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We don't have much of one, and it really does make things tougher. I don't think we'll have family nearby anytime soon, but if we can move to a bigger house by the time my parents retire in a couple of years, they could come for extended visits, which they'd love and would help us tremendously.

Our village is small but it works (so far). DH and I both WOH at the same place. Not necessarily the exact same schedule. We send DD (14 mo) to the daycare at the hospital where we both work. It's open 6am-midnight 364 days/year, so if we plan ahead we have coverage whenever we need to work.

Tricky time is if DD is sick and gets sent home from daycare. Both my parents and his mom are about 2 hours away driving. They come in a heartbeat if it's something serious, but the delay isn't always ideal.

We live in an urban area with 100 year old row houses and happen to have about 20 kids ages 14mo-10 years on our block with two more on the way. Neighborhood is pretty ideal. We've had some of our retiree neighbors watch DD once or twice for a date night out.

We both WOH and our village consists of my mom (lives with me), my sister, niece and nephew. I am very lucky! We have 3 and the help is awesome. Especially since my husband works a shift schedule including nights. My mom takes care of my kids if they are sick and picks them up after school for me. If she is busy, my sister and her kids are back up.

Almost no village. My family lives across the country and DH's is 2.5-3 hours away. I travel a bit for work and work a lot of nights/weekends and DH is finishing his master's so he has class one weekend every month, but we make it work. If we know a month or two in advance my in-laws or mom can come in for a weekend if we need them. Otherwise we use sitters or a close friend to watch DS in a pinch.

Despite the travel and long hours, my job is actually very accommodating if when DS is sick. I stayed home with him an entire week last month and it wasn't a big deal. DH's job is a little less accommodating but he can leave if I cannot.

My parents are about 45 minutes away but my mom is in assisted living with advanced Alzheimer's, so my parents aren't exactly a help. My dad tries but he is so burned out from taking care of my mom day in and day out for 7 years that he isn't really up to taking care of a three year old. My sister lives near my parents and we strive to be support for each other that my parents can't be. Our kids are close in age and get along, so now we are at a point where one of us can handle all three kids at once. We try to travel together, because it makes everything much easier and more fun.

My in-laws are about 2.5 hours away. We actually moved recently to a bigger house so that we had space for guests to come and stay and we've had them come and stay a couple of times. They pick our DD up from daycare which is so nice as its just a break from the usual. We've never asked them to come down for sick days, etc. but I did ask them to come down once when I was going out of town and my husband had been home all week with our sick kid and I thought he needed a break. They've offered when we've had issues with our childcare but we've been able to figure things out.

We live in an urban area and have undertaken to befriend the other parents from our daycare and to meet other families in our neighborhood. We have an active local Fit4Mom chapter and I have met a lot of moms that way. We then got invited to a babysitting coop, which has been a fantastic way of building a village - we have regular social gatherings (so the kids feel comfortable being left with the other parents) and it allows for us to be able to do date nights and sometimes just have somebody watch our kid so we can take care of chores, etc. We also have a few child-free friends who we try to see regularly and spend time with because they are often the most available in a pinch to help us with childcare or other bizarre favors (like changing our flat tire when somebody punctured it while we were on vacation.)

We both work full time out of the house, pretty regular schedules of 8:30-5:30/ish and I've always been lucky to have jobs with generous sick time, though inflexible hours. On sick days we usually alternate who stays home depending on schedules, and I recently changed jobs to a non-litigation position where I can more easily take a day off if needed. I have always tried to work for people who understand the needs of people with kids, which helps a lot. My husband's old job would never have understood the sick day thing so I encouraged him to change jobs for that and many many other reasons before we started TTC our first. In some ways our jobs and coworkers are part of our village - I always try to do favors for and offer to cover for coworkers because they will do the same for me if I need them to handle a court case for me, etc.

The bottom line is I invest heavily in my relationships with non-family members and it has paid serious dividends in helping us build our village.

My husband and i have flexible jobs and understanding employers, so if we have a sick kid, we split the day (am/pm) or days if it's the flu.

We have zero family nearby and are pretty much on our own. But we are extremely lucky to have become great friends with our neighbours who are always offering to help out when one of us is traveling for work. I have become friends with parents at my kid's school, many of whom are working moms and just understand how bad things can get. They have helped with carpooling and providing contacts for reliable babysitters!

It's been a lot of work trying to meet people and make friends in a new city, but i love my support system. We do not use it often, as we don't like to bother or inconvenience friends, but it's not as stressful when you know you have people to turn to when you're in a bind.

I pay for my village lol. But seriously. We have no family nearby. Most of our local friends have kids of their own and a spouse (or both spouses) work. So while we help by loaning gear,
doing play dates, it’s not the really helpful type of shared help. So I pay for the village. Housekeeper, part time nanny (that I employ for both my 3 yo and 3 mo; it used to be while I was at work part time but I’ve since quit after having my second. So the nanny mainly takes the older one so I have some 1:1 time with the baby). We also put the older one in a few hours of a local 2.5a program. My husband travels Sunday-Friday out of the country so I take all the help I can get.
My parents come a few times a year and they also watched the one kiddo so we could take a week long trip. The in laws come less often.

I would give my village a C :

CONS
- Our parents do not even live in the same country, and even if they do, I won't count on them to help. One big reason is DS solely speaks in English while our parents don't.

- DH is only helpful when he feels like it.

- DH also travels quite a bit for work so I am usually solo parenting, which I am actually ok with.

- I am 99% the sole responder when DS is sick, school holidays, snow days, early pick ups...etc. This causes me to not being able to have a full full-time job as I am faking it as a SAHM whenever needed. DH steps in in case if I were dying in a hospital lol.

- We used to have a pretty good set up, where our neighbor's au pair helps babysit, and when she is not available her friend (also another au pair) will help. But our neighbor's au pair moved back home Now we have no one. It is hard for DH to trust anyone to be at our home with DS, so in a way I gave up trying to find someone else unless there is a pressing reason.

- There seems to be a fall out with my best mom friend. Our boys used to be best friends and we have play dates almost every other week. Now they are older, they have their own schedules, friends from school, new friends, which leaves us very little to no time to see each other. She used to be a big support for me as a mom, but now we haven't talked for a while.

PROS
my work is pretty flexible so I can always make up work after DS goes to bed, if needed. Our pediatrician is also very responsive with a nurse line, and we live right next to the Kid's ER lol. I feel covered in case of medical emergencies. I am also thankful that DS is pretty self sufficient. Having only one child also helps.

We have a very strong village. We moved to where we are because I knew I couldn’t personally do it without being by family. I grew up without that village and when I saw how my college friends would go home and be able to see their parents, grandparents, and cousins all at once it seemed so nice. I’m introverted and have a hard time making friends. I do think that if you live in an area where most people are transplants, not having a village in the family sense is easier. Most parents I know in my area grew up in the area and their kids are now going to school with kids of parents they grew up with. For those who are transplants it seems harder, possibly because they see how much help the rest of us have. If it wasn’t so in your face I think maybe that would be easier. Few of my friends and classmates growing up had that village—most were transplants—so it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but I know it was very hard for my parents even though they had pretty regular schedules (teachers/nurses/nurse instructor over the years). Having reliable and flexible childcare was an absolute necessity.

I'm really fortunate to have a big village. I've never really understood the idea that friends who also have small kids can't help at all. I have a group of 6 mom friends and we constantly help with each other's kids. Picking up from school if someone is stuck at work, babysitting for date nights, helping cover random off days from school, we happily do it all for each other! My husband and I both WOH the home and our families are a plane ride away so having reliable friends as a village is a necessity for us. My parents will also fly in to cover any time we ask them to, but obviously that doesn't work for unexpected sick days, etc. For those days we usually take turns staying home. We are both able to work from home and have understanding employers so that makes it easier. We also use a teacher from our school as a babysitter. Every time she comes she brings one or two of her elementary school age children whom my kids ADORE. They are at our house probably 2-3 times a month while my husband and I go on a date or out with friends.

I'd say we have a pretty good village. My mom already helps with childcare. My parents (if not busy) are always willing to help extra on weekends too. My in-laws are further away (only half an hour away but they don't drive), but his mom has stepped in and stayed over when my parents went away; and they're always up to help on weekends as long as we can transport them or the kids.

BUT we try not to "abuse" our village. We really just use them for what we need and try not to ask extra.

I WOH FT. DH sort of works for himself, essentially WFH but with lots of meetings and nights and weekends.

So sick kids automatically is DH and/or my mom first, and then I'd take off if they are not available. Our kids are still in daycare so we don't have all the long breaks yet. So far again, I plan it out where I usually take off and we spend the day as family day, or my mom would help DH.

It's def gonna be a a headache once public school starts!

So in conclusion our main village is family. We have lots of friends but they're all starting to have kids. But our church family is definitely our village too where we'd for sure help one another out without question.

@looch: I'm trying to get DH to see the light with neighbors. Our neighbors husbands are so nice and chill - DH is just not as outgoing and social as me, so it will take longer for him. I have been trying to explain that its just invaluable to have the resource...when I am home alone with the kids and they go bonkers...ok lets go outside and see who's around to play. Plus - in an emergency being able to run over and knock on the door is huge.

DH and I both WOH. We work 7-3 and 8-5 as teachers, and we don't bring work home during the week. Unfortunately, we each have about 5-6 hours of school stuff to do on the weekend, and DH has 2 other side jobs (teaching don't pay, yo!) on the weekend, with flex hours (WAH).

My in-laws take care of LO1 40 hours a week, and do 2-3 "chores" a day - mainly unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming, and taking care of kid laundry.

Other than that, we are very close with most people in our small church. We meet 1-2x a week with friends from church, and 90% of them have kids age 10 and under. It is great to have a network of families who understand, and all have different perspectives and styles. Lots of playmates for LO1.

Lastly, within the church, I have a core group of 3 other toddler moms that I meet with weekly, and we trade babysitting and just share life together via group text and alternating nights - the ladies get together one week for prayer and talking, and the men do the next week.

As an example, I had a bad week last week, between lonlieness on maternity leave and DH bring sick/cranky. I texted my 3 friends about it and within 2 hours I had 2 offers of childcare, offer of side job help, 2 offers of meals, and an invite to come over and just hang out.

This is probably our #1 issue right now, not having a village. Our parents are 5 hours away and work, so while my mom does take our daughter for a week here and there, she's not someone we can use for regular help, and my in laws are not in good enough health to be with her on our own. My BIL and his fiance live about 45 minutes away but as a young couple, we don't see them much. We live in a condo building with a high immigrant community that's very tightly knit, so we haven't made many friends/connections here, being outside that community, and are actually trying to sell right now to move into more of a diverse neighborhood that will hopefully let us build up more of a community as our daughter starts kindergarten in August. We had a few family friends that we made, but all have recently moved elsewhere (very common for the DC area, unfortunately, which makes it even harder to build a community here), and our immediate personal friends are all mostly single. So yeah, this is a tough area for us. We literally had no one to put down as emergency contacts except my BIL, when we were registering for kindergarten.

I think we probably have a decent village, but not as good as I'd like it to be. DH is a SAHD, I WOH. Both sets of our parents live within 20 minutes of us. My parents will take DD overnight every now and then, in addition to at least weekly visits. They're also super super busy, though, so I don't like asking for overnights more than once every other month. DH's parents help him during the week when he's feeling burnt out / tired, and would come over to wach her any time I asked. We don't have her spend the night there because FIL smokes, though, and they don't like driving after dark, so they don't generally watch her in the evenings.

I have a few mom friends, but all live a minimum of 1 hour away, so we just don't see each other a lot. Most of DH's friends are coupled without children. I REALLY wish I had more mom friends, and I REALLY wish DH had more (read: any) dad friends.

If it came down to it and DD was sick, I would be the one who would be with her. DH is an amazing, fantastic dad, but can struggle when dealing with stress (especially related to myself or the baby). It's not ideal, but it's fine for now. Admittedly, I'm also a bit of a control freak who would WANT to be home in that scenario.

I think we have a pretty decent village in terms of support, but not so much in terms of regular childcare. I have plenty of people who would happily shift things around and go out of their way to help us in an emergency, which I consider a blessing, but I wouldn’t ask people to do it regularly.

Our families are mostly pretty far but would come help with advance notice- like my mom is a teacher and will drive up the five hours and stay and help me with the kids when DH is traveling for a week, but she couldn’t come help because I was sick with the flu and DH was away. BIl and SIL are about an hour away but will come and watch one or both kids if we ask- we just try not to impose too much.

But our friend village is what saves me. Even if they can’t drop everything to help anytime, they always offer moral support. And I comfortable have several local friends who I put as emergency contacts who I know would drop everything and come pick up my kids or whatever if something happened.