How much help do you get from relatives with your children?

[Eirlys1986]

Hi all, posting more out of interest and to see whether or not me and my partner are feeling unnecessarily hard done by when actually we should be happy with our lot!

We have a 15 month old DS and without going into all the details basically we have only my partner’s parents to rely on to have him should we want to go out together etc.

My “poll” questions are:

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?
2. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc
3. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?
4. When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours?

Thanks all! Really interested to hear what situations you all have. Knowing age of your children would help too. Xxx

Pretty much never. If we were really in a bind we could take them to sisters (2hrs) or brothers (5 hrs). My mother in law looked after our eldest for 2 nights while I was giving birth.

Zero because I am an immigrant with family thousands of miles away:) Kids grown now though.

There are some that are trustworthy to do it. But I have never had family to help with any child care at all. Nor would I expect it from anyone,

None. My parents and in laws live on the other side of the world. We are used to managing on our own, luckily we have good friends who have helped us out in emergencies.

My mum and MIL both have ds2.5 and dd1 for two days each while we are working, we don't pay as such but we do provide spending money for days out/playgroups and packed lunches. I have offered extra for cost of living increases but they aren't fussed.

Plus they are happy to do any any adhoc babysitting we need, my aunt also will have them if I ask her too.

Only my mum and dad have had my older child overnight but only because we have only needed it a few times.

None, don’t live in the same country never had a night out without DD, have to book time off when DD is in nursery if we want to go out together, even then nursery is only a few hours here.

My parents used to help in emergencies. I think dd spent one night with them. She's nearly an adult. Ds has never stayed at a family members house without us and he's secondary age.

Also they all offered help up front we never had to ask.

No help. Technically, my parents could but they live abroad.

I have a 2yo and one on the way any day now

How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one? - quite a few for bits of days/evenings, between family and friends maybe 16-20 ish I could call on if I NEEDED to, in an emergency. Only a couple that ever actually do help though, for help in the day or the odd evening for us to go out. A handful of times in 2 years though. A few times someone’s had him for a morning or an afternoon for us to get something done.

How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc - nothing regular like that, except the childminder who is also my best friend. I wouldn’t be calling in babysitting favours to go out on a weekly basis, that’s a lot.

Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents? - my son has never done an overnight with anyone. I’ve never needed it. Grandparents would help if they were needed, but if I needed an overnight my DB and SIL or my BIL would be first pick. DB and SIL are the plan for when I go into labour. But noones ever had him for an overnight ‘just for fun’ and I’ve not needed them to. He’s also always woken in the night at least once so harder to ask than with a toddler who reliably sleeps through.

When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours? - we wouldn’t ask grandparents first. When someone’s looked after him in the day/evening it’s been a mix of here and their’s depending on the needs at the time.

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?
   My dad and step mum but they live 200 miles away so don't use them for childcare more than an hour if we're visiting as we want to see them too.

2. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc
   Never. No one to help (apart from an hour from dad about twice a year).

3. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?
   Children are 8 and 5 and this has never happened.

4. When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours?
   Their house (as they live 200 miles away)

I would say that if you have anyone to help then you are lucky. How much do you want other people to look after your children?

Mine are grown up now but we never had help and no expectations of it either. My siblings had a lot of help as they lived close to my parents, that is just the way things were.

No one in my family had help from grandparents. My mother doesn’t like children and No one would have trusted her to look after anything bigger than a hamster!

None. Our families live hundreds or thousands of miles away. We just learnt to be self sufficient.

Mine are older now but when younger IL's were an hour away and saw us every two months or so. Very occasional babysitting in the summer holidays with maybe half a dozen over night stays in total over the years so we could work.

My DM lived ten minutes away and saw us every 4 or 5 weeks or so. Babysat when asked about once every six weeks for an evening out. Usually arrived when DC in bed. Some help maybe four or five days during school holidays when asked so we could work. Never had a sleepover in 13 years.

No one ever just took them for the pleasure of it. So if they weren't with us we were at work, although I appreciate the little help we did get.

DD is 3. We have no-one and have not been out without her since she was born unless it is daytime when she is at nursery and we are off work (rare!).

1. 0 - family are not local
2. DD goes to nursery 4 days a week so we can work. That’s the only “help” we have.
3. No, my parents are a bit too old and not local. DH’s father is LC and actively dislikes children. His mother lives overseas. We see her every 3-5 years.
4. N/A

Zero. Zilch. Nada. 7 year old with SEN, family live abroad.

Pretty much never. We live several hundred miles away from family throughout our children's younger years, so only had the occasional night out when family was visiting and offered to watch them so we could go out for an evening. (Still do, but as they're all teenagers now, not such an issue ... although transport at evenings/weekends is!.)

So far everyone is making me feel very lucky indeed! We’ve been out around 4 times on our own for afternoon/evenings since our 15 month old was born but like some other posters have said as our little one doesn’t sleep reliably leaving him somewhere overnight is a big no no. Otherwise he goes to nursery 2 days a week and otherwise is always with me or dad. It’s not that I want to off load him to others as we had him so it’s of course our responsibility to care for him and not assume grandparents will etc. I think maybe we can all acknowledge thought that childcare is bloody exhausting so any break we can get is amazing! I think overall hearing from everyone we are very lucky, so just posting on here has given me a little bit of a shake up to be grateful for what we do have 😀

1. About 10
2. Approx a day or night every couple of months, for leisure
3. Not grandparents but godparents or aunt will do this perhaps once every 2-3 months
4. At their house. Not ours.

OP, how much / little help do you receive which makes you feel “hard done by”?

None.

My mum would have them if i asked, but she needs to come here as i wont allow my kids in her house (step father is a drug runner and often stores the drugs in her house)

as we’re self employed we can take time off during the day if we want to go out for a meal

1. there are people trustworthy but none of them offer so is irrelevant
2. 0
3. no
4. not applicable

I don’t work and DH wfh so we can have lunch dates while DS is in school.