How do you cope if your DP travels a lot?

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DH travels a lot for work, mostly short trips of a couple of nights but also longer trips of one to two weeks at a time. To make it worse the longer trips are often to places where the time zone means it is difficult speak to or skype with DS (2.6). DS reacts REALLY badly to these trips - he has disrupted sleep often waking up three or four times a night shouting "Daddy Daddy". He is constantly asking for "Daddy cuddles" and today he has spent the whole day wandering round with a picture of his father gazing sadly at it and saying things like "Daddy's gone away on an aeroplane SIGH". He's often pretty angry with DH when he gets back too. I find it difficult because obviously he's too small to understand why DH has to go away and DH doesn't seem to get how important it is that he tries to skype/phone everyday if at all possible. Am also about to have DC2 any minute and dreading coping with the two of them alone. Anyone with any tips/experiences that can help me along?

The how many sleeps is a good thing and is crossing off a calendar.

I find the weekends fine as I always make sure we have something to do each day. Evenings I struggle with as I hate my job and once the kids are in bed I just dwell on it.

We talk about where DH is and what he's doing - so we look at the map, talk about what time of day it is, what the weather is like. The DCs (3 and 6) then ask their dad questions about it when he phones, so it all seems more familiar and not so far away.

They are also experts on Flags Of The World

My DH works away for a month at a time :( I know I am grumpy the first week and the DD's play me up loads then it settles down a bit, I started off counting down the days but now I find its easier to not think about it the first 2 weeks then we go on a count down the last 2 weeks.

DD's are kind of used to it now but we are lucky we know when he will be home. Its still hard going though, what with the dancing and the swimming and the never ending school runs.

ellielou02 - is your dh on the rigs?

alfabetty - good ideas there. dh is almost always in the north sea though and sees nothing :-( he is supposed to take pictures etc but nearly always forgets. more nagging on the cards he he

Ah, just stick pins in a map to plot his course, heading in a general direction towards your house!!

Suntangirl - yeah he is currently in singapore travelling to malaysia so just checked he is ok, with the volcanoe and tsunami, but he is fine. Is your DH in the north sea all the time?

yeh he's in the danish bit with a dutch company at the moment

Thanks everyone for the tips and also strangely comforting to know there are quite a few of us in the same boat though clearly everyone's situation is a bit different. I'm defo going to try the calendar and map stuff - for some reason the last time DH went really far away (Tokyo and Hong Kong) DS was absolutely convinced he had gone to the moon in a rocket and nothing could dissuade him! I have actually discovered a tip of my own now which is that if DH can't find the right time slot to skype he makes a little film and e-mails that. It really cheers DS up seeing him and has the advantage that he can watch it as many times as he likes.

Glad I found this topic. OP probably had her baby by now. My DH is now away for 2 weeks (the 5th day today), and I am left with 2.7yo DS1 and 3 week old DS2 :( Worse, we can't go anywhere due to snow (no chance to push the pram). I feel knackered and very angry with DH. Not coping too well....

I see this is an old thread, but I do have a tip - One thing that helped my DS (2.6) get to grips with the idea of a business trip was reading a book called 'when daddy travels', it's American. Has some good ideas for things you can do as well. We read it when my DH travels and he send back photos and videos of where he is, of himself, just things he thinks DS will like, from his phone. He also rings everyday, often twice (which is hard because of time differences!). We also once all went on one of his longer trips, so DS now knows about planes and hotels etc!