You Deserve a Vacation: 5 Tips for Going Away Without Your Kids

Last updated on September 28th, 2021 at 01:59 pm

Before my twins were even conceived, we had planned a trip with my closest friends from high school and our husbands to go to Aruba for our 30th birthdays. We had talked about this trip for years and finally had our travel arrangements researched and booked! We were so excited and it was going to be a fun and relaxing week on the island! A few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. At the time, I thought that I would have one healthy baby and I was sure my mother would love to get her hands on that baby for a few days. No big deal, right? Going away without your kids is easy. Can you tell I’d never been a parent before?

Obviously, that whole plan went out the window since I am writing an article for Twiniversity. I found out at our eighteen-week ultrasound that we were having twins and then surprisingly, they arrived twenty-eight weeks into my pregnancy. We spent two months in the hospital watching them grow and learn how to survive. For the first few months of their lives, we struggled with many aspects of their prematurity, which made it very challenging to leave them for any period of time.

As we got closer to our departure date, my parents and in-laws urged us to still go on this trip and we knew that they would take great care of Grace and Cole. Our friends wanted us to go and have fun. The Social Worker I was seeing for postpartum depression thought it would be good for us to go to reconnect and relax. Our pediatrician thought it would be great for our sanity to get some rest. Even though we seemed to have support from just about everyone that mattered, the guilt versus exhaustion war still raged on inside me.

I felt awful about leaving my babies but honestly, I was exhausted and needed a break. As we weighed the options and thought it through, the words of one wise nurse from our hospital days stayed with me. We had mentioned the trip to her a few weeks before the babies could come home from the hospital and she told us it would be “the smartest decision we’ve ever made for the family if we go.” At the time, I felt guilt-ridden about even thinking of leaving my babies for a day as they were cooped up in the hospital but now all I felt was the exhaustion that had taken over my life.

By the time mid-July came around, I realized I needed this trip for my sanity but to enjoy it, I needed to really prepare for my first time away from my little ones.

Here are my 5 tips for going away without your kids:

1. Leave them with trusted people

Make sure you are leaving your twins with people you completely trust. We are very lucky that we have both sets of our parents close by and they are physically able to care for our children. I felt completely comfortable leaving the twins with my parents during our first trip away from them. My mother raised three children and is highly involved in the twin’s lives. They are comfortable and happy with her so I knew that part was an easy step and we are very lucky for that! On our next trip, the twins are mostly staying with my in-laws and they are just as comfortable and close with them.

2. Plan ahead

Prepare well in advance for what your children will need while you are away. Make sure you have enough pumped breast milk or formula for your little ones. Make sure you have their prescriptions refilled. Make a list and review it in advance of packing their bags. Pack their bags early if they are traveling to stay with their caretaker or make sure your caretaker knows where everything is in your home. Put fresh batteries in the sound machine. Stock up on foods they like to eat or medications they may need if they are teething or sick. I recommend doing all these things in advance so you are not worried that the twins may not have something they may need while you are on vacation.

3. Have a plan for them

Write down a day-to-day plan. I wrote a ten page document the first time I went away without my twins which included what they eat, when they eat, medication dosages, sleeping schedule, changing diaper schedule and every trick we had up our sleeve for tough sleeping nights or terrible feeding times. This helped me to feel more at ease in case the twins were acting up and I was not there to help solve the problem. I also made sure the caretakers had phone numbers for all their doctors in the document in case of an emergency.

4. Add an international phone plan

If you are leaving the country and want to call them frequently this is a good idea so that you aren’t stuck with a huge bill when you get home. Also, check the internet status at the hotel you are staying at so you can make sure you can get on the wifi to face time as well.

5. Buy insurance for your trip

Things happen with babies and you can’t predict it- illness, surgery, or an accident could cause you to need to cancel. If you have the insurance, you can at least get some of your money back.

For us, we ripped off the band-aid when my twins were five months old. We dropped off the twins with my parents, boarded the plane and off we went. We spent five days relaxing, eating great food, drinking fruity drinks and laying out in the sun. I got to spend five days focused on me. I got to read a book. I got to have adult conversations. I got to have someone else wash my towels, clean my bathroom and make my meals. It was wonderful.

I believe the more time that passed and we did not leave our babies, the harder it would have been. Geoff and I got to relax, reset, get some sleep and have some fun. Our parents got to spend quality time with the twins. Grace and Cole got spoiled for five days, had wonderful care and were with people who love them. We want to continue to try to get away once a year without the kids. It may not always be able to be a week away, but even if it’s just a nice weekend somewhere to sleep in, eat out and relax. It’s important to take care of yourself because happy parents create happy children. Going away without your kids can be one way to take care of yourself. Never forget about you and your sanity. You are still a person, not only a mother. Sometimes, we need to nourish that part of ourselves as well!

Corey Mathison is a first-time mom to one year old boy/girl twins that were born at twenty-eight weeks gestation. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, her twins, her dog Ronan and cats Charlotte and Savannah. She also works full-time as a Senior Manager of Human Resources for a biotech company in Cambridge and spends her occasional free time at the beach. She can be reached via her blog Journey with Twins C&G and on Facebook.