This is a plea for advice from the collective wisdom of mumsnet because my head is spinning from trying to make this decision and I’m still completely torn.
My husband is working Christmas Day (8-4) so we are doing “Christmas” on Christmas Eve with his family (parents, siblings, nieces). We have a 14 month old and the decision I need to make is where my baby and I spend Christmas Day.
Option 1: Go to my sister’s. She has a 7 month old and doesn’t want to travel so they’re hosting my mum and cousins. Pros of this plan are that I don’t see them very often and it would be so lovely for the babies to see each other again, and I’m very close to my mum and cousins. Cons are:
- it’s a 3 hour drive away, which my baby will sleep the first 2 hours of but will then wake up and be upset
- my aunt is kindly offering us a lift, but is nervous to drive with my baby in the car so really wants me to drive her car, which normally would be fine but my baby’s sleep is not great at the moment and there are days when I wouldn’t be safe behind the wheel
- my sister’s house is beautiful but not toddler proof at all by its nature (open fire, stone steps everywhere, very sweet dog who’d rather not be constantly pursued etc) so my baby will need to be continually returned to safety, which last time we visited made him very frustrated, so I won’t really be able to sit and relax at any point
- we’re not heading up until midday so won’t arrive until 3ish, then my baby’s bedtime routine starts at 6:30 and I tend to go to bed between 8:30 and 9 because that way I get a chunk of sleep before he starts waking regularly from 12, so realistically I’m going to end up with about 3 and a half hours actually with my family and after that I’ll be upstairs settling baby and heading to bed
- my baby’s sleep will be even worse in an unfamiliar house, and my sleep also won’t be great because I’m sharing a bed with my mum and I always struggle to sleep properly in someone else’s bed
- we’ll head back on Boxing Day and will probably be home in the afternoon, but Boxing Day is my husband’s only day off over Christmas and we’ll basically miss it
Option 2: stay at home and either have a quiet one until my husband gets home at 4 or (more likely) hang out with my in-laws for the day, then spend all of Boxing Day with my husband. Pros are that this is much calmer and my baby and I are likely to be more well rested, and my husband will take our baby for a couple of hours in the morning on Boxing Day if I need to catch up on sleep (he can’t help with the night feeds for medical reasons before someone gets cross about that :P). I also really like the idea of spending a day just the three of us at some point over Christmas. Cons are that this means I won’t see my sister or her baby for another couple of months and I know my family will be disappointed if I back out of plan A because they were so keen when they were persuading me to go up. I also think I’ll have a sense of fomo to know they’re having fun without me, and it will be really weird not to see my mum at all at Christmas.
I think that’s all the salient information - cast your votes please and help me to decide!
(P.S. not looking for any well meaning sleep training advice thank you, believe me we’ve tried everything and this is as good as it’s been for several months so just hoping that he’ll get back to being a good sleeper in his own time 🤞🏻)