Thanks everyone for sharing. Yes, we do Facetime/Skype, which is easy and great with the kids. Kids are 1 and 4, and the 4 years old misses his dad.

As I said, I know this conference and I know exactly how much free time there is. In any case I have travelled for work too and I find it difficult to imagine a meeting where I could not fit a 5 mins call to my kids. If needed, I would excuse myself to call home, find a semi-quiet place, and call.

He does not travel often, maybe a couple of times a year. Why do you feel this changes how often he would/should call?

My husband doesn't travel often, and neither do I, but we don't check in much while we're away. Skype is hard with the kids moving around a lot, and ours are very "out of sight, out of mind" - thrilled to see us when we get home, but not dwelled upon too much while we're away. We text when we feel like it, and that's mostly it!

Maybe once every 3 days he talks to our son when DH is away. It's hard because DH always seems to travel where there is a time difference and it's difficult to sync up.

My DH is occasionally gone for longish periods of time, but always to different places. We try to plan ahead based on time difference and likely schedule for him to call or Skype once a day. If it doesn't work, we can usually adjust after a couple of days.

OP, try not to get angry at your spouse, and just use this trip as a set of information for planning for the next one. Now you know what you would like to have happen, so next time talk it out and come to am agreement before he goes.

I think it very much depends on the child. For some little ones, talking just makes them miss you more. I think once a day is plenty.

Everyday at minimum, sometimes morning and evening. Even if son is asleep, he calls to talk to me.

Yup if he talks to the 3yo she's a mess so he calls after she goes to bed and facetimes with the 1yo.

He calls me every night but often the kids are in bed. Talks to the kids every 3rd night or so. Kids are older though so they understand where is he and don't need daily contact. I travel less often but went to a 5 day conference recently and only spoke to the kids once while I was away. I spoke to DH every day..

We discovered that phone calls didn't always go well. We try skype/facetime when we can but we have had just as much fun with text or emails. Often we will create a fun game where the parent traveling comes up with something like "things you can see that start with a g" and we text back and forth for a few minutes. We engage more that way then the phone calls or even Skype

Once a day, in the evenings.

Depends on where he is traveling, he work schedule while he is there and of course our time frame and the time difference. There was a 3 week trip that between our weekend schedule the 14+ hour time difference and his work load that we talked twice in 3 weeks. Not great but you do what you have to do and I wasn't keeping DS up to try and find a time that worked and DS didn't seem to mind at all. Depends on family and your needs and relationships. Unfortunately DS is very use to DH traveling for long times to places its not easy to communicate. So we just get into a good routine, keep busy and before we know it DH is home again. I have been working with DS to keep a journal of his activities to share with DH upon return, and I ask DH to pick up postcards or something related to his location that he can share upon his return. DS loves the time to share so I figure that's what its all about - communicating - its just not daily or even weekly.

Once a day. But he only travels once a year.

My spouse is away 8-10 nights a month in a typical month, trips between an overnight and occasionally as long as a week.

We try to skype daily, around dinner time, but often that doesn't work because of travel (he might fly home around dinner time but be back after my kids bedtime, which I always count as "another" overnight, for my kid), or because of time zone/work commitments.

If we can't skype, we usually manage a quick phone call, at least 5 min.

Frequently the time difference is 3+ hours, which makes it difficult to find a good time for conversation. We talk via phone maybe once every 2-3 days, but generally e-mail a few times a day. The phone calls generally come at the kids' bedtime.

I think it depends on how old your kids are, how often he is gone, and what your kids expect/need.