How do you cope without family support?

[Neurodiversemom]

We have no family nearby and I’m finding the mental load relentless. I don’t expect help, but sometimes it feels very isolating. If you’re in the same boat, what made things feel more manageable?

What's helped us are childminders and my job being flexible.

I do find my parents have an ivory tower view on “family support” - it’s been made clear a lot of times any offer of help is on their terms only - if they lived next door there would be no offer to do school pick ups etc. very much a case of “I got on with so much you” - except my mother was married, had less children no twins and didn’t work whilst we were at primary 🤣 I just have to roll my eyes and keep quiet

Military grade planning. Being very organised. I'm a single, full time working mum, and have raised ds to 17 by myself. No family help.

I booked holiday clubs the day booking opened. Afterschool club 1year ahead. Booked my annual leave as soon as the annual calendar opened.

I tried to be sure who was looking after ds on any day, at least three months ahead.

Planned school, hobbies, sports, food, dentist, hair cuts, shoe fitting,

I had a lot of lists and a detailed calendar !

My DH died when my kids were 4 and 6 and my family live in another country. I wasn’t working - that’s probably the only way I could do it. Otherwise I’d just have to throw money at it and get wrap around childcare, which is very expensive and I don’t think good for the kids that young.
So one day at a time basically. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

We are well out of it now but we had kids, closest family was several hours drive, everyone else a plane ride, so was just us. It works.

The thing we couldn’t live without was our whiteboard. I modelled the way we ran the kids/household on my workplace so any place we were at (we moved around a few times for my career when the first little of kids were young), had an enormous whiteboard professionally installed. Special order enormous whiteboards and get a handyman builder to install. Everyone gets a column and you can add columns for general household as well. So you can see everything at a glance. DH and I both worked but opposite days/shifts so often literally tagged each other in/out the door and it also acted as a changeover tool.

Funnily, over the years I’ve noticed colleagues have the same in their homes but if only one or two kids, theirs are a lot smaller but work via the same principle.

We had a wall planner - see everything at a glance - and made a chalk board by front door for quick notes and magnetic one in kicken for school letters bills etc- no longer need any of it.

I really struggled, but an elderly neighbour proved to be a godsend. We didn't befriend her with that motive - just invited her in for a cup of tea now and then, but she was amazing once they were a bit older. At 8+ I could take the first day off work when they were ill but she would come in for the next, when they were snuggled up on the settee watching telly and snoozing.

We also set up a babysitting circle in our village with tokens for each hour that you babysat, which could be used to pay other mums to babysit your own . . .

I pay for help. Cleaner and nanny. When I was on maternity leave and losing my mind with sleep deprivation, we hired a part time helper to come in and care for baby for a couple of hours 3 days a week and do some tasks around the house. It was the best decision I ever made. I went from wanting to kill myself (and I don't say this lightly at all, I was in a dark, dark place) to actually enjoying my baby.

I actually didn't properly bond with my baby until I got these little breaks. I was suddenly just ever so slightly less tired and less overwhelmed by the state of the house and looked at my baby and suddenly felt that rush of love everyone talks about. He was 5 months!

I think you build your village.
Trust people.
Accept help.
Offer help.
Talk to people.
Build friendships.
Also, 'start from where you are', by which I mean trying to appreciate all you have rather than yearning after what you don't have. I know it sounds corny, but it works wonders for your wellbeing. But also think about things you can achieve rather than aiming for things that seem impossible. Or do things that do work rather than chasing things that are out of reach this year.

My friends became my village. Parents were not in UK. Siblings in a similar situation to us hundreds of miles away. My husband’s job had some seasonal flexibility and I worked 0.8. Lots of planning and reciprocal childcare disguised as play dates.

I guess we’ve never known any different so I don’t really think about it. Dh and I are a solid team though. There has never been one of us off working late all the time leaving the other to run around doing everything.

We plan our weeks, so one of us is always around. We fortunately have almost always had professional lives with a lot of flexibility. So we were both up returning emails at 10pm, but one of us could always do the afternoon school run and be home with them to do homework and shuttling to activities and cooking dinner. We’ve never used any wraparound care, except for emergencies.

We balance school holidays with a mix of annual leave, holiday club and dh dragging them along while he works (he’s self employed). We go out for lunch dates during the week because no evening childcare, not often but a couple times a year. We don’t get weekends away together ever, but we do both travel independently; Dh goes away with friends, I go away solo. Still lovely and relaxing, just not together.

One of the advantages though is that we are fully in control of steering our own family ship. My mum had my grandparents for full time childcare from when she went back to work when I was 3 months all the way til I was school age, then they still did all the school runs and all the holidays. On paper, great, she had “family help” but she missed out on all the stuff Dh and I never miss out on. I have a friend who has 50/50 with her ex. She has her kids 3-4 days a week, of those her parents seem to have them 2 days because she’s off with her boyfriend or at a gig or whatever, so she really only sees them 1-2 nights a week. I wouldn’t trade my set up for hers, no way.

This is right. I may have been flat out but I'd always collect someone else's child and give them their tea in an emergency.
Over-stretched parents need to stick together

We have DS1 (14 but severely autistic), DS2 (10) and DD1 (7) and have no family nearby. We live up north and they all live down south.

With DS1, his SEN school are lifesavers. He gets school transport which helps massively, and coffee mornings each Wednesday for parents and SEN workers to chat and de-stress.

We have friends who can also help out as and when needed, but sometimes it's still just really difficult. Putting away an amount of time each day just for us has really helped. It took some time to get the kids to adjust but now it's something to look forward to on especially stressy days.
So for an example - "We're going to be watching a film this evening. We'll put a film on for you all to watch too, and if you're good we can do X activity afterwards."

Just me and the kids. Once I accepted that it got easier.

Acceptance is key I think. It nearly ate me alive with rage when I was comparing or had it shoved in my face. Its crucial to be on the same page as your partner and working as a team.

We actually moved to be closer to family. Only to find Inlaws are completely uninterested despite saying they was. Lots of empty promises. We also built a annex so a relative could live next door to us, only that relative does all my siblings childcare and is then too tired to even see mine or just isnt here 🫠
That sibling has childfree holidays and weekends away. My husband and I have never been on holiday together just us or even had a night away.

I've had to just give up work it got so stressful i burnt out. I have children with additional needs, one that can't access childcare/holiday clubs cant always access school.
Can't afford a nanny and there is no sen provision.

I've actually found it almost impossible to make a babysitting circle with friends because they all have grandparents or family help. When I collect from school I'm in line with grandparents.

What hurts the most is that its just me and my husband that wants to spend time with them. There is no one interested to take any of them out to go and try a new experiences or make their life richer in anyway.

In comparison I practically lived with my grandparents the entire school holidays weekend sleepovers picked up from school every illness etc

So my one advice is just to accept it, dont compare.Treasure the small things. It can be make or break on a relationship so make sure you're on the same page and working as a team. We take care of eachother, we have become such a strong family unit.

Mine our now old enough to look after themselves but we made it work by

1. one of us working part time, and both doing alternating shift work.
2. Making friends with lots of people in a similar situation. And taking their kids when needed and doing swaps.
3. Doing lots of babysitting swaps.
4. Going out separately a lot

The shittest times was when we were both properly ill and still had to look after 4 kids. It's actually worse if they weren't ill as well!

1. Endless juggling.

Building a village via a friends network is incredibly difficult if you work full time so don’t meet people at the school gates twice a day or you just aren’t on the same page as others. What I’ve found is single mums can be looked on quite suspiciously by other married mums like we are out to steal their husbands or something, most school mums want to socialise with other school couples so that the husband also builds a friend network of fellow dads, most other school mums don’t have as many children (lots of “one and done” ) who would never offer a swap of childcare and those with more than one seem to think having twins is the worst thing that can happen to a woman 😂

as others have said sometimes you just have to accept it - accepting this is the status quo for a couple of years takes away the pressure

i read on here/somewhere that 75% of all the time you’ll ever have with your child is over by the time they are age 12 and 90% by the time they are 18

hard as it may be these years are a gift you can’t ever get back although I’m guilty as anyone else of wishing the day/week/month was over if it’s been a bad one

I’m trying not to make this about you/others replying having a partner/husband but at the end of the day there are 2 of you - if he isn’t pulling his weight with the mental load (if he can’t physically if he’s out being the main earner) in ways in which you think he should then start with that before resenting uninvolved grandparents or lack of village. The village starts at home

Childcare

We had a huge scientific company locally 450 employees. The scientists used to be sent overseas on projects a lot of the time leaving family behind. The way they coped grew from a babysitting circle a couple of the mums organised. It was one point an hour before midnight, two points an hour after midnight.

It meant mums could go to badminton, squash, gym for a couple of hours. The cinema etc. they became friends and would have nights out together. They could ring round if they had an emergency. All this before mobiles. I made some good friends.

It’s always been the norm for me. You just tread water until they grow up and it gradually gets easier. I spread mine out 6 years apart as I knew two little ones at once would send me over the edge!

Lowered expectations, chose a few true priorities, and stopped pretending I had to handle it all quietly. Even naming the load helped it feel lighter.

That I have no choice? I don’t even have a partner it’s just me and 4 kids, no partner and their father is absent. No other choice really? Having a partner would have made it easier.

I really get what you're going through.

Thank you!

That's some good piece of advice, thank you!