How do you plan family visits if neither side lives close and you have limited leave?

[Anonymous]

Do you allow family to visit at any time? Only certain amounts per year? (ie twice yearly). How often do you go to see them?

I feel silly asking how others do it, but I get 3 weeks of leave per year, with vacation and sick time lumped together. With two kiddos now and coming off of maternity leave, its is hard to accrue much time (I was down to zero over maternity leave and am starting from scratch, but can't get to more than a few days saved due to their and my own doc's appts). My parents are in the midwest and DH's are out west. Both sides visited over separate weeks in the winter and both sides have been back in the spring. His mom wants to come back in the summer and he has booked a trip to see them in the fall (I probably won't go because I simply don't have the time, unless I go along, and spend the day time working remotely). I don't want to be ungracious that we have people who want to see us, but it certainly doesn't allow us to take time for ourselves as a family. Now that there are grandbabies, our families seem to always be ready to book the next trip or have us book to see them.

I understand we can say the words 'we have limited leave', but I'm just wondering what types of schedules (for lack of a better word) work for other families.

[Anonymous]

When we have parents visit, we don't take off from work always. I try to go into work early and leave early. But that works because they're staying with us and they like a break too while they're in town. They sight see or relax while we're at work.

We visit family around major holidays like Christmas where I get a free day of annual leave, so that helps expand my annual leave. I also work a flex schedule and get every other Friday off, which helps us get more 3 day weekends

[Anonymous]

We're going back to visit this summer, but are expecting our second child - after this, our grown family members are welcome to visit us (we're in Western Europe) but I won't be trekking us across the ocean and up and down the east coast every year.

[Anonymous]

Our families live across the Atlantic, and very occasionally come and visit (once in 2-3 years), mostly over the children's school vacations.
We go to visit them as often as we can, which means once a year or once every two years.

[Anonymous]

We also don't take off much leave when our parents visit. Sometimes, the kids still go to daycare for a shorter day, and sometimes they stay home with grandparents. We always try to come in late/leave early, and/or work from home. But they mostly want to see the grandkids, anyway!

On the days when we send the kids to daycare, my parents often will go grocery shopping for us, and my mom will cook a nice meal. It's nice, and she truly enjoys cooking for people other than just my dad, so it's fun.

When we travel, it's usually to see family, at this stage of the game when the kids are young. When they are older, we'll probably want to branch out on our own a bit more, but right now, grandparent time and aunt/uncle/cousin time is really important to us.

[Anonymous]

We don't both travel. with a baby that's tough, but with bigger kids you can divide and conquer.

[Anonymous]

We take zero time off when they visit us. If we took time off for their visits, we literally could not visit them. I depleted all my leave twice with maternity leaves (and saved every ounce between them to cover the next). Right now I have 4 days built up and I'm using it to take the kids to my parents' for 4th of July (my H can't come because of work). He is welcome to use his leave to take the kids to his parents to make it even if he wants, but there's pretty much a snowball's chance he'd be willing to take that on solo.

His parents come once, at most, a year. We used to go there once a year. We continued to go to my parents once a year between kids because I worked from their house while my husband and parents took turns entertaining our one child. My parents come to us much more frequently - probably 6 times a year. Both sets are retired and money is not a barrier for either set. His are very tit-for-tat and think we should pack up the kids and come to them for every visit they make to us, but given there's a 5+ hour plane flight involved and multiple time zones, that hasn't worked so well the 2 times we tried it with just one kid. Not to mention it's just simply more costly for us to visit them with now having to buy 4 tickets and rent a car. They don't rent a car when they come here since we are Metro accessible.

We have yet to take a vacation since we've had kids because what leave/money we have has been spent to visit his parents. (Mine live a 5 hour drive.)

[Anonymous]

Have DH do the children's doctor's visits for a year, so you can get back some accrued leave.

[Anonymous]

Like PPs, we don't typically use any leave when family visit. My parents are in the midwest and when they visit, we don't take leave. They've always been understanding of that. I had an aunt that used to come for a week every year for a conference. Conference was 3 days and she'd sight see the other 4. My uncle would join her occasionally and they also never expected us to take leave. They were grateful to have a free place to stay, a kitchen to make meals/pack lunches and free laundry facilities!

Don't know if you saw the thread about the ILs that wouldnt' change the date of a July 4 family BBQ so a DS/DIL didn't have to take leave. My family would be appalled.

[Anonymous]

How about taking vacations w/ family? We do this maybe once a year. Gives us free date nights and grandparents time w/ grand kids.

[Anonymous]

We live across the country from DH's family. We get along with his parents very well. They come about every other month.

We sometimes go on Thanksgiving vacation with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have DH do the children's doctor's visits for a year, so you can get back some accrued leave.

We mostly aim for this, but unfortunately DH's job is pretty demanding so there are times when its hard for him to take leave, ie if he is giving a talk to clients, etc. Plus I have a series of medical issues eating up my leave so its not just about the kids and their appts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about taking vacations w/ family? We do this maybe once a year. Gives us free date nights and grandparents time w/ grand kids.

Yes, we did that last year in August. It was really wonderful. However, both sides still have visited twice since then and 3rd visits are in the works for both sides. They (my parents and my ILs are both doing the pushing to schedule).

[Anonymous]

I don't take leave when parents/inlaws visit, except a day occasionally. We take one week as a family and I take the kids by myself for a week to visit my parents. We go to my husband's family (3 hr drive) for Thanksgiving so that's only one day. The rest is saved for kid sick days, etc.

It's tough. I have aunts and siblings living further than a reasonable drive with little kids away that I'd love to visit but really can't .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we have parents visit, we don't take off from work always. I try to go into work early and leave early. But that works because they're staying with us and they like a break too while they're in town. They sight see or relax while we're at work.

We visit family around major holidays like Christmas where I get a free day of annual leave, so that helps expand my annual leave. I also work a flex schedule and get every other Friday off, which helps us get more 3 day weekends

We do this. We don't take time off when parents visit, which they don't mind--they love having the whole day with the grandkid, sightseeing, etc. And it means that they can come more often, because it doesn't burn our leave. We alternate traveling to grandparents for Christmas, do Thanksgiving with the ones we can take the train to, and fly out to see my parents for a week in the summer.