Leaving a nearly 11 month old for a wedding

[GingerOyster]

Hi

My partner and I have a wedding next year which is a 7 hour drive away from where we live and our baby isn't invited and we're trying to decide how to manage. He'll be just over 10.5 months when the wedding happens (currently six months).

Our options are

• Leave him with my parents, who have babysat him before and are 6.5 hours away from the wedding
• Leave him with my partners parents, who are 3.5 hours away from the wedding and have never babysat him before but have babysat their other grandchildren
• Ask my parents to come up with us, get an Airbnb for us all and only leave him with them for the wedding itself but not overnight.

I can't tell if the last option is overkill or if it's the most sensible decision. We haven't left him overnight before and he's currently combi fed, mostly breast, but I imagine by 11 months he'll be much more bottle.

Does anyone have any experience leaving a baby overnight at this age? Any tips? Opinions on which option we should take?

Definitely option 3 for me.

Option 3

Option 3 without a doubt. Not overkill at all if you both want to attend the wedding and you have in-laws who would be able/willing to do this

Option 1.
It's what we did with DS when he was a similar age.

Option 3, also means you can have a little sleep in the next morning!

option number 3

Easiest for peace of mind is option 3, but FWIW I do think 11 months is old enough to be left overnight with trusted carers that the baby knows. It does depend on the child though and generally how they cope with separation/what your feeding arrangements are at the time. If he will take a bottle and is eating happily, is generally fine to be babysat by your parents, isn’t ill or teething badly, then go have fun! They will be fine!

I wouldn’t leave him with grandparents he doesn’t know well overnight. I wouldn’t do that even if he was a lot older. But you have time to rectify that if options 1 and 3 don’t work and you really want him to be closer distance wise.

Option 3; unless you will have weaned off the boob eg for reason of going back to work (which I had to do at ten months) you may find there is NO CHANGE in habit and baby wants to breast feed at bedtime and still once in the night.

I’d be having a sober wedding and assuming I may be heading back to the Airbnb by 11.30pm (or whenever your parents can’t face the screaming any more…)

My son would have been fine with being left with his nanny, who cared for him daily and he knew very well. We leave him for date nights since he was 6 months, every few weeks. She puts him to bed no problem, we come back after he's asleep.

He absolutely would not have gone down for my parents, they visit often and are wonderful buy they don't do day to day care. I left him with my mum at 12 months for a day because of an appointment and he SCREAMED for 1.5 hours at nap time and refused to nap. My mum isn't that experienced with babies but she she is nice and tries hard but babies know their own minds at that age.

So option 3.