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My MIL came for the night and FIL and her stayed until we came home.

We luckily had my cousin in the same city so she was the emergency overnight/labour is fast, etc person which we didn’t end up needing. We also had two friends locally just in case. I was paranoid about this as well, worrying that it would be fast or something bad would happen and we would need to take off before anyone could arrive. None of that happened and we are 5 mins from the hospital. I figured I would take DS with us if worse came to worse in a true emergency.

DW was 3 days overdue and started having contractions after we dropped DS1 at school (first day of JK!) and by the afternoon/early evening she called her mom and put her on notice, I messaged my cousin. We told MIL to come at 7pm, she arrived around 830 (45 min drive) and we went to the hospital at 1030 pm. It actually went very fast but DW basically just paced the house, went on the yoga ball, and we took a long walk outside (it was nice weather) MIL just watched tv and went on her iPad and didn’t pay any attention to us. It was totally fine. She did suggest we head to the hospital once and we both shrugged her off but thankfully we did as he was born 2.5 hrs later! DS did not go to school the next day as it was Friday and I didn’t think he needed to attend and have them have the stress of getting him to the new school.

ETA: in your case I would likely just have someone local who can come to your place and stay until your family can arrive. Personally, I wouldn’t worry about school...it just adds another layer you need to stress about. Everyone was at least a 15 min drive away so we didn’t want to worry about dropping DS somewhere so the plan was always to stay at our house.

My parents did; my mom's our default babysitter anyway.

I went into labor at 37 weeks. I was home that morning so DD1 went to school as usual. DH & I went to the hospital by 1pm. My mom picks her up anyway so her routine was kept. Just that my dad also came over, they ate dinner with her and put her to bed. My mom stayed at our house while my dad came to see the baby (gave birth that night at 9pm). Then I sent my husband home around midnight to relieve my mom.

Also wondering if you can get the induction scheduled for 39w0d if it’s not that or sooner, just to better your odds of it working out that way. I was induced for #2 on my due date but was very worried about the plan if it had been spontaneous. I had all these neighbors and my son’s daycare and everyone all patched together but I could have potentially had to take a 2-hour uber (alone) to my hospital which would have been... bad. So I understand the stress

DH's aunt was our call to come to our house day or night. We had a friend who lives across the road and another friend who lives nearby lined up just in case.

I ended up with an emergency csection and called DH when he was driving with DS home from daycare. He took DS to the aunts and came to the hospital. It was crazy!

My parents live relatively nearby, so they were our contacts and purposely stayed close starting a few weeks before my due date. We had our daughter’s sitter as a backup, since she lives super close by. My mom ended up coming to get our daughter in the middle of the day, then she stayed with my parents for a few days. It worked out well. We had a night at home with the baby before my parents brought back our older daughter, so we were all settled in.

@LCTBQE: I was at a doctors appointment for something else and got sent over to the hospital. So I had driven myself. Didn't know until after I was there I'd be having baby that day.

My in laws live the closest, so they came to stay with my older son.... They were on high-alert leading up to the birth of my second, and then I was overdue, then I scheduled an induction, so that made it easier to plan. They stayed at our house until I came home from the hospital with the baby. I only had to stay 1 night, and I sent my husband home overnight to be with my other son and come back to visit.

When I went into labour with baby#2, my Mum had been “on call” so I texted her at work and asked her to come by when she was finished (gave her lots of notice). We went to the hospital that night and baby was born shortly after, she stayed overnight with my son and we came home early in the morning.

I’m not sure what our plan with #3 is. My in laws live 1.5 hours away, so I’m hoping then can come... but my MIL is super unreliable. The other option is asking my mum to come but a last minute flight is expensive (we moved since the last baby). It’s abour 4 hours driving, 40 min flight. Soooo we will see?? Otherwise we might have to ask friends.

@mediagirl: yup, my Mum would drive 4 hours on a notoriously dangerous highway for us, or hop on a flight and be here in an hour... my in laws live 1.5 hours away and I cannot count on them at all. Sigh.

Childcare for LO1 was my biggest stressor about going into labor for LO2. I had plans and back up plans and back ups.

So the plan was my BIL and SIL who lived five minutes away as the first call. They were instructed to keep their phones on at night and a few times when i felt off before bedtime, I would text them a reminder to keep the ringer on. I also had several local friends who were stay at home parents and would watch my LO until BIL or SIL could get there during the day. I wrote out her whole schedule and important info so I could give it to anyone who happened to be watching her, and I emailed it to my BIL and SIL around 37 weeks. Worst case and BIL or SIL weren’t available at all, both my sahm friends had said they would come sleep at my house while their husbands were at home with their kids, then bring my kid back to their house before husband had to leave for work and watch them all there. I was so paranoid!

What actually happened was I felt weird around 7:30, texted BIL and SIL that tonight might be the night. By 8 I had put LO to bed and told them to come over ASAP. BIL came over and stayed at our place for the night and we left for the hospital, had her before midnight. The next day SIL stayed home from work to watch LO, but we also could have brought her to my friends house for the day.

It’s super stressful but it does usually work out fine. My friend is 7 weeks pregnant and I already told her I can always come over in the middle of the night and sleep at her house if she’s in labor, then bring her kids back to my house and have a movie day until back up arrives.

In-laws. I went into labor at 2am and was expecting a super fast delivery after #1, so we immediately called them and they were at our house 45 min later.

Making our plans over here too. We will be calling the in-laws to come but they're a 3-hour drive away and I expect will need some time to get packed up and head out so it would be more like 5-6 hours before they arrive.

So with that in mind we have the below lined up - all families below will be local for the Thanksgiving holiday thankfully! And I'm not sure if we will take her over or have people come pick her up.. I think it all depends on the time of day and how far into labor I am when we decide it's time for either her to go to a friends house or we need to go to the birth center.

1) Next door neighbors with young daughters. The mom offered to be on call basically and come over to just sleep on our couch if it's the middle of the night and we need to leave. It's assumed in-laws would be able to arrive at some point to relieve her in the early AM. Honestly our monitor for LO would probably get reception at their house they're so close haha!

2) Close friends (also in the neighborhood) with a SAH dad who would be able to take/pick up LO#1 from school if there is a need for that. Kids are super close and play together weekly. She could also be with them through an afternoon/evening and sleep over if needed. They are also backup middle of the night-ers and regular babysitters.

3) Another close friend/family set. LO's "best friend" is their older daughter. Less of an option for school drop off/pickup as both parents work FT but if it's a weekend or evening they're candidates. LO has already had a sleepover at their house if that is needed.

4) Last option is to just bring LO to the birth center. It means I would lean more heavily on my support team there and my hubs would be with LO more, but it's 100% an option available to us if we needed it.

Crossing my fingers it all goes smoothly!

Two families in our neighborhood were our immediate care plans until my sister could arrive (two hour drive). She ended up enjoying playing at the neighbors so much that she stayed there all day, and my sister just took her back to our house to go to bed. By then I was pushing and headed to the hospital.

I worried about it a lot (my LO was only two!), but in the end it was no big deal, really.

I had a repeat section scheduled for 38.5w. Even though DS has been born at 35w, I really didn’t believe this one would come early so I only had a plan for my scheduled date/a weekday when DS would be at school.
At 7am on a Saturday when I started bleeding heavily, I had my dad come over to watch DS. But then I wanted him at the hospital (he is a doctor there and I was having a very difficult time dealing with the on-call resident before my doctor showed up) so I was literally in OB triage calling every babysitter in my phone, and had a mom friend doing the same with her sitters. It was stressful, but kind of good to have that distraction to focus on.
Ended up cobbling together 3 sitters including the 15 year old who lives nextdoor, it was both parents weekend at the college where many of my sitters go, and the SATs so my usual high schoolers were out. The 3 sat for DS in shifts and it was fine, he watched tv and ate junk food.
When i lived in NYC before kids, i was the middle of the night emergency contact for a friend of DH’s wife. I went over at like 2am and slept on her couch while her daughter was asleep until her in-laws arrived in the early morning.

First a neighbor (we live in a big apartment building) and then my MIL took over.
The neighbor was really not planned! Nor my MIL, actually. My mom was supposed to come, but she’s a flight away.
I was supposed to have a scheduled CS at like 39+4 but this baby had other plans. I went into labor at 36 weeks on the nose (and he was measuring big too, FYI.)

-When did you go into labor? 36 weeks to the day.
-What did you do with your kid(s)? I frantically called one neighbor and she was out of town. Then called another neighbor friend and she knew immediately why I was calling. She was at our door in 2 mins. She took my then 3.5yo to her apartment and he played with her 2.5yo. We called my MIL when we got to the hospital (thankfully we live 3 blocks but I still needed a cab!) and she was here within I guess 2 hours. She went to my neighbors apt and got my son and brought him to our place. She didn’t even pack anything becuase she didn’t believe it was the real deal!
-If they came to your house, when did they arrive? Mentioned above, neighbor got to us within minutes - that was about 5pm. MIL arrived about 2 hours later, 7pm. Just in time to get him to bed. She stayed for almost a week since I was in the hospital for 4-5 days. So my husband could easily go back and forth.