A knotty issue - who looks after DS while I give birth to DD?

[firstimemum]

Hello everyone.

DD is due in late August and we have a 20mo son. DH and I live in London but both our families live in Australia and won't be here for the birth. I can't work out what we do with DD when I go into labour and have to go to hospital as we have no family to look after him. Taking him with us is obviously not an option, as he would be totally freaked out and would distract DH from his birthpartner duties! There must be loads of people (esp in London) who have been in this situation - what have you arranged for looking after your other children when you go into labour and head for the hospital???

Many thanks!

A rota of friends?

What about a homebirth and hiring a doula or asking a friend to come round? You may well go into labour at nighttime and if you have the baby at home you won't have any childcare issues. If he wakes or it's in the day your doula or friend could look after him.

Friends. I know its tricky, but people don't mind being asked, and really, there isn't another option. I don't think a homebirth really solves the problem - personally I didn't want ds1 around during ds2's home birth, much too distracting!

I was going to suggest what Daisymoo said. having a doula and your dh at home will be much less disruptive for him. I don't imagine that a 20 month old would be freaked out being at home in these circs, and he oculd have his naps/sleeps/meals as normal. maybe a rota of friends to take him to the park during the day?

i don't live in london but had the same problem, no family nearby..

we had to ask lots of friends and draw up a list that we could work through until we found someone free...

as it turned out though i had to be induced which made things a lot easier as we could arrange it and i could have the people i was happiest with rather than whoever was free!

also i didn't have a doula, but i did have a wonderful friend as a second birthing partner, so if dp needed to go to settle ds1 i wasn't abandoned! in fact dp left at 5pm (ds2 born at 3pm) to go home with ds1 and gethim settled for bed, leaving me with best friend and ds2!!!

thankyou for those suggestions. We don't have friends here that we are close enough to to ask (esp if its in the middle of the night) and most are occupied with their own young ones anyway. Homebirth isn't an option - I had a traumatic first birth and need to be in the hospital. Maybe we can find some nice girl on the Gumtree who would be willing to "live" at our house around the due date. Not ideal but I can't think of anywhere else. Are there any agencies that provide people for this sort of thing?

I think you would be surprised at how willing to help out your friends would be - try asking

agree with theblonde, you would be suprised... similar here really in that i wouldn't call friends close down here mostly know them through work or dp's job.. not like my girs at home, but people were still happy to help... particularly those with families as they can appreciate the situation your in! don't ask don't get i say

but then theirs also the question of who your happy to leave your ds with!

We didn't have any family around either, and just a few acquaintances from work & NCT when I went into labour with ds2. Had to take ds1 with us as I was supposed to be having elective CS a week later.

Had to dump ds1 in pushchair in nurses station whilst I was in theatre, then dh phoned a girl from the nursery who'd babysat and she collected ds1 from hospital plus housekey and looked after him for 24 hours (ds 2 rushed to hospital for surgery in hosp. on other side of city).

I remember feeding ds1 a jam sandwich from a trolley in the corridor about 20 mins after surgery - oh, happy days!!!

I bet friends would help out even if you're not close, people like to be asked this kind of thing, it shows you trust and respect them)
However, at the risk of sounding as though I'm obsessed with doulas (I'm not, honestly) if you really get to the stage of not being able to find anyone to look after your ds then you could consider asking your dh or dp to look after him and hire a doula to be with you at the birth instead? Not ideal, I know. Sorry, not sure what the Gumtree is but have you tried phoning babysitting or Nanny agencies?

serves me right for not trying to get to know people better since moving to London! I would feel really strange asking the people I know here and I think they would be surprised too, because I don't know them on that level. I think I'll post an advert on the Gumtree and see if anyone answers ... Either that or fly my Mum over here, though I didn't really want her around at that time. Thanks again for the responses.

Hi firsttimemum, I'm down in Oz with same situation as you i.e. all my family are in UK. Gave birth to DD a month ago, DS is 21 months and care of him during labour was the thing that worried me most - more than the actual labour! In the end I was brave and asked 4 friends (all with LOs of their own, because all my friends do!) so that they would all be able to say "no" when the time came if it was inconvenient. I have only lived here in Melbourne just over a year but bit the bullet and asked people and, as other posts have suggested, they were all delighted to be asked and it's probably brought me closer to all of them. I had a doula too and I kept thinking if the worst comes to the worst I'll send her home to babysit!! In the end I went into labour at about 11 pm, friend arrived about midnight, I was at hospital by 12.30 and DD born 3.07am. DH left at 6 and was home to give DS his Weetbix and the news that he was a big bro - he knew nothing about it, I put him down at night and his Daddy got him up in the morning! In the end I had to stay for 48 hours because the baby was being monitored cos I was GBS pos - and the lovely friend stayed over for another 2 nights so DH could sleep (or not) at the hospital with me. It all worked out brilliantly. I'd say go for it - you might be surprised how nice people are! Also August is far enough away that people could do a trial run looking after your LO so he could get used to them. Good luck!