Alycat Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Hello! A question for families with young children, how do you find it living without family near by to help? what have you been doing for baby sitting? Have you found it much harder? would love to hear other people's experiences parenting young kids without family support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 We had no one when our kids were little - ds1 was 6 months when we moved then we had a second child. We never had a baby sitter, if we went out we took them with us but we didn't go out much as DH was very busy. When I wanted to start studying I went part time and, as far as possible DH did the child care but eventually we used a child care centre for when I had lectures and then of course when I started work (in the days before the child care rebate too!). You get used to being independent and it quite surprises me now how reliant some young families are on their parents. It isn't easy but they're your kids and you do it - either take them with you or pay for a service. It's do-able. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Our interests tend to be family oriented so it doesn't crop up very often. There are heaps of facebook groups for mums where they organise get togethers and you can ask for recommendations for babysitters. Quite a lot of people I know have partners who work away and it seems that friends are a huge support. You can do babysitting swaps. That said, I do think that migration is for the relatively self sufficient. You have to be pretty independent to move across the world without family support. If you rely upon your parents here and you have a very close knit extended family it will be tricky. My family are located across the UK so it hasn't made any difference to me re babysitting. I suggest that you join up to some fb groups before you relocate - you can get a feel of the different communities and the networks for support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JockinTas Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 I had both babies here with no help at all from family. I was a stay at home Mum until youngest started school. Made good friends through baby/toddler groups. When we did go out, (which wasn't very often) we were lucky to have a lovely young lass next door who was only too happy to babysit for a few bob. Like Quoll I am very independent and even if we were in the UK, I wouldn't have expected help from family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ali Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 I think the level you miss the support is dependent upon how much the family did for you when you were in the UK. Despite having family around in the UK we didn't get much help and because quite a self sufficient foursome which to be honest probably helped us when we moved. Most of the things we did with the kids, as we and they developed friendships there was a bit more help available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickyNook Posted July 1, 2016 Share Posted July 1, 2016 Exactly the same here - my two children were born here and our nearest family was 12000 miles away. We mostly swapped babysitting duties with friends and sometimes kind neighbours helped. I found that it was more unusual to have family nearby - certainly none of my friends did. Even my Australian-born friends tended to have moved here from the country or other cities so were all in the same boat as me regarding babysitting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 2, 2016 Share Posted July 2, 2016 Hello! A question for families with young children, how do you find it living without family near by to help?what have you been doing for baby sitting? Have you found it much harder? would love to hear other people's experiences parenting young kids without family support. We had these exact issues in the UK for 5 years before we moved here. You get on with it and you get by. You make friendships, get to know a few neighbours etc who can babysit or know someone who can. Or you pay a babysitter (ie a trainee nanny from an agency looking for babysitting work also). Or you go places you can take the kids also. Or you don't go out. Since being here, we've had more help from family with babysitting etc but also ours is older now so has sleep overs and things at friends from time to time. Its not like our social life has massively improved since being here though. Aussie socialising often tends to be home based and we often take ours with us and he goes to bed there and then we put him in the car later on to drive home. Same with the other families taking their kids to the same things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LKC Posted July 2, 2016 Share Posted July 2, 2016 I'll agree with the sentiments above. If you are fairly independent in the UK, then you'll probably be fine over here. However, if you rely on friends/family quite a bit for babysitting etc, you will probably find it more of a struggle. We were always very self-sufficient in the UK. We lived a good 2-3 hour drive from both of our families, and I think the only time we relied on someone (mil) to babysit was when I was in hospital having youngest daughter. Having said that, we've never been a couple who like to go out without the kids anyway, so we've never relied on babysitters for that. Over here we've been out a few times, and have asked friends or parents of the girls friends to babysit. It has only been maybe four times in seven years, and now the girls are older we tend to take them with us anyway, whether it be to see Foo Fighters or to a restaurant for a birthday dinner. I have some good friends who I could rely on in an emergency, thankfully. My American friend had an emergency situation recently, which made me think about what I would do if the situation should arise. They had been on holiday to Bora Bora as a family, and on the day they got back to Sydney they had a phone call to say that her husband (also American) had had a death in the family. They needed to go home to the US, but because of where they are from (Wisconsin) there was a 30+ hour journey to get there. Their children are only 4 and 2, so taking them on that journey after having just done the long journey from Bora Bora was out of the question. Luckily they have a babysitter/nanny who looks after the kids a couple of days a week, who was able to come and look after them. If she hadn't been available then I would have looked after them. It made me realise just how important it is to have an emergency plan in place, even if you don't use a babysitter on a regular basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blossom Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 I have a 20 month old daughter and another due in two weeks. My partner is Australian, and his mum is here, so we are not totally alone. However, when I go into hospital it will actually be the first time she has baby sat our 20 month old. We just don't go anywhere that she couldn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calNgary Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 I found that once i had made a few friends they were very sympathetic to us having no extended family here and were always on hand to help if we needed them. 9 years on and things are the same, my kids are often out on sleep overs giving us a child free night here and there and some of the people i first met who helped us out are now my closest friends. Cal x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starlight7 Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Never had any help either when we lived in the UK or here. I remember a look of horror on my Mum's face when I handed her my firstborn- she had no idea ( she had had help herself, didn't have to do much at all) I do remember looking at other people with helpful mums with a great deal of longing and thinking how nice it would be to have help, and to be able to get a good sleep ( when they were little) You cope of course, you have to. Subsequent children are never as hard as the first one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
excitedbutterrified Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 We have a 4 year old and a 1 year old and moved out to melbourne 1 year ago. In terms of childcare, we found it quite easy to find an appropriate mix of long daycare, and nanny care. We have the girls go to a daycare centre 3 days per week, and the nanny comes to our house for 2 days. Both the daycare and nanny are great. When we were in the UK we used daycare for 3 days, and family for the other 2. The main problem we have in Oz is that it is so expensive. We pay over $1k per week on childcare, and because we are on a 457 visa, we are not eligible for childcare rebate etc.. so that is definitely something to factor in. It is a lot more expensive for us, but we had a lot of help in the UK. We are definitely feeling a lot of guilt about moving our kids away from their grandparents etc.. my parents are ok in general (very supportive, and grateful for the time we have together when they visit us or we visit uk plus skype) but my wifes parents are very vocal about being unhappy with us living in Australia. In particular my Wifes mum is utterly depressed with the situation of us living here, and this is a major strain on us, and may mean at some point we abandon our plans to live here. For going out, we have found a reliable babysitter, who the kids get on with, but adds on $100 to any night out. It certainly is tough giving up a support network Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alycat Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 Thanks for sharing your stories. Yes, I do wonder about emergency situations and what we would do as we would have no family there what so ever. OH and I are pretty self sufficient but its just those tricky times that I do wonder how people manage it. I guess like some of you have said, you just get on with it! I think if we were in the situation of having another baby possibly hiring a doula might be an option for us. Or maybe I could convince my MIL to fly over here for a couple months too to help us with babysitting the older kids during that newborn phase.. ?!! Just goes to show though how important community can be and to start building one once one relocates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunbury61 Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Hello! A question for families with young children, how do you find it living without family near by to help?what have you been doing for baby sitting? Have you found it much harder? would love to hear other people's experiences parenting young kids without family support. I can honestly say that I didn't miss the help of parents or in laws . Our eldest was born in oz ,and those were some of the happiest times. We didn't rely on our Aussie mates either. We would get to bbqs early and leave early ,often when other people were just turning up ,this was so the little one could keep her sleep routine . I don't believe in taking children to functions and have them fall asleep in pushchairs ...to me ,it ain't right . Often having kids in oz ,on your own ,has its pluses ...trust me . You haven't got the support network ,but you haven't got the interference either Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johndoe Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Never got any help in the UK so didn't miss it in Oz. Used to spend our hols at the in-laws helping them out on their small holding (expected of us), chopping wood for their winter stock, fixing fences etc, and not once, in 10 yrs did they say, "you go out for a meal, we'll look after the kids" Glad to get away from the lack of support tbh as it was beginning to grind, not that we ever had kids with the intention of expecting others to help us out, but it would have been nice if someone offered once in a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.