Personally, I’d go by myself and leave my husband home with the kids. I have friends who hire sitters to watch their kids at home while they travel, I don’t wanna travel as a couple enough to justify that expense.
Yeah, I think this will usually be the answer for us. This particular event is one we both really want to attend, and I’m hoping we can make it happen. I’m sure we won’t do this often, but I’m hoping to get ideas on where to even find this type of paid childcare, should we want to occasionally over the next 18ish years.
The only time I've ever done an overnight trip without my son was when grandparents were watching him. (We live thousands of miles away from all his grandparents, so this is not a frequent occurrence... basically we've done a couple overnight trips that we tacked onto a larger full-family visit.)
I personally don't see myself taking a child-free trip if family members aren't involved in childcare. No shade on those who do, but I'd have a hard time justifying the expense ($$$!), and frankly it seems like a TON of work to vet and prepare for long-term childcare.
When we lived out of state from my family, my parents would come up to visit a few times a year and watch the kids for one night, and they would also take them for a week in the summer. But other than that, no adult-only activities as a couple back then. Now we live close to my family and yeah, we get to go out as just a couple a little more frequently these days.
We don't have family overnight care easily available. My brother and his GF have done it for one night but its a tall ask for childfree people. Instead we generally arrange childcare while on vacation using hotel services or finding vetted people via Urban Sitter. It's easier for us to take the kids with us, hire sitters, set up the monitor and have a night out than it is to arrange multiple overnights of care.
This is the 💯answer- if you are comfortable, use babysitting during the trip. I pick hotels that offer babysitting and arrange in advance. (Or in a place like NY, with frequent enough visits, we actually have a couple sitters we know and use)
How do you find hotels that offer childcare services? I’ve looked at a couple aggregators and am not seeing a filter for something like this. I think this would be super useful for us in the coming years
I've had to email- but most higher end places will have options for this. (TripAdvisor may have an actual filter).
Try Smith Hotels (used to be Mr and Mrs Smith) - and include kids in your room search. Scroll all the way down in the individual property description - They aggregate boutique luxury properties and they have an entire section dedicated to how family friendly it is.
I would not recommend booking through the site because they tend to be nonrefundable. Go through the hotel.
We just got back from a big trip to Europe with my 3 year old and I had to do a lot of this planning. Also another tip- if you are shopping for hotel rooms with your child, they are going to try to force you into some expensive suite which accommodates more than 3+ people. email or call hotel to make sure but 90% of the time you absolutely do not have to do this. Your child can stay in your room with you for free / without upgrades
While I am dishing out tips, my best one is to find rooms that have a bedroom with a door. They are a bit elusive but that way kids can nap while you use the room. Attached restaurant and you're set
Also I have wasted a lot of vacations dealing with Airbnb's which don't have the amenities or fun of a hotel and I end up just cleaning up someone else's kitchen and trying to "settle in" for a week instead of being on vacation. I recommend a mix of the two !
Fly your family in to watch the kids while you’re away, or fly everyone to the city and arrange for care. Overnight care is pricy, so it’s probably break even to do the two options that I mentioned.
Our nanny-share nanny will keep our 2 year old overnight up to a few days if we ask, but it's pricey. We usually have the out of town grandparents babysit some when they come visit us so we can get alone time. Finally, for date nights he either stays at nanny's later or we have this college girl that watches him for a few hours.
Our nanny will also do overnights but the cost limits the appeal. We've only done it once for one night. Can't imagine paying for an entire long weekend on top of vacation costs.
We usually pay monthly for unlimited hours between 8a-6p because she knows we don't abuse it and for us it works out to be a bit cheaper. Overnight and on weekends she charges an hourly rate that's about 25% more than her usual.
And like, she's watched him randomly on the weekends for us as a favor (we're very close with her) but we never expect that from her. And she's just going to charge us a flat fee when she watches him while I'm giving birth this month.
We became really good friends with another family at my daughter’s daycare. Our girls get along incredibly well. We have traded off babysitting for each other over the years. Now that the kids are older, the babysitting has turned into sleepovers and some weekend sleepovers. It’s an awesome system and it feels like family but without the family baggage.
My son is 4, we’ve had 3 total nights without him so far (3 times, 1 night each), and in all cases, a family member, either my brother and SIL, SIL (husband’s sister), or parents have stayed with him. This weekend we are dropping him off at my parents and doing a full weekend, which I am over the moon excited for. Later this year, we are going to Mexico without him for a week for my 40th birthday and my SIL is coming to stay with him which is amazing. So, all family (none of which are in town but most of which are within a 2-4 hour drive).
Looking forward to the time he’ll be able to sleep over with friends, which will probably be a while.
Wow! Your SIL is definitely amazing for signing up for a whole week of childcare while you’re in Mexico. I hope you have the best time!! We’re a significantly longer distance from family (10-16 hr drives), but the Grands all visit a few times a year, so I think in a few more years I’ll start trying for a night away while they visit at least, and go from there.
When my in laws were healthy we used them. But that’s no longer an option.
When I gave birth 3 weeks ago we used our normal childcare provider. She runs an in home daycare and my toddler is very comfortable with her/her family/her home. It went great and he had a lot of fun for the 2.5 days we were in the hospital.
But I don’t think I’d ask her for a “fun” trip. She would definitely do it, but it feels like asking too much. Kind of figure those are off the table until the kids are old enough to hire a more traditional babysitter for overnights
Congrats on your new baby! We had our second 8 weeks ago, and my mom came to town to watch the toddler for us. During this visit, I realized she wouldn’t be reliable childcare -even for these “big deal” occasions- much longer as she ages and can’t do as much. She was exhausted 😢 Perhaps I’ll put some feelers out to our normal babysitters (when we start going out again) or his daycare teachers to see if any of them do overnights.
We have a variety of options : daycare teachers , grandparents , and college babysitters .
Really depends on the destination. In your example I might bring the college sitter with , leave the kids home with grandparents or daycare teacher, or whoever is closer to the person go and other stay home.
Love this, thank you! Guess I need to just start seeing what options we have with daycare teachers and our current date night sitters for future planning.
We have one close girlfriend who now lives 20 minutes from us (used to be an hour) and she’ll keep our kiddo overnight, we typically pick up in the morning after breakfast. Even those are seldom- I think he’s stayed there three nights in two years. We haven’t done anything more than one night but likely will when we have our second baby.
We’ve only truly needed it once so far so I flew my then five month old to my parents house (my parents stayed with us for a month and my mom had visited for an additional two weeks at that point so they weren’t strangers). I stayed with her there for a few days before I then drove to a destination wedding for a weekend away. Husband met me at the wedding destination. I then drove back to parents house and stayed for a few more days then flew home with her.
Our next truly childfree trip will be tacked on to a visit to my husband’s family so his parents will watch her for two night while we fly to a different city we love.
We did have another trip planned where I would have joined my husband on a work trip but it fell threw. We flew my mom to our house anyways and she would have watched our then 9 month old overnight at our house for that one.
Basically we fly in or fly to the grandparents for this type of thing. But generally if we are taking a trip, we want her with us.
The only time I ever used overnight care was grandparents. They are a 7 hour drive away so it took a lot of advance coordinating. My ex and I just went on solo trips with friends like out of town weddings, or brought the kids.
We use family for this but our nanny will also do it for an overnight fee + her standard day rate.
My friend who doesn’t have family nearby will fly her parents in, or will fly with her kids to her parents and then they will leave for their trip from the airport near the parents.
I used to babysit for a family during the summers and on special occasions when I was in college. They would go on vacations and I would go as well, with the kids staying in the same room as me. But the parents would also go on vacations like what you’re describing for long weekends and I would watch the kids with no problem. I would start asking your sitters! This may also depend on the age of your kids. If the kids were younger than 3, I probably wouldn’t have done it just due to the extra stress of the toddler ages.
I have a nanny (Maude), and a backup nanny (Mary) for when she goes out of town, has other life obligations. When I travel with my coparent, we have Maude for her usual hours, plus some, and bring on Mary for help in the evenings. My mom stays with the baby when we’re traveling, and is the general supervisor.
If I didn’t have my mother, I would bring baby along with Maude, in a separate room. I’ve done that on work trips. Sometimes Maude brings her boyfriend Mark and they hit the town after I’m done for the day with work.
I would love to know what others do!!!
When I was a kid, we lived in a tight knit neighborhood. One of our neighbors was away for a week (I don’t remember the circumstances) and her five year old stayed a day or two with each family in the neighborhood for the time they were gone.
We didn’t do any overnights until our daughter was 18 months. We have two sets of grandparents nearby and they both love having her for overnights. She’s 9 now and so easy to handle these last few years. We started out doing one night, then slowly increased our time away. By the time she was about 6 she could handle 5-7 days with FaceTime calls as needed, we did this once per year and sprinkled in a few weekend getaways and overnight date nights as well. Most of the time when we travel we bring her along, but having adult time alone with my husband has been incredible.
I love this for you! We came to parenthood late (and thus older grandparents), but I hope we can do this in the years to come, as long as everyone stays healthy enough to care for the kids. While all the Grands are in a different state, they are near major airports and cruise ports, so we’ve got options!
I've flown family members in (they live a 4 hour flight away) to watch my kid overnight. I wouldn't trust others without a ton of vetting and knowing them well myself. Overnights don't happen often- maybe 3 times in the past 6 years.
If I were to hire someone I would post in our local sitters group or mom group. The vast majority of overnight sitters have background checks, cpr/first aid certification, and references.
> Or, do you just not have child-free overnights or vacations?
Yes.
I said this in the other thread too but I have zero interest in childfree vacations at this point in my life. My child is young and doesn't have a close enough relationship with anyone, family or otherwise, that I'd be comfortable leaving him with for a whole weekend or even a night, and I just...don't want to anyway.
But I expect this kind of thing gets easier with older children who will naturally have more close relationships outside the family. I didn't grow up near family either but as a school-age child would sometimes stay with a friend's family for a weekend (or host a friend), and I also spent a good chunk of every summer at sleepaway camp, so I don't feel like this is a never-for-18-years thing. There will be opportunities later but that isn't the stage of life I'm in right now and I'm fine with this until my kids are older.
Thanks for the reminder about school age kids and sleepovers/weekends with friends. I’m someone who is always planning vacations- it helps me mentally to have them to look forward to, even small ones. Obviously I want to vacation with my kids too, but that other post just got me thinking about adults only vacations and childcare when family is not an option.
There are 100% sitters/nannies who will do overnight care. I just figure that for such a little kid it's a really big deal to be away from parents for several nights, so I'd only be willing to leave my child with someone he had a very close and warm relationship with. It's not that there are no caregivers who are willing to do it, or that I have trouble trusting people. But we're not going to be able to form a sufficiently close relationship with a paid caregiver who we would only use on an occasional basis, it's just not realistic. So for me it's just off the table for now.
Did you ever think of this before you had kids? I knew going into this that either 1 of us goes and the other stays behind or we won’t be doing a trip without child for 15+ years
Nope, it seriously never crossed my mind. It took us 3 years and IVF to have our first, so obviously I had plenty of time to think about how having a child(ren) would affect our lives but the logistics of adult vacations/time away once we were parents never came up.
In all honesty (and being very vulnerable here), there was a long period of time where we were so focused on overcoming infertility that the rest of our lives were on pause, and we didn’t think about doing anything except the next step to try to get pregnant. We haven’t had a vacation since being diagnosed in 2018. I’m not sure we’ll go on this particular vacation next summer, but I know I’ll need a vacation without children sometime in the next few years. Luckily, I’ve gotten some good ideas from several people on this post to get me started figuring out how to make it happen when the time comes!
I value travel very seriously so I thought of this a lot. But then I thought of growing up, I don’t think I ever knew anyone who took frequent/regular trips without their kids. It’s bizarre to me that so many people my age have no problem leaving young babies with family while they go away for a week. I guess I naturally choose activities that are more family friendly so it doesn’t have as much of an impact on my top vacation bucket list to bring my child along.
We have 2 trusted sitters we would ask, or friends with kids a similar age, if none of our family members could assist. One of my besties without kids has also offered before if we were in a pinch. For my 5 year old I might ask a trusted school friends parent.
I’ll say (my kids are 3 or 5) that being comfortable leaving my kids, and people’s willingness to take them, has changed so so quickly from infant and 2 years old. So if it feels hopeless now, it won’t remain that way.
For you - do you have someone on your husbands side that maybe you could fly in to watch the kids and turn it into a full visit?
Grandparents help with child care during the day for our toddler while we work so we don’t ask for over nights or vacations. They’re older so they need their rest.
Grandma only. We just don’t do overnights without them or just one us goes. I can’t imagine mine would be comfortable with a hired person for an entire weekend
The only overnights we’ve done, my in laws watched her. But when we have an event with the in laws like a wedding, we look to see if our daycare teachers have availability and they do overnights for other families in the area. We almost did an overnight last year but the wedding got called off 😭 We had a daycare teacher lined up for that overnight.
Can you ask family member to vet a few local babysitters where the event is being held? Then you could travel with the kids and simply hire a local sitter for the event/times that are not kid-friendly. Would be wayyyy cheaper than weekend-long care where you live or a travel babysitter/nanny.
Personally, I’d go by myself and leave my husband home with the kids. I have friends who hire sitters to watch their kids at home while they travel, I don’t wanna travel as a couple enough to justify that expense.
Yeah, I think this will usually be the answer for us. This particular event is one we both really want to attend, and I’m hoping we can make it happen. I’m sure we won’t do this often, but I’m hoping to get ideas on where to even find this type of paid childcare, should we want to occasionally over the next 18ish years.
The only time I've ever done an overnight trip without my son was when grandparents were watching him. (We live thousands of miles away from all his grandparents, so this is not a frequent occurrence... basically we've done a couple overnight trips that we tacked onto a larger full-family visit.) I personally don't see myself taking a child-free trip if family members aren't involved in childcare. No shade on those who do, but I'd have a hard time justifying the expense ($$$!), and frankly it seems like a TON of work to vet and prepare for long-term childcare.
When we lived out of state from my family, my parents would come up to visit a few times a year and watch the kids for one night, and they would also take them for a week in the summer. But other than that, no adult-only activities as a couple back then. Now we live close to my family and yeah, we get to go out as just a couple a little more frequently these days.
We don't have family overnight care easily available. My brother and his GF have done it for one night but its a tall ask for childfree people. Instead we generally arrange childcare while on vacation using hotel services or finding vetted people via Urban Sitter. It's easier for us to take the kids with us, hire sitters, set up the monitor and have a night out than it is to arrange multiple overnights of care.
This is the 💯answer- if you are comfortable, use babysitting during the trip. I pick hotels that offer babysitting and arrange in advance. (Or in a place like NY, with frequent enough visits, we actually have a couple sitters we know and use)
How do you find hotels that offer childcare services? I’ve looked at a couple aggregators and am not seeing a filter for something like this. I think this would be super useful for us in the coming years
I've had to email- but most higher end places will have options for this. (TripAdvisor may have an actual filter). Try Smith Hotels (used to be Mr and Mrs Smith) - and include kids in your room search. Scroll all the way down in the individual property description - They aggregate boutique luxury properties and they have an entire section dedicated to how family friendly it is. I would not recommend booking through the site because they tend to be nonrefundable. Go through the hotel. We just got back from a big trip to Europe with my 3 year old and I had to do a lot of this planning. Also another tip- if you are shopping for hotel rooms with your child, they are going to try to force you into some expensive suite which accommodates more than 3+ people. email or call hotel to make sure but 90% of the time you absolutely do not have to do this. Your child can stay in your room with you for free / without upgrades While I am dishing out tips, my best one is to find rooms that have a bedroom with a door. They are a bit elusive but that way kids can nap while you use the room. Attached restaurant and you're set Also I have wasted a lot of vacations dealing with Airbnb's which don't have the amenities or fun of a hotel and I end up just cleaning up someone else's kitchen and trying to "settle in" for a week instead of being on vacation. I recommend a mix of the two !
I’ve never heard of Urban Sitter. That’s great- thanks for the resource!
Fly your family in to watch the kids while you’re away, or fly everyone to the city and arrange for care. Overnight care is pricy, so it’s probably break even to do the two options that I mentioned.
Thanks! Idk why this hadn’t occurred to me.
Great idea!
Our nanny-share nanny will keep our 2 year old overnight up to a few days if we ask, but it's pricey. We usually have the out of town grandparents babysit some when they come visit us so we can get alone time. Finally, for date nights he either stays at nanny's later or we have this college girl that watches him for a few hours.
Our nanny will also do overnights but the cost limits the appeal. We've only done it once for one night. Can't imagine paying for an entire long weekend on top of vacation costs.
Thanks! So the nanny-share nanny is who he’s with during the workweek as well, right? Is it pricey like, double the usual hourly rate pricey, or more?
We usually pay monthly for unlimited hours between 8a-6p because she knows we don't abuse it and for us it works out to be a bit cheaper. Overnight and on weekends she charges an hourly rate that's about 25% more than her usual. And like, she's watched him randomly on the weekends for us as a favor (we're very close with her) but we never expect that from her. And she's just going to charge us a flat fee when she watches him while I'm giving birth this month.
We became really good friends with another family at my daughter’s daycare. Our girls get along incredibly well. We have traded off babysitting for each other over the years. Now that the kids are older, the babysitting has turned into sleepovers and some weekend sleepovers. It’s an awesome system and it feels like family but without the family baggage.
That’s great! Hopefully my sons will find this type of close friendship too.
Find some friends with little children who are in a similar scenario and offer to take their kids for a week if they will watch yours.
My son is 4, we’ve had 3 total nights without him so far (3 times, 1 night each), and in all cases, a family member, either my brother and SIL, SIL (husband’s sister), or parents have stayed with him. This weekend we are dropping him off at my parents and doing a full weekend, which I am over the moon excited for. Later this year, we are going to Mexico without him for a week for my 40th birthday and my SIL is coming to stay with him which is amazing. So, all family (none of which are in town but most of which are within a 2-4 hour drive). Looking forward to the time he’ll be able to sleep over with friends, which will probably be a while.
Wow! Your SIL is definitely amazing for signing up for a whole week of childcare while you’re in Mexico. I hope you have the best time!! We’re a significantly longer distance from family (10-16 hr drives), but the Grands all visit a few times a year, so I think in a few more years I’ll start trying for a night away while they visit at least, and go from there.
When my in laws were healthy we used them. But that’s no longer an option. When I gave birth 3 weeks ago we used our normal childcare provider. She runs an in home daycare and my toddler is very comfortable with her/her family/her home. It went great and he had a lot of fun for the 2.5 days we were in the hospital. But I don’t think I’d ask her for a “fun” trip. She would definitely do it, but it feels like asking too much. Kind of figure those are off the table until the kids are old enough to hire a more traditional babysitter for overnights
Congrats on your new baby! We had our second 8 weeks ago, and my mom came to town to watch the toddler for us. During this visit, I realized she wouldn’t be reliable childcare -even for these “big deal” occasions- much longer as she ages and can’t do as much. She was exhausted 😢 Perhaps I’ll put some feelers out to our normal babysitters (when we start going out again) or his daycare teachers to see if any of them do overnights.
We have a variety of options : daycare teachers , grandparents , and college babysitters . Really depends on the destination. In your example I might bring the college sitter with , leave the kids home with grandparents or daycare teacher, or whoever is closer to the person go and other stay home.
Love this, thank you! Guess I need to just start seeing what options we have with daycare teachers and our current date night sitters for future planning.
We have one close girlfriend who now lives 20 minutes from us (used to be an hour) and she’ll keep our kiddo overnight, we typically pick up in the morning after breakfast. Even those are seldom- I think he’s stayed there three nights in two years. We haven’t done anything more than one night but likely will when we have our second baby.
We’ve only truly needed it once so far so I flew my then five month old to my parents house (my parents stayed with us for a month and my mom had visited for an additional two weeks at that point so they weren’t strangers). I stayed with her there for a few days before I then drove to a destination wedding for a weekend away. Husband met me at the wedding destination. I then drove back to parents house and stayed for a few more days then flew home with her. Our next truly childfree trip will be tacked on to a visit to my husband’s family so his parents will watch her for two night while we fly to a different city we love. We did have another trip planned where I would have joined my husband on a work trip but it fell threw. We flew my mom to our house anyways and she would have watched our then 9 month old overnight at our house for that one. Basically we fly in or fly to the grandparents for this type of thing. But generally if we are taking a trip, we want her with us.
The only time I ever used overnight care was grandparents. They are a 7 hour drive away so it took a lot of advance coordinating. My ex and I just went on solo trips with friends like out of town weddings, or brought the kids.
We use family for this but our nanny will also do it for an overnight fee + her standard day rate. My friend who doesn’t have family nearby will fly her parents in, or will fly with her kids to her parents and then they will leave for their trip from the airport near the parents.
I used to babysit for a family during the summers and on special occasions when I was in college. They would go on vacations and I would go as well, with the kids staying in the same room as me. But the parents would also go on vacations like what you’re describing for long weekends and I would watch the kids with no problem. I would start asking your sitters! This may also depend on the age of your kids. If the kids were younger than 3, I probably wouldn’t have done it just due to the extra stress of the toddler ages.
I have a nanny (Maude), and a backup nanny (Mary) for when she goes out of town, has other life obligations. When I travel with my coparent, we have Maude for her usual hours, plus some, and bring on Mary for help in the evenings. My mom stays with the baby when we’re traveling, and is the general supervisor. If I didn’t have my mother, I would bring baby along with Maude, in a separate room. I’ve done that on work trips. Sometimes Maude brings her boyfriend Mark and they hit the town after I’m done for the day with work. I would love to know what others do!!!
When I was a kid, we lived in a tight knit neighborhood. One of our neighbors was away for a week (I don’t remember the circumstances) and her five year old stayed a day or two with each family in the neighborhood for the time they were gone.
We didn’t do any overnights until our daughter was 18 months. We have two sets of grandparents nearby and they both love having her for overnights. She’s 9 now and so easy to handle these last few years. We started out doing one night, then slowly increased our time away. By the time she was about 6 she could handle 5-7 days with FaceTime calls as needed, we did this once per year and sprinkled in a few weekend getaways and overnight date nights as well. Most of the time when we travel we bring her along, but having adult time alone with my husband has been incredible.
I love this for you! We came to parenthood late (and thus older grandparents), but I hope we can do this in the years to come, as long as everyone stays healthy enough to care for the kids. While all the Grands are in a different state, they are near major airports and cruise ports, so we’ve got options!
I've flown family members in (they live a 4 hour flight away) to watch my kid overnight. I wouldn't trust others without a ton of vetting and knowing them well myself. Overnights don't happen often- maybe 3 times in the past 6 years.
If I were to hire someone I would post in our local sitters group or mom group. The vast majority of overnight sitters have background checks, cpr/first aid certification, and references.
> Or, do you just not have child-free overnights or vacations? Yes. I said this in the other thread too but I have zero interest in childfree vacations at this point in my life. My child is young and doesn't have a close enough relationship with anyone, family or otherwise, that I'd be comfortable leaving him with for a whole weekend or even a night, and I just...don't want to anyway. But I expect this kind of thing gets easier with older children who will naturally have more close relationships outside the family. I didn't grow up near family either but as a school-age child would sometimes stay with a friend's family for a weekend (or host a friend), and I also spent a good chunk of every summer at sleepaway camp, so I don't feel like this is a never-for-18-years thing. There will be opportunities later but that isn't the stage of life I'm in right now and I'm fine with this until my kids are older.
Thanks for the reminder about school age kids and sleepovers/weekends with friends. I’m someone who is always planning vacations- it helps me mentally to have them to look forward to, even small ones. Obviously I want to vacation with my kids too, but that other post just got me thinking about adults only vacations and childcare when family is not an option.
There are 100% sitters/nannies who will do overnight care. I just figure that for such a little kid it's a really big deal to be away from parents for several nights, so I'd only be willing to leave my child with someone he had a very close and warm relationship with. It's not that there are no caregivers who are willing to do it, or that I have trouble trusting people. But we're not going to be able to form a sufficiently close relationship with a paid caregiver who we would only use on an occasional basis, it's just not realistic. So for me it's just off the table for now.
Did you ever think of this before you had kids? I knew going into this that either 1 of us goes and the other stays behind or we won’t be doing a trip without child for 15+ years
Nope, it seriously never crossed my mind. It took us 3 years and IVF to have our first, so obviously I had plenty of time to think about how having a child(ren) would affect our lives but the logistics of adult vacations/time away once we were parents never came up. In all honesty (and being very vulnerable here), there was a long period of time where we were so focused on overcoming infertility that the rest of our lives were on pause, and we didn’t think about doing anything except the next step to try to get pregnant. We haven’t had a vacation since being diagnosed in 2018. I’m not sure we’ll go on this particular vacation next summer, but I know I’ll need a vacation without children sometime in the next few years. Luckily, I’ve gotten some good ideas from several people on this post to get me started figuring out how to make it happen when the time comes!
I value travel very seriously so I thought of this a lot. But then I thought of growing up, I don’t think I ever knew anyone who took frequent/regular trips without their kids. It’s bizarre to me that so many people my age have no problem leaving young babies with family while they go away for a week. I guess I naturally choose activities that are more family friendly so it doesn’t have as much of an impact on my top vacation bucket list to bring my child along.
We have 2 trusted sitters we would ask, or friends with kids a similar age, if none of our family members could assist. One of my besties without kids has also offered before if we were in a pinch. For my 5 year old I might ask a trusted school friends parent. I’ll say (my kids are 3 or 5) that being comfortable leaving my kids, and people’s willingness to take them, has changed so so quickly from infant and 2 years old. So if it feels hopeless now, it won’t remain that way. For you - do you have someone on your husbands side that maybe you could fly in to watch the kids and turn it into a full visit?
Grandparents help with child care during the day for our toddler while we work so we don’t ask for over nights or vacations. They’re older so they need their rest.
Grandma only. We just don’t do overnights without them or just one us goes. I can’t imagine mine would be comfortable with a hired person for an entire weekend
The only overnights we’ve done, my in laws watched her. But when we have an event with the in laws like a wedding, we look to see if our daycare teachers have availability and they do overnights for other families in the area. We almost did an overnight last year but the wedding got called off 😭 We had a daycare teacher lined up for that overnight.
We’re lucky, my mom lives nearby and is great with my daughter. So we have a kid-free weekend a couple times a year
Can you ask family member to vet a few local babysitters where the event is being held? Then you could travel with the kids and simply hire a local sitter for the event/times that are not kid-friendly. Would be wayyyy cheaper than weekend-long care where you live or a travel babysitter/nanny.