To want a month or so off parenting?

[feelconflicted]

Obviously it’s impractical, can’t happen, etc, but do you ever think … if you could just have a month or so in your ‘old’ life before becoming a mum? The lie ins you’d have, the late bedtimes unworried about the next day, the books you’d read, the stuff you’d do, I can’t believe before becoming a mum I sometimes felt lonely and unfulfilled!

Each to their own. I wouldn’t have wanted this sort of arrangement at all, but I’m coming to realise that I have been unusual in being ok with spending time with my children

Go on a girly long weekend. It's a great thing!

My parents take my children twice a year for 5 days to help us with holiday childcare. Its nice to have a reset period every now and again. Esp after weeks Like i have had this week of averaging 4 hours sleep a night between sick child then sick me whilst also working all day.

How superior of you. Also, I fucking LOVE spending time with my children. What I need is a break from:

• every single nightly 3am and 6am wake ups
• getting my 1 year old dressed
• dealing with the 3 tantrums on the way to nursery

-school drop off too

• endless fucking cooking, wiping, cleaning, tidying, laundry
• convincing my 5 year old to go to sleep
• food shopping
• the million calls from nursery to pick up child so I have to drop everything at work and run to get him because he has a 0.1 degree fever

This is what i could think of in 30 seconds. There is more

Just a day would be nice! I day dream of a hotel room and room service, cooked and cleaned for then a nice uninterrupted sleep to top it off.

Same but now mine are teens I wouldn’t mind but they still want me with them so I don’t think I could actually go away for a night without feeling guilty or like I was letting them down. I feel it won’t be like this forever so enjoy it while it lasts. When they are little or still waking at night, you’re really in the trenches.

I find even with breaks as they get older, you never stop worrying about them. Mine are primary school ages so past the demanding toddler days, and a lot less hands on now. However I cannot switch off the way I used to.

Ooh yes! One of mine is a pretty little country cottage where I can potter in a little vegetable garden, eat cheese on toast or just bread and cheese and peaches and lie in a hammock! No big meals to cook, no clearing up other people's mess and silence apart from the birdsong!

At my work you get your birthday off. That's my day, cafes/shopping/spa/massage/books. For work hours, I do whatever I like all on my own. It's bliss.

But I'm lucky, I also do a couple of girls nights away each year and get regular time to myself each week (an hour or two).

Yes it is relentless! I went from working for 20 years only needing to cater to myself, to wife and mother in a year. I did return to work but that became impracticable after my second (I earned less than daycare cost and my DH had a high salary). So I gave up working imagining lovely walks to the park and the playground, fun activities at home, and two well behaved munchkins. Well. Sure some of that came true, but more often it was a relentless repeat of cooking, cleaning, entertaining, cleaning, cooking, cleaning…and we had a cleaner! Kids settled happily watching CBBees and you think ‘ah time for a cup of tea…’. Nah. Mum this mum that. I just didn’t realise how all encompassing it was and that my identity would become X’s mum rather than me. Plus my teen stepson lived with us full time bringing all that angst. Plus my DH travelled a lot for work and was away 100 nights a year! Sadly he passed away when both were still in primary so it bagaje harder still.
So sure, back in the thick of it maybe not a month but a week? Yea for sure.
To reassure you though, my kids are now 21 and 22. Younger at uni doing great things and my oldest is visiting and is now cleaning the back patio…and I’m sitting here with that longed for cup of tea!

My daughter & SIL are expecting their first baby and I was worried that I might seem too 'grabby' to ask for lovely long nanny stays (not at first of course, but the idea seems quite achievable after reading these answers )