DH travel how to help DD

74dragonfly

My DH is taking a new job out of state. Initially he will be commuting, fly out Monday and home Thursday. We will try this for two months and if job is good we will move there. Any advice on helping DD cope? We figure we can Skype. He has traveled sporadically before and it was hard for her.

rsd12

I am trying to think about how we handled it. We were in a similar situation. My husband was out of state Sunday evening through Friday evening for almost 4 months. During the week things were okay, just kept the kids to their routine. The youngest, who was 2.5 at the time had the most difficult time but it was more of not getting my attention when daddy was back on the weekends. But they were use to daddy working long hours during the week, and me being the primary parent during the week anyway. We actually did not make any of it a big deal too. It helped because my oldest, who is 6, was told he was the man of the house and took his role well!

bethelon

My husband travels pretty frequently and it's been really hard on my daughter for the past 6 months.  I found one thing that has helped is to get a US map and I show her where he is this week.  It's been great because it gives her a visual, and then it gets her excited about knowing the locations and she's learning geography too.   Sometimes phone calls/facetime make her more upset.  So we just take that day by day based on her sensitivity.  2 months will go quickly, especially since he'll be coming home for long weekends!

LoveEeyore

DH travels 10-12days every 6ish weeks.  Since July even more.  I do the following.

1) the map.  He travels internationally, so we use pushpins and each day name where he is and the continent, and find the right pin.

2.  We go online and listen to a song from the country.  We learn to count to 10 and say hello in the language. 

3.  I use huge posterboard and draw a huge airplane.  There is a window for each day he is gone.  I put a pic of his face on the first day.  We count how many he days he's gone, how many more until he's back and then move him to the next window every morning.  This helps ALOT.

4.  We have a recordable book that I had him record and we listen to it when they're blue. DS sleeps with the book- he gets the most dumpy. 

5.  we always take him to the airport and pick him up.

Now every weekday morning they ask him if he's going to work by car or plane (sad!). 

Good luck!

DTNZ4Ever

DH also bring a story book or two with him and we either FaceTime or Skype with DH at bedtime every night. DH reads the story and they talk about their day. DS also counts days by naps so he likes to count how many naps until DH gets home.

ldcoffel

I heard an idea where you can make one of those photo books with pictures of where Daddy is. Like the airplane, the office, the hotel room, and end it where Daddy always comes back home to his family.

Leap08

During the summer months my husband works out of town 4 nights a week, and can be gone for up to 16 days in a row. It's hard on my daughter, but we do manage. We do Facetime and talk one the phone a lot. We always talk to Dad at bedtime. We try to plan fun things for the time that Dad is home and then we talk about those things while he's away. Honestly, I think the two months will go so quickly. This is a busy time of year, and that should help.