Family Ties Across the Miles

Eight months ago, we welcomed baby girl M into the world. We are so in love with this little girl… and so is the rest of our family. The catch? My family is scattered across North America and none of them live close by. How do we maintain family ties across the miles?

We have faced some challenges making sure that Grandpa and Grandma (and all her aunts and uncles!) get to stay involved in M’s life. They, of course, came up for a visit shortly after M was born and stayed for a few days. But the reality is that visits can only happen so often.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned along the way about how to stay in touch with long-distance family:

  • Set up easy access for family to see pictures and videos. We have an online private photo album as well as a Facebook family page. Family members all have access to it whenever they like.
  • Open your doors and make it work even if the timing is inconvenient. If someone had a few days to visit and it was a bad time for us, we just made it happen anyway. We even moved while a bunch of family was visiting and baby was only two weeks old.
  • Don’t feel bad if they visit and all they do is take care of baby. We’ve had family who come when we are busy, and therefore they become the babysitters. Perhaps they hadn’t anticipated changing so many diapers and being so involved, but this way they really get to spend genuine time with her.
  • Don’t be afraid to be an inconvenience to family. At four weeks post partum I was still in quite a lot of pain and had a very colicky baby. My mom literally moved in with us for two weeks and slept on the nursery floor while I recovered. She was exhausted at the end, but she was so happy to have the memory with her first granddaughter of rocking her back to sleep in the middle of the night.
  • Make every call a Skype / Facetime call. Baby M knows grandma’s voice and grandma gets to see her respond to her coos and giggles. It’s a great way to interact and plus, it’s free!
  • Some people lose interest. Fast. Don’t hold it against them. The first few months involved lots of visits, presents, phone calls and emails. As she has grown, interest has waned. As a parent, I can’t understand this and it upsets me, but I also don’t have the energy to focus on it. I have let it go and decided that if they want to come around, they can.
  • Stop thinking about “what ifs” and “if onlys”. Circumstances are what they are. Having family closer by is not going to happen, so I make sure that they know that I want M to know her aunts, uncles and grandparents. The ball is in their court if they want to take advantage.

What other things have you done that have helped with long-distance relationships? Any tips for this first time momma?

Rebecca Troelstra is a first time mom living in downtown New Westminster.