worried about who will look after DS if I go into labour during the night?

[MadameCheese]

Both sets of parents live a few hours away. Also wouldn't be able to ask working friends so I'm getting my nickers in a twist . What did you do? Thank you!

My family lives abroad and all the friends work . Luckily FIL is able to do the babysitting, but he is getting married in less than 2 weeks' time so it would be really annoying if both events would be happen at the same time. (Induction is booked 2 days after the wedding when FIL is on his honeymoon.) Also my husband is the best man. I am 40+2 so the chances are I give birth earlier than that though. However, I do get annoyed that I have to ask FIL to do the whole babysitting anyway as he also may have to take time off from work.

As backup, another friend, who works, works flexi tiI was very lucky that a very close friend was able to have her, she does not work. it was arranged that she would be prepared for a night call as it happened, she was called at 8am on a saturday morning and DH was able to be there with me.

When DD was born, my other very close friend was due to be there at the birth in place of my poorly mother. She is fortunate to have an understanding boss and told her that she would possibly need to run at the drop of a hat, and they made provisions with another colleague to take over if this happened (community nurse). Again, she happened to be on leave when I went in to labour, on her way to cornwall, so got dropped at a train station and returned!

Is it at all possible for a friend to be stand-by and take emergency holiday if this happens? Or, around your due date have your mum, or another parent come and stay with you for a few days?

You need to have a stand by plan. Mine was our nanny, (cost me a fortune) but had to call her at 3am on a saturday.

re: parents you might have notice. I had around 9 hours "notice" - although both lots of parents abroad at time so that wasn't helpful.

Both my and DH family live abroad. We decided that DH would stay with DD1 (he got me to hospital but did not stay).

It meant that I did not have a birth partner but the midwife was fantastic and all went quite smoothly. In fact it worked so well like this for us that we did the same for all 3 Dcs that came after DD1. For some reason it made me really more relaxed to know that DH was with the DCs and that they were well cared for.

Luckily my sister came down at midnight to stay, and my auntie came in the morning to let her go to work, pil took over in the afternoon and I was home for tea. My parents were on holiday, I went 12 days overdue my mum was not happy. Do you have friend who could have him till you parents or pil could get there?

Where are you madamecheese? Maybe one of us could help you out!!

Have a home birth - then you don't need to leave the house! That what I did with dc2 and 3. Much nicer than hospital birth anyway IMO.

Otherwise have you not got any friends you could ask? I went round to friend's house at 3am to sleep there until her MIL arrived at 6am when she went in to labour with no2.

with dc2 we called BIL who lives 30 mins away at 11pm, nipped out to the hosp, dc2 was born really quickly and DH was home by 3am drinking beer with BIL.We worried about it for months and in the event it was not a problem. With dc3 the dc stayed asleep and she was born downstairs we had FIL on call in case we had to go in to hosp. Again we worried a lot and it was fine. We had all sorts of plans, if daytime we had a friend lined up to take the dc to her house, another whose dc are at same nursery and school as ours lined up for a breakfast date if labour started in the night. lots of other friends warned that they might be called.Ask any of your friends with kids of their own, they would be happy to help I'm sure.

No advice, but just wondering if anyone had any experience of what would happen if you just turned up at the hospital with him?

And for what it's worth, I'd be happy to look after someone's child in those circumstances, even though I have to be at work very early - even if it was just an acquaintance and not very close.

I was told if we turned up at the hospital with the DC then DH would have to look after them in the waiting room until after I'd given birth. This was a MLU, I suspect that in the event we had actually turned up with them they would have let them stay in the room with us if they were asleep say in a buggy out of the way.

But I agree with Lola, I would look after any of my friend's children or any of my children's nursery/school friends in these circs.

When I was having my 2nd a lady was in the labour ward with 3 x DSs! The midwife said that they could not locate the father or turn away the kids so they stayed with the mother .

Not ideal, but I just wanted to let you know that these things happen.

I've been the person who's been woken up at 3:30am to go and babysit a sleeping toddler. The parents in question phoned her mum who set off at about 5am and arrived 4 hours later, at which point I was off duty. It was a pleasure and quite exciting to be part of someone's birth story!

worse case scenario is you can get a taxi there and DH comes later when parents have arrived

also do ask friends. I am sure they wont say NO