A WEEKEND BREAK

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Whether you choose to go away to a hotel or just enjoy the peace and quiet at home, make the most of your own time while your children stay with trusted friends or relatives. Plan ahead, as careful preparation makes for a fun, secure sleepover. A BLISSFUL WEEKEND AWAY

The two children are big enough now for you to be able to plan a weekend away on your own with you’re partner or a relative or friend staying with the children. Or better still a weekend with your partner or a good friend, with the grandparents taking the children.

Now that the baby is 18 months and the older child quite responsible, and the two of them settled into a good routine with respect to napping, mealtimes and bedtime, it’s time for the two of them to try a couple of nights away. They should cope fine sleeping for a couple of nights with their favourite grandparents or your closest friend. Prepare the whole thing as a huge treat for them (and of course a lovely break for the two of you).

Let them each have their own little case and let them help pack. It makes the whole enterprise more fun and gives both children a sense of achievement. Prepare all the usual changes of clothes for the children, put their favourite bath toys as well as night cuddly toys or music CDs into their cases, write a clear list about their routines, the phone numbers of their doctor and the phone number where you will be. Drop them off around tea time so that they have time to acclimatize before it’s bedtime. Stay with them for a while. Visit their special bedroom and let them show you around proudly.

Once it’s time to go, leave gently but firmly and don’t dawdle, so that they feel secure in your departure. Even if you and your partner end up just staying home rather than in a hotel, the treat of being alone together with nothing but yourselves to think about is a marvellous bonus for busy parents. Go out for a drink or a meal at the house of friends, take all the time in the world to lazily read the papers over breakfast in bed in the morning, and go for a walk hand-in-hand like in the “old days”! Or spend the evening with an old school friend laughing at all the antics you both used to get up to. Above all, don’t spend the whole time worrying or phoning to see if the two children are OK. Take it that unless the phone goes, they are having a wonderful time together.

Remember overnight stays with the grandparents are so much easier when there are two children to make one another feel safe than it was with an only child. Here’s a lovely example of one of the great advantages of having a sibling.

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Body And Soul

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relaxation

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wellbeing

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time for me