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

None. Nobody lives nearer than 3 hours away. We use childminders, after school provision and occasional favours from friends.

Our family don't provide any kind of consistent help with child care, just the odd night or two so we can get out. It's not a weekly or even monthly occurrence.

We have 0 help. Closest relatives are 1.5 hr away. My parents live 2.5 hrs away. DH and I work back to back shifts on opposite shifts so that one of us is home. It’s been tricky at times and sometimes I feel like a single parent because DH works more than me, so most of the stuff has to be done by me. We work 12hr shifts which work out with travel as a 16 hour day.

No family support locally.

Childminder from 13 months for both. She would also babysit an odd evening occasionally (paid). Nursery from 3 years. Some of the ECPs would babysit an odd evening, again, paid.

Once at school, we have our neighbour's teenage daughter babysit (paid).

Grandparents would offer days out in the school holidays and INSET days.

None. At all. Ever.

If you use nursery for work there's nothing stopping you booking an ad hoc extra day, other than the cost and if they have space.

Only PIL have had ours overnight and not until they slept through so they were probably 5 and 3?

We use paid childcare through the week, always have. PIL will have them overnight every 3 months or so for us to go out for dinner or (as we are doing next weekend!) doing something like decorating.

None. I've always used babysitters. Like 99% of people

1. 2 - my parents. I'd also trust my sister but due to circumstances she can't really look after my daughter at hers/overnight

1. Per week, 0. We've had my daughter looked after overnight by my parents twice (daughter is 12 months). They have also had her for I think 3x afternoons on a Saturday. This has been so me and my husband can go to pre arranged social occasions such as a friend's 30th, a wedding etc

1. Yes they've had her twice as above. Next time they are due to have her overnight it will have been 3 months since last time

1. She goes to their house

I'm the only parent I know in my friendship group that doesn't have regular childcare given by parents but I don't mind. It would be nice to have more overnight stays so we can catch up on sleep but I don't like to ask unless we have a specific reason such as a wedding or something like that

@Eirlys1986 Dd's partner left her when she was pregnant with the baby they planned so I stepped in so that she didn't struggle because I'm a mum and it's what I do. It is hard work but dgs is thriving and so it must suit him and he tells dd he has fun at Gangan's. He's a happy, cheeky boy who last night sent a message independently through Alexa to tell Gangan he needs cupcakes (I was baking at seven today) Ds enjoys being a big part of his life too.

1. About three
2. Maybe once or twice a month, for social reasons not work
3. Yes
4. It varies, grandma lives over an hour away, so when she visits its usually a week at a time and she’ll give us a night off in that week, if its a friend babysitting they tend to come here as its easier with all the kids things being here.

@hiredandsqueak oh this is so cute! Keep baking those cakes Gangan!

Oh ages of children 7 and 1.

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?

1. Both sets of grandparents, my sister and her husband, my cousin and his wife.

2. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc

GPs help usually 2-3 days per week with my daughter. Can vary from a full day to a couple of hours as DH shifts vary. Will collect son from school as well.

Social childcare couple of times per year.

3. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?

Yes. Both children stay with both sets of grandparents. Son stays out once per week but if we needed childcare they are more than likely available to have them both overnight.

4. When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours?

They prefer to have them stay at their house if we're going to be later than 7.

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?

ZERO

1. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc

ZERO

1. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?

NOPE

My parents are toxic. I am NC with mum and brother. Arms length pleasantries with dad. If there was some absolute dire life or death emergency then I could ask my dad and he would probably say yes. The kids would be fine nobody would die, but he would be guaranteed to lose his temper if I was longer than an hour or two. It would have to be at my house (because he has nasty little rat dogs that bite) where he would spend the time snooping at any private paperwork he could find.

Your children are yours to care for. Nobody else's. If you have kind non toxic family who are willing to care for them occasionally op you are very lucky and awful for trying to work out of your 'hard done by' by comparing to others.

What's the plan? To use this thread to manipulate more childcare?

2 year old. One set of parents are 4 hrs away, the other are the other side of the world.

We have had one overnight away from him in two years & we’ve had a babysitter three times now. We’re lucky that we have a brilliant teenage neighbour & they adore each other, so hoping we will go out a bit more this year!

I work four days and he is in nursery for those four days. Compared to siblings and friends, we are really in a minority for having very little weekly help.

We get no help at all.
Dp's mum lives on the next street but doesn't bother at all. We see her maybe once a month. (Whole other story).
Dp's father is sadly not here anymore.
My mum lives 30min drive away but is unable to help due to disability's
The rest of my family live 200miles away.

We don't get time off, a break, nothing. It's very very hard some times. We have 3.5 and 1.5 year old girls

@Lordofthebutterfloofs I’m sorry you’ve felt the need to be very nasty. Perhaps best to not comment on things at all if you are just going to behave this way. I am also sorry if you are commenting like this as a result of being very unhappy yourself.

None. 3 DC aged 9-3. All would happily help in emergencies but work full time so don’t commit to regular childcare. ILs don’t have the space for sleepovers and my parents spend most of their weekends away. They’ve both had the DC probably 2/3 times at our house if we’ve been to a childcare wedding since our 9yo was born.

I don’t find it a problem. Have you looked into babysitters ?

None. My parents live close but don't offer. In 16 years married we have spent 3 nights away, for our 10th wedding anniversary. Otherwise it's just us, doing everything.

We’ve actually literally had this conversation @BabyFour2023 , I think a babysitter we really trust would make us feel in control of the situation a bit more and able to decide to take a break when we really need it 👍🏻

Babysitting we have had twice in 4 years for about 3 hours each time so we could go out - that was my mum. She would have done more if we hadn't needed her for some work based childcare - in covid we lost all childcare for a chunk of time so I worked while little one slept and my mum was my bubble and had him 4 hours a week while I worked which was fantastic, then when not in covid we use nursery, but one day a week my hours are longer. Longer than the nursery is open so my mum helps there for 1.5 hours once a week which is a godsend! Therefore I wouldn't ask her to have him for a bit on the weekend so we can go out or anything! I think she would say yea as an occasional thing but it wouldn't feel right to us to ask when she does a weekly that enables me to do my working hours :)

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?
4yo - we have probaby 10 people who we would be happy to look after her. New baby, we have 2 or 3 people we would leave him with at this age.

2. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc
2/3 afternoons grandparents look after eldest after school. Maybe once or twice a month eldest will sleepover with grandparents, or go for a few hours in the afternoon/evening if we are going out.

3. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?
Yes, usually once a month overnight at least. DD likes going for sleepovers by herself with grandparents. We also have friends who she will go to for sleepovers too.

4. When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours?
Mix, if its going to be late DD will go to grandparents, if just dinner/cinema and back by 10ish then usually at ours.

None because they don't give a toss

We had no grandparents or family to help out ( this was 25 years ago)
A group of us did babysitting for each other, and as dcs got older we used a teenager in the road. We never had a night/ weekend away on our own.

1. How many people do you have in your life that are trustworthy to look after your little one?

We have lots of trustworthy people in our lives, but in terms of the number of people who know our son well enough for him to be comfortable to be left with them for childcare purposes, we have two - my best friend and my mum.

2. How many days/nights on a typical week do you get help with childcare and is this for work/going out socially etc

Mum has him 1.5 days a week for childcare for work. She works full time herself over 4 days and chooses to spend her 3 days off split between her two grandchildren (she has no hobbies and few friends so her grandchildren are her biggest pleasure and how she enjoys spending her days off).

I can call upon my best friend on her days off for him, either for date nights, work or meals out etc but it's very rare I do this. Maybe 3-4 times a year for a couple of hours at most.

3. Do you have times when you can leave your little one overnight with grandparents?

No. My mum smokes in her house so she only watches him at our house. We've never had a night away from him (he's 3.5).

4. When you do leave them, do they have to go to grandparents house or do grandparents come to yours?

My mum comes to our house. My friend has him at her house if ever she looks after him.