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Our families live in other countries. We don't get to see them as often as we would like to. We spend much of our vacation time seeing them (but we also try to save some time/money for actual vacations too).

For emergencies we rely on friends. Luckily we have not had to call on them yet.

We have had about 2 date nights since LO1 was born 3.5 years ago! We just haven't found any babysitters we can use. We used a friend for 1 evening, and we went out after bedtime when we had family visiting for the other time.

DS is 4 months old. Our families live about 12 hours away by car. They live in the same town.

No emergencies yet but we have several close friends we could call in a second and they would be here.

My parents have visited twice and we've gone on a date each of those times. Our daycare has a "kids night out" where they are open until midnight once a month and we are going to take advantage this Friday! (Though we will most likely pick him up by 8ish at the latest)

We visit our families once a year. Vacations are important to us and while we miss our families and want to see them, we make it a priority to do things just us.

Date nights are rare...every few months we might get 1. It's so much to pay a sitter and night out it isn't really even worth it.

Emergencies I call on friends to help if depending on situation OR if kids get sick DH and I split taking days off.

No date nights (okay we had one when my mom was visiting over christmas). We don't actually have any friends in the area yet so if we had an emergency we would just have to make due with us. LO gets dragged to a lot of things...making friends is so hard now!

My family lives across the country; my in-laws live 2 hrs away.

My husband had a medical emergency in Jan. i called a neighbor while we were waiting for the ambulance and she took the kids for a few hours. I didn't stay at the hospital because he was stable and I wanted the girls to sleep at home. The next day the kids went to daycare and then I took them back to the neighbors' house in the evening so I could go back to the hospital. My husband's parents came down after that and watched the girls the rest of the week.

I have a few friends who have also helped me out from time to time.

The girls' daycare hosts a monthly "date night" for $20 per kid from 4-9pm. We almost always take advantage of that. I also have two or three sitters that I like who we found via care.com. One of them in particular has help me out several times in a pinch, for instance, if I was stuck in traffic and couldn't get to daycare in time.

My husband doesn't have any vacation time due to all the issues he has had, but I get a fair amount. I often take the girls by myself across country to see them, usually twice a year.

Our families are across the country and on another continent. If we had a short-term emergency situation, we have friends and neighbors who we could call on to help. If it was something that would take longer to resolve, I guess we'd try to see if one of my parents could take off work for a bit and fly them in.

Date nights are rare. We usually take advantage when we have family or friends staying with us to get out one night, and we have a babysitter we sometimes call. We really need to find a backup sitter, but it's so hard. We're actually facing a bind in a few months because one of my business trips might run long, and DH is scheduled to leave on a trip of his own that weekend. If I have to stay over to the following week, I really don't know what we're going to do. At least we've got some time to make contingency plans, but it's stressful.

DH gets a ton of vacation, I don't. Most of mine is taken up with travel to see our families, but the problem with using the rest for "us" vacations is more scheduling (my busy times tend to clash with DH's down times) than actually having the time available.

Our families are across the country. We never have date nights, but our daycare has a parents day out sometimes, and we try to take advantage of that. If we had an emergency, we'd just have to make it work by ourselves. It's been stressful for me not to have a network.

Family is across the country but we have awesome friends. Without trying I can think of six people I could call who would be here at the drop of a hat who have kids of similar ages and therefore wouldn't even need instructions. My friends and I also swap kids to allow for date nights when we can.

In an emergency, I know I could call on some friends. Otherwise, we hire babysitters for date nights (which are rare). My DH gets a ton of vacation time and I'm self-employed, so I take what I want, so we use some of it to see family and some of it for "fun". My ILs are pretty mobile so they visit 2-3 times a year. My dad visits maybe once per year.

When we lived away from family we relied on friends for the few dates we had. For a few social gatherings we waited until she was asleep before we left her with our coworkers teenaged daughter.

When we lived away from my parents, we had a very part time nanny. She was working for other families and need a few extra hours one day, so she worked for us about 4 hours a week. We used her for date nights a few times, but I wasn't working so I could be very flexible.

Now, I work full time and my parents do a lot of child care during the week so we don't use them for date nights and my husband isn't ready for a sitter. Our last date was actually last Friday, we took the day off and went to an afternoon movie. We also meet for lunch since our offices are across the street.

Emergencies are a different story, but we would have to exhaust a few family options before calling in neighbors.

Eta: at some point, we might consider an au pair.

We have 2 neighbors and 2 friends that we would call in an emergency -

Date nights - far and few between - $$$

Sitters - yes, 3 different DCP teachers have watched our kids

My parents live in Texas, my in-laws in Tennessee, and we each have a sibling in Massachussets. We live in Connecticut. Any of them can be here within a day if really needed, but we also have friends we can call if we need to. When I had a preterm labor scare we called a friend to come stay with DD in the middle of the night.

We try to travel once a year to see one family or the other, and host family here in our home as they are able to come visit. We'd love to go more often but it gets tricky with kids, and can be so expensive!

It's hard! Our closest family member (my in-laws) are an 8 hour drive away. My mom lives several states away and it would either be a 16 hour drive or a 3 hour flight, but of course the flight involved getting to the airport and stuff.

We struggle a lot with things like our kids being sick, because neither of us has work-from-home jobs or much flexibility. This year, we hired a nanny who was willing to come when the girls are sick as long as it's not something like a stomach bug, and we also use her (and obviously, have to pay her extra) when we have other things that come up.

For example, tonight we have Preschool registration for LO1, and I've heard it's hours of waiting in line and it's during the girls' dinner time and bathtime, so I can't take them. But my husband gets home from work around 7 pm. So either he takes off early (again. he's been sick recently, so he really can't leave work early), or we pay the nanny and ask her to stay longer.

Does it suck to have to pay a nanny $40 so I can do preschool registration? Yes. It sucks. But....I figure it's just a season. I hope.

I have Spring Parent Conference night next week at my school from 6-8 pm, so again, we have to pay the nanny extra to watch the kids until DH gets home. =(

Currently, we are paying more than our mortgage in childcare each month. For hospital emergencies, we would probably either call our nanny or one of our childless friends.

We lived in a different country to our families for the first three years of DD's life. It helped that I stay home, so we didn't have any instances where we needed childcare really.

The one time we really felt it was when I we t I to hospital to have DS. My good friend watched A for two days but then DH just had to bring her into the hospital and she really acted out. Just getting home from the hospital was such a big drama, it would have been so much easier to have had someone to watch A.

We never had date nights and didn't use any sisters. In a pinch though, I would have called friends I think. I trusted them all implicitly and we would have definitely helped each other out in an emergency. I used to take the kids with me for all my medical stuff, I remember DD being with me for many transvaginal ultrasounds, which obviously wasn't ideal but it was okay. Baby DS was in my arms while I had a pelvic examination a few months ago. We just made it work.

Now we have all the family around but I can't say we utilize them. No one has watched the kids yet because I have a hard time letting go after all that time doing it myself.

My mother lives a 2.5 hour plane ride away, and my in-laws live a 4-5 hour drive away. We see my in-laws anywhere from 4-6 times per year. They will come down or we will go up. That said they will only visit us one night. They don't like where we live so they leave quickly. They almost never stay more than one night. My mother lives farther away, and we don't see her much. There's some history there about why.

We survive with the help of our nanny. The past two weeks have been crazy for work for me (early morning and late evenings,) and she is there to help as DH sometimes has work things or travel. I don't really ask friends because many of them are in the same boat and/or don't live close by and don't have cars.

We have a babysitter for date nights. We are actually looking for a new one. We sometimes ask friends or we ask our nanny for extra time, but the latter is rare.

We only have one LO right now, who will be 3 soon so things are bit easier these days. Because of our lack of support system, I can't imagine having more than two.

I'm in SoCal, my whole family is in Wisconsin, my MIL and FIL is in Denver and my BIL and SIL are in St. Loius.

This is actually something I was thinking about this weekend. I went to a birthday party for one of our neighbor's kids. Almost everyone there was family. I was thinking about how most of the people at J's birthday will be friends, and mostly because we had to build this network because we don't have family close by. In an emergency, we would call friends or ask neighbors to help and these people are more present in our lives, I think, because we don't have family to rely on. The vast majority of our closest friends are in the same situation of living far from their families and I don't think it's coincidental. I put more energy into these relationships both because I have the time and because they are very important to us.

We have a nanny for J and she is always open to babysitting for our nights out so we probably do that once a month. We also have an arrangement with a friend that has a baby the same age to swap childcare.

We do spend a decent amount of our vacation visiting families, probably 2-3 weeks/year. We get additional days free/nights off when visiting. Our families also visit us and give us date time when they're here. I feel like we have plenty of couple time.

It sucks. My mom almost got on a plane this morning to come help. I am so sick with a GI bug and pregnant.

I found a friend to take LO outside, give him dinner and a bath. She babysits often so they get along great. I am not sure what hazard pay is for this but she is defiantly getting more then normal.

When we aren't so sick I have a few friends close by I could call on in a pinch. Also the family we have a nanny share with are incredibly generous and will sometimes watch him on an off day if i really need to work.

My work is super understanding, but i feel like i push it sometimes. This week being one of those times...

It's freaking hard.

@Rainbow Sprinkles: I have found a few friends who's houses we go over to just to break up our days. The kids always eat better and someone else toys are so much more interesting. Also, other adults are great to talk to. Passing the time together is nice for everyone. I feel lucky to have found this.