Insights from my first solo trip abroad without kids

For the first time since November 2018 - when I was about 4 months pregnant with my first child - I travelled on my own in January. While our children regularly spend a night or two with their grandmother and my husband and I go on a staycation once a year, this was the first time in a very long time that I actually got on an airplane without my family and spent three nights in another country. Here are some insights that I got during this travel.

1. Mom guilt is real. The days coming up to my trips, I kept wondering if I really needed to go, if it would not be enough if I just stayed home, maybe took an afternoon off, but stayed close to my kids. I totally trust my husband and believe that he looks after them just as well as I do - differently but just as well. But there was this guilt of leaving, of taking some time for me, of making sure I get some rest, of spending some time with my friends without children… I cannot really pinpoint the origin of it, but when discussing with my husband, I realised that it’s something that he does not feel at all. He might feel bad leaving me alone with the children, but he does not feel guily about taking some time for himself. Even though I knew that I desperately needed rest, I could not completely shake away that feeling. I have been reading up on mental load in order to find a way to feel less burnt out at home - and it seems that there is some societal pressure on mothers to always be with their children, so they feel guilty as soon as they are looking after themselves for a little bit. I feel like I’ve only just started exploring the tip of everything around mom guilt and it’s definitely something that I want to learn more about.

2. It feels like such a luxury to put my own needs first even for a short while. I knew how hard it was to constantly follow a rhythm defined by a baby and a toddler. I’ve struggled getting woken up by a screaming child for the past four years and am still not used to it. Before becoming a mother, I always needed some time to wake up and I mostly enjoyed just having my peace for the first half hour of my day. I’ve tried to set up a morning routine, but with little children around, it’s hard to be consistent. So I truely enjoyed 3 mornings of waking up whenever I was ready, starting the day with a meditation, getting dressed and going out for breakfast at my own pace.

3. It’s amazing how just 4 days of rest can make you feel. The past year has been hard on me because even though I don’t really sleep in much, I do need my 8 hours of sleep to fully function. The broken sleep, the night wakings, the short and inconsistent naps have all been really hard on me and I knew by mid-January that I just really needed to make sure that I could get some rest. I was told by a health professional that I would need at least two weeks of rest in order to recover and regain full energy. But after 4 days (and a couple of nights where my husband took over the night waking before I left), I actually feel like a different person. I hadn’t managed to get this kind of rest in a very long time and this experience really made me realise the importance of taking time for yourself, whatever that means for you. For me, meditation, yoga and journaling help me get through the day. I’ve discovered audio books and like listening to them while putting the baby to sleep, it keeps me calmer and less stressed out when he doesn’t immediately fall asleep. But I really needed this break in order to regain some proper energy, so I can show up better for my children in the coming weeks and months. And it makes me want to plan little regular breaks away from my family - simply because I know that it will help me be more patient, more creative, more motivated and happier when I am around them.

4. Feeling responsible keeps me up at night. Getting time to sleep is one thing, but actually being able to sleep is another. With our youngest son, I feel that we had a rocky start: for the first 6 weeks, I had the feeling that he never really slept deeply. He was constantly moving in his sleep, making noise, being unsettled - until we turned him onto his belly. Even though this is not recommended and we were well aware of the risk of SIDS, after making sure all the other safety measures were taken ( we don’t smoke, there were no blankets or plushed animals in his crib, we made sure the room was not too hot, etc.), we decided that this was what we needed to do in order for all of us to actually get some rest. But somehow, during that time, I started having this feeling of being responsible all the time, and even if I had the chance, in the nights or during the day, I just couldn’t sleep. I felt like I had to be awake for him and would only drift off to sleep shortly before the next feed. This feeling of being responsible is still something that I struggle with, especially on the nights I am alone with the children. While my oldest son sleeps through even the loudest baby screams, it always feels to me like it’s not really worth it to fall asleep because I will anyhow be woken in a couple of hours - so I’d rather just stay awake now because it would be easier then to get up. This feeling has been less strong lately, but going away for 4 days also meant that for once, I was only responsible for myself, my needs. And if I am honest, I had forgotten how that felt like!

5. You will always feel conflicted about being apart from your children. If you’ve reached this part of this post, you’ll have understood that for me, as for many parents, there’s conflicting emotions linked to being away from my children: I desperately need the space and time to recover and rest, but at the same time, I miss them as soon as I’ve left the house. These conflicting feelings are hard to navigate, but I’m trying to lean into them, because I know that they will not go away. I need to look after myself in order to show up better for my kids, and at times, a 5 minute meditation or a quick walk around the block might be enough « me time », but at other times, I will just need some time apart to look after myself, recharge my batteries, rest. And in those time, I will miss the kids and wonder how they are doing. I don’t think that those feelings will ever go away, and even though it’s not always easy, I am trying to find ways to embrace them as much as I can, because I know that in a blink of an eye, the kids will grow up, start school, go to secondary school, move out...