If you can’t leave your kids with family to go away...

[Anonymous]

Do you just not go away?

My parents are local but are disabled, so they aren’t an option for long-term care. ILs are semi-local, but I don’t trust their judgement for long periods of time. They are the “fun grandparents”, and the every time we try a long visit, they come back exhausted, sick and puking from the junk food and late nights.

So we have never taken a longer trip. I’m OK with this but I think DH would like to go away. We are close to the age of away summer camps, but not quite. So do you just wait?

[Anonymous]

The years with little kids was hard. We went to family camp where it is a lodge, all meals are just served as a buffet (no arguing over restaurants or what to cook, no cooking!) and there are activities set up and kid camp in the morning and the afternoon for a few hours. Love it! They are common on the west coast, I bet they have them in new england too.

[Anonymous]

Some people hire sitters.

[Anonymous]

Not having local family never stopped us from International vacations. We bring our children with us.

[Anonymous]

I thought people just took their children on vacations with them.

[Anonymous]

We only go away for one night at a time. Grandparents can handle that ok. If we go away for longer we take DD

[Anonymous]

We've gone away for a few nights here and there. Still haven't been away from my 20 month old for a night.

So...we invite my parents on little trips with us. We still do the heavy lifting of parenting, grandparents get to make memories with the grandkids, and DH and I get to go out for dinners alone while my parents watch the kids.

[Anonymous]

Hire a babysitter. I'm not suggesting some random person off the street, I'm saying someone you either already know (our youth pastor and his wife stayed with me one time when my parents went to Europe) or someone you've found through a reliable source or service and have used for nights or other outings. I seriously don't know a single person who hasn't used a babysitter before. Also friends - do you not have any friends who would watch your kids for a few days? Maybe some people just have different mentalities about it, but growing up I definitely stayed at friends' house and we have kids stay at ours.

[Anonymous]

We never depend/rely on our parents to babysit our kids. Only twice (years apart) has my MIL watched my kids overnight. She just doesn’t feel comfortable. For a LONG trip, we take our kids with us!!! Always have. We get teenage girls to babysit so we can go out during the weekend for date night.

[Anonymous]

We take our nanny with us.

[Anonymous]

We don't go away without kids. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

Do you have any friends that might watch them for a weekend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought people just took their children on vacations with them.

People like you are really annoying.

[Anonymous]

I genuinely don't understand how people are so confounded by this topic.

If you are the type of people who would like to leave your kids to go away (I am and have done it) and you don't have family to watch the kids (we don't), your choices are:

Hire a sitter. We've done this. Yes, it's expensive. No, you don't find some random and leave them with your kid for a night or two. You build up to it with a trusted sitter.

Trade with family friends when they are older. We have done this with friends for 1-2 nights. We keep your kid one weekend, you keep one of ours some other weekend. We do this less often than use sitters.

The longest trip we've ever done using a sitter is 4 nights. That was a one time thing for a special occasion. I would say every other year or so, we do a 1-2 night trip. So we're not doing it all the time or going to Asia for 10 days. But it works for us.

[Anonymous]

I grew up on the west coast and our closest family was a 5 hour flight. My parents never went away when we were little (except for a cross country funeral). Once I was in grade school they would trade with another family from our school. Looking back it seems a bit crazy and also awesome at the same time. Every October one set of parents would go away for 2 weeks. So the first year my sister and I moved in with the other family and the next year the other 2 kids moved in with us. This went on for at least 8 years. Some of my favorite memories are from the time we spent with our October siblings.