Honest advice please- parenting with no support network

[JeccaZ]

Hi all, am new to all this but hoping for some advice please as I am feeling a bit overwhelmed and lost!
I am 34 years old, my husband and I had always planned to have children after we married four years ago. Since then though my Mum passed away (a few months after we were married) and I have undergone a few rounds of chemotherapy which has meant that our pregnancy plans have been delayed. We will have the all clear to start trying for a baby in April next year.
Perhaps it is because I have had much longer than expected to think (obsess!), but I am now starting to wonder whether children are a viable option for us. My husband's only living family is an Aunt who lives miles away. On my side I have my younger brother and my father, neither of whom have any interest in children. We both work in the City and commute to work (approx 45 minutes)- he loves his job; I like my job and brings in a decent salary (I am the main breadwinner in our marriage and take home double what my husband earns). Plus I trained for a very long time to get to where I am now; I have just been promoted to Head of the department I work in and I would be sad to quit, though I am at least open to the idea, something which my husband is not- he has been very clear that does not want to quit his job. Since he is so happy in his career it doesn't seem fair to ask him to anyway, despite it making more sense financially. However we could only just pay our mortgage and bills with him being the sole breadwinner. To complicate matters, we both work in fairly specialised areas, so finding work in those areas outside of London would be very difficult.
When I talk to friends with children (admittedly all of whom have in-laws or other family who can help with their children doing things like school/nursery pick up and drop-offs) they all say that I shouldn't worry about the practicalities of raising a child and that we will just "make it work". But what I want to know is, are they right? I am particularly interested to hear from parents who do this mainly alone- how do you manage? Much as we would love children, and I certainly never imagined a life without them, I am starting to wonder whether it is actually feasible for us or whether we should maybe take the events of the past few years as a bit of a sign that parenthood isn't for us and just aim to be content with what we do have.

Hi. We also have no family nearby to help. Out of mine and DH’s parents, three have died and the fourth lives overseas and is unable to travel. Our nearest family member is 1.5 hours away. We have one DC and one on the way. I won’t lie, it is tough not having help on hand. (And I do envy my mum friends who can just drop the kids round to the grandparents for an hour or so while they go for a haircut or whatever.) But it isn’t impossible. The answer is paid childcare! My DD has been in nursery 8am-6pm since I went back to work. My commute is usually under 45 minutes so I can manage to fit a normal working day in between drop off and pick up. Then DH adjusts his working hours / takes time off if e.g. I need to travel for work. I also work in quite a specialised field, which means that most people have relocated to this area for work and so a lot of my colleagues are also far from family. We do all manage to make it work though. It just takes planning and money! So I would say don’t let a lack of immediate family support change your mind about having children.

We're in a similar situation. We have family a couple of hours away that could look after DD in a dire emergency but that's about it. It is definitely tough but it is doable. Having said that, I have a flexible job which allowed me to shift my working hours so I could collect DD from nursery before they close at 6pm, and they're very good about me having time off if she's sick. Other workplaces definitely wouldn't be so understanding. I'd say it's important to have good, reliable childcare, and if you can, find a local babysitter you can trust. Establishing a mum support network - even if it's just one or two good friends - is also important - for me, finding people who parent in a similar way to me was the bit that mattered most as we can trust each other with our children. But it is really tough and I spend a lot of time wishing we were nearer family.

We have no family help at all. We have made it work by having solid childcare - but at times that has cost a lot! We've both worked FT all along.
When ds was small he was at nursery and we were able to get nursery staff to babysit. We chose for him to then go to independent school as it covered 8-6 as standard and meant he could go to clubs - and it had a very good holiday club as well.
At 10 he moved to a different state school which had wrap around care and as he was then old enough to walk to and from school it made things easier. We have a fab babysitter who fills gaps, and he now goes to PGL for a week in some holidays.

So you can make it work, but you both need to really pull together and prioritise when they are little which means not a lot of 'you' time for either adult.

All I would say (and apologies if it isn’t at all helpful) is that having children has changed me profoundly and completely shifted my ideas of what is important to me. I would give up my job, relocate, whatever in a heartbeat if it was what was best for my children- and I don’t think doing so would make me miserable. So those friends saying ‘you just make it work’ are probably referring a little to that as well. You won’t be able to have everything perfectly as it was before kids (as I’m sure you know!) but there’s a very good chance you won’t care.

I had literally no one to help. Both sets of grandparents 7 hours away. Husband working a 12 hour flight away.

You manage. It might sound trite,but you do.pair

Start looking now for a childminder or nursery,as they may get booked up. But be prepared for a lot of random sick days.

Unless you could possibly afford an au pair

You can do it. We had no family. Made friends via NCT who were emotional and occasional practical support. Had a nanny share, childminder, au pair type person. A cleaner, after school clubs etc etc. If you have enough room I would suggest an au pair at least while under school age

Lots of people are in your position and have children. Realistically, I think probably most people are as it’s not typical to stay living near where you grew up now.

My mum lives overseas and I have no other living family. She does visit a couple times a year for a week but she doesn’t really provide any ‘support’ in that sense. It’s just another house guest to cook and clean for. My dh has no family nearby though we are close with BIL and SIL, they live almost on the other end of the UK. We do occasionally see MIL (she doesn’t live nearby either), but we didn’t for many years due to safeguarding issues related to some issues of her own that we didn’t want dc exposed to. No family or friends provide us any help regularly with our dc.

We just do what most people do - use paid childcare. Nursery for youngest and a mix of holiday club and one of using annual leave for older one. When they were a bit older (2+), we got a babysitter for a rare night out. My mum and MIL have each stayed with our dc overnight for us to have a weekend away maybe twice in 6 years. But neither is able to do that anymore so we either go away separately or eventually we’ll hire someone to do an overnight when they are older. You just find a way.

In terms of emotional support, friends and others in your peer group will be your greatest emotional support. Parents actually can be quite adversarial about giving advice or support. It’s very easy to project their own issues from being a parent into you. You’ll find your tribe more with others going through it. In fact, I’ve found the most support through other professional women I know through work.

Just to give you a sense of how it’s possible: dh and I both work full time. We do every school run ourselves. I also work in London in a very specialised field that it would be near impossible to work in outside of London. I commute (a very long way) from the south west 3 days a week. Dh does school/nursery run those days as I’m out of the house 6am-7pm. The other two days I work from home and I do school run. We make up time with work on longer days and we still get everything done and get time with dc on our shorter school run days.

But it helps if you can work in a field where flexible working is an option. Dh is self employed and works about 50-60 hours a week but fits it around family life. I am an academic so I don’t need to be in the office set times except for lecturing or meetings. So we both have a lot of flexibility and certainly flexible working around childcare is the norm rather than the exception in my department. Literally no one is there 5 days a week 9-5. If you work in a similar ish setting, it should be easy to arrange. You’ll have many years before you have to worry about that though as nursery is open much longer hours, plus even at school there are after school clubs, childminders, etc.

DH and I are North American and our families live five thousand miles away, so we have no one to help as well. For us personally, we've substituted family help with paid help. You can get a more affordable part-time nanny or shared childminder to help with pickups - you don't need a full-on expensive nanny or au pair. NCT classes and baby sensory classes, etc. are great places to meet parents who may share childcare arrangements with you. When DC was a bit older, we switched from nanny help to a daycare as I went back to full-time work, and the 30 free government hours does help with cost. For nights off, we use sitters.co.uk and have had a very positive experience with their very professional sitters. Sure, we'd prefer family, but we've not had to lose out on parenthood, date nights, or job success by managing with paid childcare.

The key thing that we realised for us personally is that the number of kids you have also plays a role. After we had one child, we realised that was enough for our family. Our DC loves being an only too and having our attention all to herself. We get the love and joy of experiencing parenthood and still have the funds to pay for support, school clubs, holidays, etc. It doesnt have to be multiple kids or nothing with having a family. If you have just one, you may still be able to get back to your job with minimal disruption and be able to afford very good help without family. And - as others mentioned above - if you find you like parenthood, you can change your priorities later. If you are like me and my DH and want to try to keep up with your careers but still have family, consider the virtues of having an only child.

I don't want to be too much of a Debbie Downer but I do think other spanners in the works need to be considered. I had severe post partum mental health problems and then both children have significant special needs - made it impossible (for me) to go back to work. Had I been more career oriented, I might have gone back, but it was harder.

Also on our own here, both in demanding jobs and with four children. It has been tough at times and I still get a bit teary eyed when I am exhausted and there is yet another demand out on me!! 😆

We live in Australia with our 2.5yr old DS, all our family are in the UK. We both work full time (DS is in daycare, which he adores) and I'm not going to lie, it can be tough sometimes when there is no break between work and looking after the boy.
The thing I find the hardest is not having someone who can just take him out for an hour or so to let me do the housework (without him following along behind undoing all my efforts!) or to go to the hairdressers etc. Bigger things like nights out are doable with baby sitters it's more the incidental stuff that gets me down sometimes. Wouldn't change it for the world though :D

We do it. Both sets of parents live close enough to babysit occasionally, but not close enough to have anything to do with the day to day running of things. At the moment I'm a SAHM, but the answer (as above), is just paid childcare. Nursery is easy in a way, as they open early and close late. I believe school will be trickier, but lots of people do it. Presumably you both have reasonably well paying jobs? You can either throw money or your time at the problem basically. If you haven't got the time, then it's money.

We do it. Both sets of parents live close enough to babysit occasionally, but not close enough to have anything to do with the day to day running of things. At the moment I'm a SAHM, but the answer (as above), is just paid childcare. Nursery is easy in a way, as they open early and close late. I believe school will be trickier, but lots of people do it. Presumably you both have reasonably well paying jobs? You can either throw money or your time at the problem basically. If you haven't got the time, then it's money.

I'm in a similar position and don't see myself going back to permanent full-time work until DC are old enough not to need childcare, well unless I get the Holy Grail of school hours/term time only. It's too expensive and covering the school holidays just seems impossible on typical annual leave.

I think unless you are both lucky enough to have really flexible jobs or a lot of money to devote to paid childcare one of you needs to be the fall guy in terms of work.

We are in a similar situation. Our closest family are at least 3 hours away, and we moved shortly before our baby so hadn't really made local friends yet. Things to consider:

1. Could one or both of you go part time? I work three days per week which is ideal as it feels like only 3 days of juggling. Of course it has stalled my career a bit, but in a few years I could go full time again and as I will still be in the workplace I think I should be able to progress my career quite easily then. I think in an ideal world it would be good to both work 4 days per week so you share the career hit, but as my DH was paid significantly more this wasn't realistic for us.

1. Are your jobs flexible enough to cover lots of sick days, especially in the first year or so? Initially my DH was in a really inflexible role and I had to take 95% of our DD's sick days. This was incredibly hard and not sustainable, so this was one reason my husband got a new job which was much more flexible (basically same role, but less of a dickhead boss!) and now we share sick days equally. There are a lot less now anyway, so with us sharing them.

1. How many children do you want? We currently have one nearly 3 year old. The first 6 months I returned to work were hard work but now I think it's pretty easy most of the time. But I think 2 x sick days, 2 x sleep deprivation, 2 x childcare costs would be pretty tough with no support. Having said that are months of deliberation we have started trying for no. 2, so I guess we'll have to find a way if things go to plan! I'm hoping a biggish age gap will make it easier.

1. What is your local network of friends like? Not even necessarily for childcare, but I found maternity leave incredibly lonely as I didn't have any local friends yet. After 6 months or so I did manage to make some nice friends, but it took time.

1. Will your DH genuinely share the load? My DH was everything I could have asked for. Although working full time he was sharing the load as soon as he came through the door. I got quite bad PND and I don't know how I would have coped with no support if he had been like some of the rubbish sounding blokes on here that just want to carry on their lives as before.

I hope all that helps, but in all honesty you will never be able to plan how it will work until baby is here and you just have to go for it.

Thank you so much to everyone for your replies, it is so nice to have such helpful feedback and I really appreciate the time you took to respond. It is really positive for me to hear from people in a similar situation to what ours would be and who are making it work. I think I have been intimidated because I am surrounded by people who have support, in some cases literally on tap, and I didn't have a template for anything else. I was also feeling very under confident due to my ill health (which somewhat ironically would also be improved by PT work). I am a planner and you have helped me formulate some options which I'm going to try to get in place before we start trying for a baby