Double booked feel guilty

[TheOpalFox]

I have double booked myself . I said I’d have my friends kids for her, but now I have booked a
holiday. I feel so guilty
i cant change the holiday :( but didn’t want to let my friend down
any tips please ? Am I a terrible friend?

Ahh ok that's fair enough OP, but are you helping now?

If you need a holiday for you & your kids then take it but do not offer to help someone if you cannot follow though on your offer or feel it is to much as you have helped previously.

Be clear from the start & then you will not feel guilty. Boundaries are a good thing for everyone.

Agree, I don't mind people saying no to me, I do mind people saying yes and then letting me down.

Agree. I would rather someone say they can't help out in the first place so I have a lot longer to get things sorted than to be led into believing any issues I had with childcare had been sorted and then being left in the lurch at short notice.
I can't believe people are saying she has two weeks to get it sorted as if this is a really long length of time. Good holiday clubs are often booked up for the whole summer as working parents will know they need to get spaces booked in. The friend may also have done this if they knew they didn't have the OP helping them on these dates.

You offered to help a friend

You then booked a holiday over the period of time that you offered to help the friend

This isn't double booking

This is deliberately letting down your friend and going on holiday instead

Maybe you could only book the holiday at that time and maybe you decided to put family first. I understand

But tell it like it is

Exactly. Nobody is obliged to help anyone but don’t say yes and then screw people over by changing your mind - it’s a shitty way to behave.

It sounds more as if the OP's 'friend' guilted her into accepting, by first asking for a far longer period, so that the OP felt she couldn't say no to 'only' having them for two days. It is clear to me, reading between the lines, that this friend is a user and something in the OP snapped. Good for her. Obviously, it would have been better to say no upfront, but it can be hard to break out of these dymanics. If this friend feels that she can no longer rely on OP for childcare, that is a positive.