Control Freak Warning - reluctant to have DS babysat

[AussieSim]

DS is nearly 9.5mths and so far I haven't been apart from him for more than a few hours. I don't mind leaving him with my PIL for a couple of hours in the afternoon to go to my language lesson or with my DH while I get some shopping done, but I now have offers from the PIL and the SIL to sit with him at night to let me and DH go to the pictures or whatever but I still don't feel that great about taking them up on it. (As some of you know my DH is only home weekends, so I am usually on my own with DS 5/7 days a week)

My SIL has no baby experience (although she is now in early stages of pregnancy) and I consider my PIL to be a bit rusty and not all that confident or respectful of my parenting preferences.

My FIL won tickets to a UEFA Soccer game and I've never been to a European soccer game and I knocked them back even though a voice in my head was telling me I should just bite it and go and let MIL mind him. In the last 12mths I have been to the pictures once, when I used to go once a week when I lived Downunder.

DS usually sleeps through from 7pm to 7am, but will occasionally have a little cry but settle back himself or very occasionally may need to be resettled with the very discreet introduction of those little homeopathic camomile balls that just remind him to suck his thumb. I worry that at the first peep they will pick him up and I'll come home and he will have been up for hours and then I'd have to bfeed him back to sleep and then it would take a couple of days to get him back in his lovely GF routine.

I guess I also worry about the stress on the sitters if this happens and that they will think I lie about my lovely boy.

I guess I'm just a control freak who thinks she is irreplaceable. How did you guys get over reluctance to leave baby?

Definitely much harder on you than DS. Bear that in mind.

Aussiesim and Fairymum: My DD is 4 and I've never left her with a sitter. I have no family here except PIL (in Scotland- that's the closest) and I woudn't leave her with them in a million years. Tomorrow night I'm going out for the first time in four years, and leaving her with her Dad. (We have never been out together without her). And you thought YOU were control freaks???

JaninLondon - !!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness!

Girls - get out - live your lives a bit - you're not leaving the country and your kids won't break if you step outside the 2 foot radius! I truly feel that if you don't carry on enjoying your life that when your kidsare older and stay out without telling you where they are you'll resent them and look back and regret not doing things for yourself and your relationship with you DH / DP. You're only a phonecall away. It's good for the child, for the parents in law or your parents and it's good for you.

Agree Thomcat. And now that DS is a toddler I am trying to actively encourage an independent relationship with his grandparents. Often it is more trouble to me than it is worth for me - but I do it for him and them. I have control freak tendencies so has not always been easy.

Janinlondon - I understand not leaving her with relations you only see infrequently or a sitter, but why not her Dad? What does he think about it?

I'm just too knackered to get out!!!!!

Absolutley Bozza. I love going out and living my life - but I do really miss my DD when she's not there in the morning. If DP and I are going out we drop DD off at my Mums or my Dads or my PIL's after her tea and we pick her up after her lunch about 1.30 the next day. I can't wait to see her and reach for the phone as soon as I open my eyes the next morning to make sure everything is OK. However she has a great relationship with all her grandparents which is just wonderful, for all perties concerned. It makes her an independant little girl who doesn't cry when mummy or daddy leave the room, and she's growing up really knowing all her grandparents. I leave everyone step by step notes on what to serve with what at lunch, when to put her down for a sleep etc etc. What's the worst thing that can happen, she goes to bed late - well great - that's part of the excitment of staying at nanny and grandads isn't it?

I am a bit of a control freak but dd has stayed with the inlaws overnight about 5 times. MIL has her 3 days a week anyway when I work and we have - shall we say polite? - disagreements on various ways of looking after her. I am sure she feeds her all kinds of shite while my back is turned but I tell myself that is what grannies are for.

Its my birthday in 3 weeks and dh has promised a weekend or night away ('treating' me with our joint account, ha) and I am 2 minds whether to bring dd or not. 2 nights away, hmmmmmmmmm.

Saying that, she is being a pain in the arse of a sleeper at the mo so might be good to let mil be on the receiving end.

My MIL is only 60 but is terrified of the responsibility of looking after my (nearly) 3 year old DD. DH is therefore very reluctant to ask her to babysit, even for a couple of hours. As for an overnighter, well I can't imagine what she would say!

Have only ever left DD with my sister overnight and then I feel guilty and like someone is twisting a knife through my heart.

Thomcat, I know what you mean. I do think we have quite a good social life though. I see my friends about once a month for a night out locally leaving DH in charge. Me and DH go out once a year to see the new Harry Potter -film We have friends over a lot and I often meet up with friends for some shopping and lunch at weekends. I think our social life is good, just different. I have tried to go out more, but I find that I just worry too much and don't enjoy myself. I recently went for a weekend with my girlfriends to Paris, but I didn't really enjoy myself that much. I think part of it is the fact that I work fulltime. I feel that I spend so much time away from my kids and with other people, that I just want to be close to them the rest of the time.
I'll just have to explain to my kids about all the great nights out they mum and dad sacrificed for them and make them feel so guilty they will watch "you've been framed" with us into their late teens and maybe longer. When they are older, we can talk about the granny-extension we are planning to build on their house......;-)

I was over-protective with my first, but when I had my second (close age-gap), I knew I just needed to get out and do something FOR ME. My dh works a lot of evenings, so I had to get babysitters to do an evening class I wanted to do. My nextdoor-neighbour was a qualified nursery nurse and her mum was a qualified and very experienced childminder - so they were the obvious choice. It was a pricey choice, but a gentle step for me, and provided ease of mind. I left them at least once a week from when ds2 was just 6 weeks old. I think it was very good for me, and forced me to be more relaxed about it.

It was definitely a good thing for all of us, and especially me.

Blimey - now I feel bad for not feeling guilty.
I am going to count how many times I've left Lottie overnight since September - this might scare me - and you....

5 times - from 1st September until the weekend just gone I've left her overnight.

Shit - this thread wasn't supposed to make ME feel bad - I wanted to try and make you all go out and have a good time with your babies!

Can I justify where I was going and what I was doing maybe?
The first occasion in Sept was my best mates birthday and DP was DJing in a club in town so she stayed at my mums.
The following weekend I went to Ibiza and left her with her Dad.
The week after next we had a wedding in Suffolk so she stayed at my mums overnight on Saturday.
The week after next we went to a club as our favourite DJ was playing
The week after next (last weekend) we went to a Halloween party and she stayed at my mums again!

I don't feel bad about that but now I feel bad that I don't feel bad.

Thomcat, I don't think you have anything to feel bad about. Enjoy yourself! I don't think it's anything wrong in leaving your kids with trusted babysitters. I totally agree with what you are saying about it being good for you and good for marriage. My problem is just that I don't enjoy myself when I leave them. I have really tried, but found that I was happier not putting that pressure on myself.

Please have a drink for me when you are next out. I a Carlsberg girl

Nooooooo, don't feel bad. I don't feel bad when I leave dd. Glad sometimes but not bad

And stop bragging about Ibiza, I'm having flashbacks.

Oh OK - as long as I'm not the only one out there that has no problem AT ALL with leaving her DD (who by the way is my world and I adore), then I'll take off my sad face and put back on my happy one!
I do truly feel that I'm shaping Lottie into a well rounded little individual by giving her some space from us. I've never had a strict routine with her and from birth would do things like sometimes leave her light on, sometimes, off, sometimes a lava lamp, sometimes I'd leave a CD playing in her room etc etc so she was used to all sorts of environments. I want her to grow up a confident and strong individual and this is the way I?m doing that. This is just my way - strange and incompressible to some - but my way nonetheless and so far it all seems to have paid off.

My mum once said to me ?I gave up an awful lot for you? and I remember saying ?well I never bloody asked you to?. It?s just stuck with me.

Each to his own though girls ? and whether you watch them from your lounge window or go out to a display ? enjoy the fireworks!! TC xx J

i cant believe all the people who have no indfependent life from their children. what will you do when they leave home? you wont know what to do with yourselves! am i the only person who thinks this dare i say obsessive parenting is unhealthy? i appreciate this may be seen as a rather inflamatory comment but i do seriously believe it to be true.
i am a mother, but also an independent person and i just couldn/t be that if i hadn't left my children for a few days/ nights/ evenongs with other people that i trust.

apart from the fact that i'd be sacked if i didn't travel on business as my job requires which is obvuiously a totally seperate matter

Thanks everyone. It is good to hear that I am not alone. I think it would be a different story if my parents were nearby. But I will bite it and organise an evening out.

If my german were good enough to communicate precisely with my PIL than I might be not so uptight, but I know enough german to know that my DH doesn't translate everything I say - lots of detail or diplomacy is lost. Also makes it impossible to leave instructions.

Also while we are telling stories, my FIL dislocated my DH's arm when he was a baby and my Mother threw me across the room when I bit her on the nipple whilst breastfeeding (thankfully, there was another lounge there). I actually saw what looked like grandparents the other day driving with the grandma in the back holding onto the baby. And I do think that it is weird that anyone would leave 5mth old twins with a teenage babysitter.

I wish I was as lucky as kmg1 to have qualified child carers nearby - I think I would prefer them to relos - even with the cost.

Bobthebaby - I think that you are right that DS is still a baby and it is too early for him to have developed any strong feelings of dependence. But I know where you are coming from Janstar, I don't want him to be some weird kid who doesn't want to go to his friends house because he has to have his mum. I will probably go back to work sometime next year, so that should fix that problem.

Gem13 - I don't know what else to tell you about the camomile, but that homeopathic remedies are very popular here in Germany and these little balls with different natural/herbal remedies in them are often prescribed to help babies with trouble sleeping or to calm down hyperactive babies. For teething they also include calcium, magnesium and stuff. They are really easy to administer and I guess they taste a little bit sweet, and I have found them a god send when DS was younger in particular. On the other hand it is not common to give paracetamol or antihistimines (sp?). I have paracetamol but only in the form that goes in his bum, which makes you think twice about administering it - and I was told to only give it to him when he has a fever of 39 or more.

No pph - you're not the only one - read my comments. I just began to feel I left Lottie a little too much for a miunute but I've sorted myself out again and I know I'm a good mother. I also think I'm a good and happy mother becasue I'm not tied to her and she's not ties to me, we are BOTH individual people.

Am I the only one who feels guilty for NOT getting out more?

Agree with pph - you all need to GET OUT A BIT!
really - especially those on first babies - you will laugh when you have another at how simple this stage is and how you should have grasped it.

I dont advocate whole weekends away every week but an evening, a curry, a night at a wedding - really!

In my situation where my DD and I are seperated I have no choice as her Dad has access to her at weekends. She goes on a Saturday afternoon and I pick her up on Sunday tea time.

This has been since she was 18months and she is now 4 - I have always LOVED the time away, missed her a little yes but never felt bad and thrived on having that ME time every week. Something I have found hard is since the birth of DS - DD still goes off to her dads but Im left with DS!! I get all excited that I have some free time then I remember the baby in the car seat in the back of the car ....... lol

i always thought i was the most paranoid parent going but feel i have a somewhat healthy balance really. My dd has satyed at my parents (overnight) several times ans she LOVES it!(she's 2.6). Dp and i usually go out for a meal maybe once every two months...i have also left her a few times with dp and gone out with my sisters! That is it though i wouldn't leave her with anyone else......feel a bit guilty saying this but i wont leave her with my sister( who would love me to) for two reasons...first of all she gets depressed and is very up and down...and she's been with her boyfriend for a year and i dont feel i know him well enough to leave my dd with them.even for an hour

Thats excatly as it should be Angeliz - you are ready to have more now!! ()

i am sahm and to be honest me AND dd need a break from one another at times Also when i do go out, i appreciate her so much more the next day. It also makes me feel content with my life as when i sit in a pub and look around i think,"i REALLY dont miss my life before dd"