How did you cope raising kids without family nearby?

[lking679]

Wondering if any other mums live hundreds of miles away from their maternal family and if you found it lonely with your kids... or what did you do that made it better? DC1 is 3 and DC2 is 10 months. Have mum friends which seems to work out in the week but then our weekends stretch out ahead of us and mum friends tend to be around their own extended families and not available! DH here obviously but otherwise 🤷🏻‍♀️. Not sure if things will get busier when DC1 starts school next September!

Well we don’t live away from family - we just don’t have any! Dh is no contact with his whole family and the only member I had (my mum) died in 2019, we weren’t close anyway. So it’s literally just me and dh! We just muddle through to be honest. I’m actually quite glad we can just do our own thing and don’t have to worry about seeing people etc. We just spend our weekends doing stuff together as a family.

Find a company that had babysitters. Use paid help to have an evening off. My mum told my sisters they wouldn't have any help with children, but I live too far away to need to be told that.

Well, you just do your own thing don't you? Spend your weekends as you like! To be honest, when they're older and you start ferrying them to dance/football/parties etc you don't have time to see people on weekends anyway

But I'm sorry you're feeling lonely- perhaps you and your husband can plan some more fun stuff for weekends if that's the time you feel low? Even an afternoon walk and early dinner at Pizza Express can make a day feel a bit more special x

DH's parents were dead and mine live on a completely different continent. We have 2 DCs the eldest of whom is quite disabled, so we could not leave him with an untrained person anyway.

TBH, I resented it at first, and particularly resented my sister who lives within 10 minutes of our parents and who has my mother and my aunt doing wrap around care and yet still manages to bloody moan about it (and who tells me that women can do it all and I needed to try harder at my career when i gave up because DS1 was self harming at the age of 9.).

Now, we just sort of have accepted it and settled into it. Oddly covid helped because there was literally no way anyone could help us, as opposed to just thinking (rightly or wrongly) that my parents were just piroritising their other grandchildren. We never leave Ds1 with anyone due to disabilities and I have just sort of accepted that we simply do not have any help worthy of note.

Tbh I never thought about it and just got on with it, isn't that what you are supposed to do? May be times have changed but amongst my friends at the time this is what we all did. I do seem to be reading more on here about in laws and expectations of childcare so it would appear today people expect more of family.

It will get much better when they start school and make their own friends that you can invite over for playdates at the weekend. You just have to put up with the loneliness until then, I've found.

Not lonely at all - but dh, ds and I spent all weekend together as dh and I were working in the week. In the preschool years we had a zoo season ticket, and then a pass for Warwick castle later so plenty to do

The only problem I found was everyone else has a relative nearby to babysit so it's really hard to make a reciprocal arrangement. Nights out for me and DH are few and far between. Other than that we've just got on with it. We're kind of used to the fact that going to visit my parents is an event akin to a holiday in terms of packing, travel and anticipation rather than a day to day thing.

My family are near but my parents don't look after my kids.

My family is in NZ, DH's in the South of England, we're in Scotland. It is incredibly hard sometimes, but we found friends with similar aged children and did babysitting swaps, and have a church family that helps out when we need it.

To be clear not expecting my family to do any childcare! DH is great but he’s not mr personality so you know when you just fancy a chatty chat?
Spending time with the kids is great but can feel a bit relentless.
It’s hard as I see my sister and her family having dinner with mum and dad as they all live nearby and it does make me feel quite lonely! Have been thinking about relocating to them but it’s just so much disruption and the area we live is great.
Signed up DC1 to ballet on saturdays from September to break the weekends up a bit!

@crimsonlake

Tbh I never thought about it and just got on with it, isn't that what you are supposed to do? May be times have changed but amongst my friends at the time this is what we all did. I do seem to be reading more on here about in laws and expectations of childcare so it would appear today people expect more of family.

I'm also slightly surprised by the assumption that it's unusual not to live near your family. Almost everyone I know where I live now grew up somewhere else and no one thinks anything of it.

Even if I lived near my family I wouldn't be spending my weekends with them, when you have your own family you spend the majority of your time with them don't you? I feel a little sorry for your DH that he isn't enough to entertain you at the weekend

Nightmare. I saw other mums still enjoying their lives and didn’t realise it was because they had family to babysit. I’m trapped at home, no possibility of a night out for god knows how many years, and I simply cannot be late for pickups. DH and I have joked that we should separate because then at least we could go out with other people - it’s impossible for us to go out together. You just have to suck it up I suppose.

Like @2RedShoes my DH's parents are dead and mine are on a different continent. DS has special needs and DH retired to be his primary carer in the early years as I was the higher earner. Never had any childcare we did not pay for.

We just get on with it, it has never occurred to me to do otherwise. We used paid childcare or friends babysit for us when we want an evening out together. We do the same for them. At the weekend we see our friends who have children as a family, or DH and I take it in turns to look after the children while the other person can do whatever they want, so I see a lot of my friends without any children present too.

Why so disruptive - if your kids haven’t started school yet I would say move- you can have all the friends in the world but family (tends to be) so easy to hang out with last minute with no expectations.

It can be hard at times.

DH of often working at weekends so it's just me and the kids.

We just get on with it to be honest. I often take them places just the 3 of us. Probably spoil them more than I should due to lack of family visits. I am lucky that I can do things and not worry about how much it costs but if I'm honest I would rather we were closer to family. On the other hand we have the life we do because we have moved away.

We live hundreds of miles away from both families. Other than not being able to ask grandparents for help with childcare, it's absolutely fine! We wish we could see them more and DC misses them, but when we do get together it's brilliant and quality time well spent together. We are lucky that our closest friends happened to have DC within a few months of each other, and we met some lovely people through NCT so we have a solid support network around us, which makes all the difference I think

Thanks all just does feel like muddling through! Think having a pandemic baby made it worse and working from home means lack of office banter!
Funny we’ll be out somewhere doing stuff and I literally have nothing left to say to dh, especially as we’ve both been at home! It’s things like bringing baby home from hospital and FaceTiming mum about stuff rather than just seeing her for a chat that bother me.
I remember when I brought the baby home after delivering abs just wanted my mum around!... sometimes you just want your family don’t you... well if you get on (which we all do!).
Thinking it will feel better when I’m back to work proper!

@lking679

My partners parents his dad is dead and was a horrible alcoholic and his mother is mentally unstable, my mum died this year and my dad is disabled and elderly and so I feel your pain

I try to team up with friends and I do bbqs etc in the garden to host people and we get invited back and we just muddle along

I pay a childminder and I'm dealer for my 30hrs 3 year old funding to kick in

I lived close to my Mum and sisters when first 2 DC were small. Then we moved and had another DC. I found it very hard when DC was tiny and no no one to drop baby off with when going to hairdresser, dentist or GP visit for myself. You make friends and call on each other in emergency. When DC are in all school aged it gradually hot easier. Get reliable we babysitter an RF go put as couple now and then.

Dh and I get out separately at the weekends for a few hours each.
Why not join something social without the kids? Parkrun? Or yoga? Or even just a cuppa with a childfree friend?

Will you be going back to work? I don't think most people are spending weekends with extended family that much, isn't it just that when both of you work full time the weekends are family time? I wouldn't want to be hanging out at play dates for much of our weekend and even the friends who work part time normally have a full time partner they actually want to see at a weekend. We use babysitters to go out together/with others or spend time as a family.

Friends and family visiting for the night/weekend also takes up a lot of time if you don't live close to people; I feel like I've been doing a constant stream of bed changing since the restrictions have been relaxed!

Yes going back to work but will still mostly be working from home so actually we will still see quite a bit of each other in weekdays.
Think it’s easier with Dc1 as she’s getting older but hard when they don’t even talk!
Do love the area though, good jobs, great schools, green areas, easy to travel to the city and we’ve been here 7 years now. Would be hard to give that all up and hoping as kids get older it’ll be fine. It was okay when I was footloose and fancy free and could make the most of it here.... Just a bit different with the little ones!
Thanks all

@caughtinanet
Why wouldn’t you spend time with your family at weekends? Don’t you like them?
I live near 2 of my children....my 3 grandchildren....my mum...2 sister in laws ....a brother in law....and 8 nephew and nieces....plus 2 great nephew and nieces....I see them week in ....week out....including weekends....but we all love being together ....doing family stuff...I guess some people are more insular.... horses for courses eh