To feel like my in-laws just don't want to see my children

[Fridayisnear]

My in-laws have always been incredibly close with my sister-in-law's children; they see them at least once or twice a week and also have them for sleep overs very regularly. My sister-in-law very regularly just last minute drops them round and although my in-law's have made the odd comment about being irritated by this, they never say no and always seem to genuinely love being with them.

However, I really feel this feeling is not extended to my children. I have told MIL a million times she can see DC absolutely any time she likes; she's always welcome to join us if we're doing something on my one day off (DC are in nursery other 4 days a week) and we try to see them on the odd weekend. But they never ask to see them at all. DH picked up on it too and tried to speak to them to see if there was a reason they didn't want to be as involved which they dismissed. DH and I were having a few marital issues and DH asked if they could have the DC for a few hours on the odd weekend so we could try spend some time together as it just doesn't happen for us between working shifts and looking after DC. He says (I wasn't there) MIL lit up and herself offered every other weekend. I personally thought this was too often but as we worked out the last time we went on a date together was 18 months ago decided to just roll with it and see how it goes.
So we had the date and it really was so good for DH and I. But we go to collect the DC and instantly MIL says to me 'we'd be happy to have them again in a month or so if you wanted'. I was taken back as DH said he'd already arranged this every other week plan which had been her idea. Then she said the date she thought would be best for her and was actually 6 weeks away and actually on the day of DDs birthday party which she knew about because I'd told her about it less than a week before so of course I declined that and she just said 'oh yes' and changed the subject.

DH was going to try speaking to his Dad to work out if there had been a problem with looking after DC but we then all came down with illness and the date he booked to see his Dad alone never happened and no one has discussed anything since. I've told DH to just leave it. I really don't think they want to be as involved with our DC as with Sister-in-law's. Our DC are younger; there's a 5 year age gap between our eldest and their youngest and ours are both still both under 4 so I do get that they're much more challenging to look after than older children and in-laws are a bit older.

It's just sad I suppose. I see what a wonderful relationship my niece's have with their grandparents and find it sad that ours can't have that same relationship because in-laws just don't seem that interested.
It's also a shame for DH and I as my parents both still work full time and live further away. We both work full time, DH works shifts, we're busy and we just don't see each other that much and it's sad to me that DH specifically asked his parents for help to address how little time we have together which they initially offered support with but then seemingly changed their mind without any reason offered or even just honestly saying they don't want to.

DC are not anymore challenging to look after than any other children their age and in laws have never said they find it difficult. In fact she's regularly offering to help me drop them off or pick them up for me from nursery but I just don't need help with that and it wouldn't make any difference to my day if they did or not so I just say if you want to but don't actually ask her to as I don't need her to and wait for her to ask for a day she wants to collect them, which she never does.

I just find it sad really.
Aibu to feel that they just don't care as much about my DC as they do sister-in-law's DC?

If she is offering to do drop offs and pick ups maybe they find it difficult to cope with long periods of time and would prefer shorter slots?

It sounds like the close relationship on the other side is not driven by them, and they might get fed up of being default childcare (seen it in my family).

SIL DC will also be favoured. IME.

So she's offered to help with nursery runs, but it doesn't benefit you so you declined. Then she offered to have them again in a month, but that's not good enough too. I don't think it's them being difficult. You couldn't pay me enough to willingly look after two under 4's and I have a one year old. I don't think it's that unreasonable that they would look after older kids as they are no bother.

I think you're probably right in thinking they just don't want to do the young children stage all over again, even once a fortnight! I'd stick to asking them to join in with things rather than them looking after the kids without you there.

I think that is probably correct. Sister-in-law home-schools and doesn't have any other respite from her DC so has always relied on her parents a lot for that I suppose.
But because of that I don't want to ask them for help if I don't need it. We knew it wasn't an option for them to be part of our childcare plan so we set up our work life around nursery and it works. I don't need to ask for help with drops offs etc so why would I when I'm worried about coming across as asking them to do too much already. So I've never asked for help unless I really need it. I do ask when I have say a doctor's appointment or something but this is the first time we've ever asked for more than an hour's necessary thing and it's obviously gone down like this.
Annoyingly we had them for dinner last week and they made a point of saying how they had had Dniece's as brother-in-law is changing job soon and he and sister-in-law wanted a day to celebrate that..... Not gonna lie... I rolled my eyes at that.

MIL went from offering to babysit once a fortnight, to once month, and then to a date 6 weeks away that she knew wouldn’t work because it was dc’s birthday.

So you saying ‘once a month isn’t good enough for OP’ is incorrect.

I never said no to her doing drop offs. She offered in general if I needed it. I don't need it so said that but said she was always welcome to if she wanted and she never asks. I'm not going to ask her to do it just because when I have build my entire work life around being able to do the drop offs etc.

They probably realised that two under 4 is not easy and don't want to do that in a hurry.

My Mum much prefers spending time with my brother's kids. She was close to my kids but when my brother had kids mine got dropped overnight. The kids all go to the same school so mine have to see their Gran picking up their cousins every single week and never them. It's broken my heart and my relationship with my Mum will never recover from it. I am now very LC, not even sure if she has noticed! I now just think what's the point in forcing it, I can't make her want to spend time with us/them.

Our DC are younger; there's a 5 year age gap between our eldest and their youngest and ours are both still both under 4 so I do get that they're much more challenging to look after than older children and in-laws are a bit older.

You already know the answer.
You've put it in your own opening post.

Seriously, it is incredibly tiring to look after other people's small dc.

I had 3 dc myself whilst working and you crack on. A few years later I had 2 littlies (just during the day not even overnight) for a friend whose Mum was in hospital, and it exhausted me. That was when I was mid 40s. I'm a lot older now and don't even have the energy I had then.
I think asking them to have the dc overnight is a HUGE ask. Completely different from upper Primary age dc who don't need the same sort of care.

There's a huge difference between two under four and over 9s in terms of physical effort required to look after them. Like really really big, especially as your inlaws are 5 years older than they were for SILs at under 4.

Cut them some slack. Ask them to join you for stuff instead. Or ask them to have one child so they can get more used to each other.

I can appreciate that. But they always had our niece's an awful lot more when they were younger too. I suppose I just have to accept this is how it goes and actually so be it. It is sad, but for DH and my DC who don't get to enjoy the same relationship with their grandparents as their cousins who are so blatantly the favourites. And it's their loss too because they can't realistically expect to have any kind of relationship with them when they are older if so little effort is put in when they are younger.
It's not just about not wanting to have them on their own, they don't accept offers to come out with me with them, they don't ever ask to just see them with us here too.

They're older now and farming your kids out every weekend is ridiculous!

Your marital issues need to be sorted out by living a real life with two children you chose to have.

You sound like you're looking for problems.

They are five years older and for whatever reason have clearly found having your kids hard work.

How often do you invite them? Are they genuinely busy?

There is a 20 year age gap between my DC and my PIL's other grandchild. They did literally everything for their other GC. Unlimited childcare, no need to pay for nursery, school drop offs and pick ups, had him overnight every week so that my SIL and her DH could go out, took him on holiday, bought him a car, the list is endless.

I have not had so much as 1 hour of childcare to assist when it would be helpful. We even had to take our DC to the solicitors when we were having our wills updated because we had no childcare support.

They are of course older now but it is not as if we ever ask for overnight help or indeed anything regular. Literally an odd hour maybe once per month but even that is apparently too much.

They still provide support for their other GC despite him now being in his 20's. They pick him up from uni, do airport drops and even give him an allowance. My DC gets nothing.

It has significantly affected our relationship with them. I suspect it suits them not to get too close to my DC as that allows them to justify that circumstances are different compared with their other GC.

Your 2 kids probably knackered them out . Upon reflection they obviously think it’s too much for them every fortnight. But she did say once a month so how about you definitely confirm that with her .

Farming is an odd phrase! Who on earth is farming them out. Every other weekend was MiLs suggestion. DH simply asked if they wouldn't mind having them from time to time so we could have time to ourselves. He didn't say how often. The first I knew about it was after it was 'set up'. We went for one date and now it's stopped completely because the next date they offered was a date we couldn't do and when I told her we couldn't do it it never got mentioned again.
It's not about this set up failing, it's about the fact that they just don't care enough to want to be involved with them. They do not ever actually ask to see the children, it's always a case of me or DH offering them to come along with what we are doing or specifically asking for help when we need it (which is very rare) and they then only actually accept the offer maybe 40% of the time. I invite MIL with us on my day off at least twice a month and she hasn't joined us once since we'll before Christmas. And if we didn't offer at all I don't know if they'd ever see them as they have never once, in all their lives ever actually asked to see them.

But you aren't acknowledging that.

You are dismissing that they are that much older now.
They wanted to. They tried it. They found it too much. Despite that, they still said they would have them overnight again.

Why don't you ask them if they would come round and babysit for you whilst you go out for a couple of hours for a meal ? You and dh get your 'date' but it is far more realistic of an ask, than expecting Grandparents to be looking after them overnight.

That is what happened. They didn't have them overnight, they had them for about 3 hours whilst DH and I went for a dog walk to our local pub and had lunch. There was never a mention of overnight at all. It was only ever supposed to be a few hours.

And again, it's not about that! Not really. It's a shame as it was a nice idea but fine, it didn't work. But this is just another incident of in-laws saying one thing but not actually following through. They're more than happy to say they love seeing DC and want to be involved, but they never actually set anything up themselves, they wait to be asked and then when they are asked, more often than not, for whatever reason it doesn't actually happen.

I would leave it to your DH to make
The arrangements with his own family.

Perhaps you and SIL can also host cousins sleepovers to give each other , and the MIL, a break and get yourselves more date nights?

I think also the every other weekend offer nut have been made under pressure feeling that she had to do something drastic to save your marriage but when she realized the situation wasn't dire like that she allowed herself a bit of rest and own life time

Yes maybe. I can't imagine DH actually spoke about anything in detail but I can imagine him saying he felt like we needed some time to ourselves and them being left to interpret that; none of them are amazing at communicating. I didn't even know DH was going to ask them until it was all 'set up' so I don't actually know what exactly was discussed.

I really do get why you are upset and why it seems unfair. How old are your in laws?

My interpretation (based on experience of my own family too) is that your in laws are knackered from your SIL’s heavy reliance on them, and although they really do in theory want to have a close relationship with your DC, in practice self preservation (in terms of time and energy) and the need to have a sliver of their own time wins out.

I can imagine it’s much easier for them to avoid new commitments than to back out of the help they are committed to giving to SIL. Also, two under four are bloody hard work and they are five years older and thousands of hours less ‘innocent’ to the realities of looking after small children. They are probably completely over it, sad as that is.

I mean this nicely but you do sound a bit transactional about the relationship- taking MIL up on an offer to do a specific nursery run once a week and then pop in for a cuppa might begin to build the relationship and her confidence in dealing with young DC. If it feels like they are childcare hours to you and DH I can understand that they might be reluctant, given that’s how it’s gone with DIL…

@evb84 this is almost the same as your thread

This is almost the same as this thread To pull back from MIL as much as possible http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/5008643-to-pull-back-from-mil-as-much-as-possible