Do you still have family help?

Do you have family that can help you through? Me myself I had to move from mine recently, so I am not able to really go to work and things like that. I know with a lot of people family is a huge part of them and they are there to help every step of the way, but if you are living in a whole new place how do you cope with out your family there? Did you get use to it or are you still working on it? I am pregnant with my second child and by my husband being military and I am a stay at home mum it is like everything is on my shoulders since family is now out of the picture. I can not call my mum like I use to and ask her to pick up the baby so I can clean or anything like that. How do you cope or are you still coping? Sorry if it sounds like a whole whining story haha. :)

My mother passed away when I was 16 and my father remarried shortly thereafter and was very focused on his new wife. My mother was my best friend, so in many ways I was alone. I had my husband, but he worked full time and pretty much had the mentality that the babies were my responsibilities.

When our first child was a year old, we moved about an hour away from my husband's family. We don't use babysitters and so life was pretty much just me and my children.

So how did I cope? I made my children a part of everything I did and I used "nap time" as my "relax" time.

Vacuuming, laundry, cooking and cleaning were done with baby in the sling, front pack or backpack. I used a baby swing often for the little ones and found activities for toddlers to do that would keep them occupied.

When I ran errands, I did this in the morning when the children were not tired, and made sure to have an easy lunch ready when we arrived home. This way the children always got their naps and I had my "quiet time".

Is there some area in particular area you're struggling with? Need ideas? Post back and let's brainstorm so that we can overcome "single parenting" challenges.

I have four children and very limited help from my family. I rarely see them and they really aren't able to help with babysitting or anything like that. My husband's family lives about two hours away. We lived with his father for a while, but he wasn't very involved with our children.

It is hard, I am lucky because my husband is home a lot of the time as well. He is a student and we both work from home. I work full time and a lot of the times I end up working all day and night to fit in my career around my kids' needs. I pretty much do the same things that the pp suggested. I used nap time as my quiet time, I wouldn't know what to do without my Ergo. I just learned to incorporate my kids into my life, it can be hard sometimes. I am very introverted and like to have a lot of time to myself, so at times it has been an adjustment. To be honest, even now I am still learning how to "deal with it" on a day to day basis.

When my oldest two children were young, my husband worked out of town two weeks of the month. I can't really relate to what it is like to have a military husband though. I know it must be so hard to basically live as a single parent for so long.