How long can I leave my child with my parents?

[Nanami]

Me and my partner always wanted to go on a couples vacation in Japan, and were planning to early next year but I’ve fortunately become pregnant !! We are planning to stay where we are and postponing the trip for 3-5 years and then having our trip, I was wondering if this will be ethical to leave our then 3-5 year old with my parents for a few weeks? My parents used to leave like this all the time at least a month a year when I was young and I was fine but I know this logic is unfair. Will this be okay? We are planning to call home often too and checking up on her, I just want to make sure there won’t be any psychological effect for her because we left her once, we have no plans of separating from her again except for this one thing because it’s been something we talked about for years

Hard to say really. I’d guess the earlier you did it the less likely your child is to have any memories of you not being there for a few weeks. My parents went away for a couple of weeks when I was about 4 and I stayed with my grandparents but have no memory of it and really don’t think it had any negative impact on me.
You can’t really make any decisions until a bit closer to when you’d want to go. You don’t know what capacity your parents will have in 3-5 years, or whether you’ll even feel comfortable leaving your child for a length of time.
Best thing to do is make sure your child spends alot of time with her grandparents so you know that she is comfortable with them and you’re comfortable leaving her in their care. Then you can plan your trip in a couple of years time and do practice runs with having your little one stay over at her grandparents for a night or two.

That's too long for two young kids.

A week tops. And that's pushing it.

Per PP. they might not remember the event if they are really small but they will remember the feelings of mum and dad being not there. Emotional memories.

I'm a huge advocate for relationship time but that's too long. I hate to say it but I think you've missed the boat and now need to wait about 18 years 🤷

Sorry for not being clear- I only have one kid thats on the way.

A practice run sounds really good actually! thank you, I'm going to bring this up with my partner <3

Tbh I you can’t make the decision til you have the child. What kind of temperament your child has, what relationship they have with your parents, will you miss the child too much?

Personally I couldn’t leave my 7 and 4 year old for a few weeks. I wouldn’t leave them for more than a few days. My DH and I have our first holiday abroad without the kids booked next year (they will be 8 and 5) for our 10 year wedding anniversary. It’s three nights. They’ve spent four nights at my mum’s once or twice before, in the school holidays, for childcare reasons. That’s long enough for me, I was really looking forward to them coming home. I do love spending time with my DH and having dates etc. But family time is very important too and very young kids need their parents.

When I was a child, from age 2-15 my paternal grandparents took us abroad for six weeks every summer to give my mum (single mum and my dad had no custody) a break, as well as taking us for the Easter and October holidays and a few days over new years (my mum had us for Christmas). I don’t think it psychologically scarred us but I personally cannot imagine leaving my 2yo for six weeks! My mum had no choice as she was in hospital pregnant with my sister. And after that it just became an annual thing.

Another factor for me - I couldn’t justify spending that amount on going to Japan for several weeks unless I was also able to afford similar opportunities for my kids. So I wouldn’t do it if we weren’t also doing an abroad family holiday that year too.

Why not go travelling with your child instead and enjoy the experience as a family? You might find you’d actually prefer that. Once you have a child your priorities do shift. I love experiencing new things with my DC and taking them on adventures. We went to Japan on our honeymoon and I’d love to think we could take the kids one day.

I've left my 2 year old DD for 3 nights with my parents recently, and I think it's good to have some adult time occasionally, but I don't think I could leave her for several weeks...especially when it was somewhere as interesting as Japan.

You mentioned waiting 3-5 years until you book the trip, I would lean more towards the 5 year mark and take them with you. We had booked to go on a cruise and tour to Asia (starting in Japan and finishing in Singapore) back in 2020 with some friends, it obviously got cancelled because of the pandemic, then both my friends and I started families. We have spoken about booking the trip again in around 5 years time when our children will be 5&7 so that they could come and get something out of it too.