed to have some help as even remote grandparents had the kids to stay or went on holiday with the family.
we had two nights away together before ds was 14 and that was a friend who offered to have him- he went to pgl before that but it was as we needed to childcare to work. We used babysitters from nursery, then our cleaner would babysit, then a neighbour (who does babysit through Sitters but is an outdoor sports instructor) could be paid to take him out for a day and do activities. But overnight was something we couldn’t get, and memorably ds once had to go on a business trip with dh when I was away and it was demanded dh be in France for a 9am meeting.

We’ve discussed moving out of london and we will but in a few years time. What if we moved closer for the help and their age doesn’t stop being a factor?

Do not move anywhere if the move is based around getting more help from your in-laws.

They've been very transparent about the help they're willing to offer (or rather, not). You've even said in your OP that the drive to yours is horrid. They are in their mid-70's. Looking after an 8 and 6 year old is a whole different ball game to looking after a 9 month old and a 2 year old. When their eldest grandchildren were babies and toddlers your in-laws were in their mid-50's. You're comparing apples with oranges.

You've proved that them doing an overnight 2 years ago when you only had 1 child was a disaster... They're 2 years older and now you want them to deal with a baby and a toddler while you have a weekend away? It's an unreasonable ask. We’d have been better off paying a professional to stay at ours. Correct - so do that. Nights away without your children isn't something anyone is entitled to, yes they're nice to have but unfortunately some people just can't.

Your only real option at the moment is to pay for professional overnight childcare.

I don't mean to sound nasty but I don't get why people expect family support. Young children are a big responsibility and one of the reasons DH and I have stopped at one. Another would have been great but it would have been a lot for us and a lot to expect regular help from my parents (and DH parents are not local). You had two children close together so yes you may have to pay someone to help if that would help you.

it is tough but it will get much easier as the kids get older. in 4 years, they may both be able to stay with PIL for a sleepover of a couple of nights while you get a break.

other things that might help -

• a short term au-pair (4-6 weeks) gets you a bit of help over the summer holidays but it is not a long-term houseshare. and you can certainly go out for plenty of nice dinners while the au-pair is there.
• if you and DH both have a day when you wfh while kids are in school / nursery, you can have a nice adult lunch + more
• do stay close to friends in similar situations - you can do childcare swaps where you babysit for each other or one family has both kids over for a weekend sleepover and then you swap the next weekend. again, this will be much easier in 2-3 years time

You are able to give advice without the tone. I’ve said I accepted it just had a bad weekend wondering why we go all that way to add more stress on our plates.

I'm another one who doesn't understand why anyone expects help. I never had any, and had 3 under 4 at one point. Yes, it's pretty relentless but we knew it would be. In laws are in another country and my DP aren't interested - which is fair enough. I'm not terribly interested in other people's toddlers.

I don't have GC (yet) but I'm retired and with a chronic long term condition. I won't be doing weekend babysitting for a baby and a 3 year old. It's way beyond my exhaustion levels at this point.

FWIW I don't know anyone whose parents helped out. All my friends were in similar situations - I certainly don't know anyone who had help that flew in from abroad and did 6.30am take overs. Or that went to Glastonbury for 5 days child free. That's a level of entitlement way beyond anything I could imagine. Frankly, once you are a parent of young children these types of activities go on hold.

If you can reframe it in your head as you “go all that way” to visit and spend time with DH’s parents, rather than going with the expectation of them providing you with childcare, you might feel less annoyed and resentful.

Your DH is obviously ok with it and wants to spend time with his parents.

Maybe every third or fourth visit he can go alone and take the children, and then you get a weekend to yourself.

Ok thanks maybe I will give it a go.