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Parenting
kcisthebombdotcom
member
Am I the only one?
kcisthebombdotcom
member
in Parenting
I notice both on the boards and IRL on FB that most people don't allow their kids to stay overnight with their grandparents until they are well into toddlerhood (or even older). It was totally the opposite for me--once my kids started STTN, they had regular sleepovers at grandma and grandpa's. DH and I do date night twice a month and on both occasions the kids stay overnight with my parents.
Obviously, if I were physically capable of BF, it would have been different and I would have likely had to wait until they were toddlers due to nursing. Also people without family close by dont have the luxury of doing regular sleepovers either. I'm thinking of people (IRL, anyway) that didn't have the BF/family issue either though that just don't separate from their kids by choice, not because of a lack of opportunity to do so.
What say you? Am I the only one, or are there other crazies like me who pawn their kids off when they can?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Am I the only one?
My kids go to their grandparents about every six weeks or so for a weekend.
Team Pawn Them Off.
My Mom watches both of our girls so we try not to have her watch them on weekends as well. However they have stayed at my sisters & brother-in-laws house. We don't do it on a standard time basis (once a month or anything like that) but they will gladly do it if we need/ask them to. We will also just drop them off there some weekends if we want to do dinner and a movie or something like that.
I think when they get older (they are 4 & 1.5) they might go over once a month or two just to spend time w/them.
We went on a one week cruise when the boys were 8 months. They were not yet sttn, but we didn't care.
Now we get rid of them as much as possible
I've never spent a night away from my 19 month old. It makes me sad just thinking about it. In the future I will have no hesitation about letting her go to sleepovers at friends' houses, but for now I'm being selfish.
I couldn't keep my EYE-talian mother from her grandbaby if I tried. Also, I don't try. I encourage it. My in-laws, that is a whole other story. However, capable adults are welcome to my child.
Team sleep in.
At about six months she started to do sleepovers. We don't do them too frequently, mainly because I think it is just as much of a hassle to get everything she needs packed up as it would for her to just stay at home overnight.
This for me too, right around when she stopped BFing.
I miss my kids if I go to the store for an hour with out them. Buddy spent all weekend doing fun stuff with daddy while I had Tiny and was doing a garage sale with friends. I can say I missed Buddy so much over the weekend.
I would not be able to let them go for an entire weekend. I would constantly be sad "Oh Buddy would have LOVED to see that train go by" or "I wish Buddy was here cause he always has some spit fire thing to say"
DH works about 80 hours a week so the kids are really my entire world.
Team can't leave my kiddos
My DD has never stayed with anyone, and probably wont for a very long while.
My sisters where the opposite. They started letting my mom watch their kids just a couple of weeks after they where born.
My sister is generous about keeping him but I'm always worried he won't sleep well. Plus he gets up at 6:30 so she doesn't get to sleep in and I'm worried she'll be tired. Grandparents aren't close or willing.
I'm hanging out by my lonesome in the nope she doesn't go to the grandparents ever, let alone overnight category - but we have 2 solid reasons:
1. MIL lives 3000 miles away
2. My parents are nearby but they are old, and it's just not appropriate for me to ask that of them.
That being said, I'd let her go overnight if someone that I trusted offered AND we had someplace important to go - but I wouldn't do it just for the movies or to sleep in.
I thought it was a bump anomaly too until I've been seeing it all over FB lately. Like my friend who freaked out about leaving her 3 year old for the first time for more than a few hours because she had a wedding to go to.
I honestly don't know how marriages survive when one (or both) people can't separate from their kids for a few hours.
I thought it was a bump anomaly too until I've been seeing it all over FB lately. Like my friend who freaked out about leaving her 3 year old for the first time for more than a few hours because she had a wedding to go to.
I honestly don't know how marriages survive when one (or both) people can't separate from their kids for a few hours.
Team pawn them off.
DD stays with my MIL & FIL at least once a month, sometimes twice. They live a block away and are her favorite people on the planet. She's gone to spend the weekend with my dad and step mom twice. They live 4 hours away so it's not as convenient. They want to keep her once a month, but they're incredibly busy and have a hard time getting it to work with their schedules. They're great with her too. I miss her when she's gone, but I know she's in capable hands and it's nice to shift my focus onto DH or myself now and then.
This is my siggy. Love it.
According to KC our marriages probably won't survive. Sucks for us.
No, I don't think you have to leave your kids overnight for your marriage to survive. I do think you need to spend alone time with your spouse on a somewhat regular basis but you don't need an overnight babysitter for that, I referenced people who couldn't leave their 3 year old for a few hours to go to a wedding because they never separated from their kids before, but I wasn't referring to that in my sleepover question.
That response made me throw up in my mouth a lot.
If I'd never sent my kids to their g'parents for a weekend, I would've gone slowly insane.
So I can't pick up what Mrs.P. was putting down.
Why?
I am not judging anyone for leaving their kids at all.
For me, personally I feel no urge to leave my kids. Both boys go to bed at a reasonable time so like someone else said we usually order take out and rent a movie on amazon instant. Date night - DONE!
I can literally count on one hand the times I spent away from my parents growing up, and my grandparents lived DOWN THE STREET. Both sets of grandparents live hours away though. So for an over night I would have to drive 6 hours round trip to leave them. Not worth it. Its just never been the "normal" to pawn my kids off because its not how DH or I were raised.
LOL.
I guess this should have been my confession for the week
This is me also. The first time Abbie spent the night at my parents' was at 8 weeks, but that is only because I had gallbladder surgery and needed a night not to worry about the baby. Since then she has slept at my in-law's twice: once b/c we had a wedding out of state, and once for a weekend away and my parents' once: for our anniversary in June when we went away for a weekend.
We were kind of running a middle road until just before she turned 2. We would go out and stay with them for the weekend every 4-5 weeks or they would come babysit here while we went out to dinner etc.
They did get one weekend alone with her when she was just under a year (for our anniversary) but they did some stuff that really bothered both of us, like basically forgetting to feed her. So they had to show that they could actually follow instructions on important stuff before we would let them try again for a full weekend, which ended up being a year later for our next anniversary. They've since had her 2 other weekends and will be keeping her for the long weekend of our move in August as well. For us it was just a combination of things, I was BF til about 14 months and they aren't the best at respecting our decisions on parenting unless we are very explict or show them their are consequences to not listening. They're great grandparents now, to a toddler, to an infant not so much.