Mum and sister again. V fed up.

[Mumblesmummy]

Hi everyone.

I whinged a whinged when my sister totally ignored me when i got pregnant. She and her DH didn't speak to me for 3 months and I talked about it a lot on here and got very good advice. Then she got pregnant with twins so she saw fit to speak to me again.

Anyway, things had improved loads and we'd been getting on well. Until today.

We're both teachers- she's full time and I'm part time because I'm still training. I asked mum a few months ago what was happening about childcare, as I knew my sister had been whinging that mum would be looking after my baby.

That's not the case because DPs family are all desperate to play a part too, and I'm only working part time anyway as I want to spend as much time as poss with babba. However, i do want my baby to be able to spend a morning or two a week with my mum as she's an AMAZING mum and I want him to have one to one time with his nana.

So today i find out she wants my mum to look after her twins the full five days a week that her and her DP work, when they are born, a couple of months after my baby is due.

This means that if my baby was to go and see his nana while I'm working, there will always be two slightly younger babies there being looked after. Which i feel is too many for her to look after anyway as it's not fair, she's already raised her own 3 children.

This means that not only will I not be able to have my mum (the person i am most comfortable with looking after him) looking after my baby, but I will have to send him to DPs mum, auntie (who's like DPs 2nd mum), sister, or maybe a baby group at the college (only if it's good- if not, he can just got to DPs family for the 12 hours a week I'll be working).

I just think it is sooooooooooooo selfish. She acts as though my baby's totally unimportant or doesn't exist anyway, when he is the single most important thing in the world to me and DP. My mum is really excited about my baby coming and she wants to spend time with him- but I just cannot see how it will work.

At the weekends, my dad and brother are at home so it's not the same. Plus my DPs off some of the weekend so we'll be visiting people, doing family things etc etc.

I'm just really put out. And I find her to be so selfish.

But what can i do??

[Sparkletastic]

What does your mum think? Is she expecting (and willing) to look after all three grandchildren?

[Mumblesmummy]

She said she'll 'sort it' which usually means my sis will get her own way in the end. She thinks she can look after all three, but A)I don't think it's fair on her and it'd be a struggle for anyone, and B) I don't see why the twins should get to see her without my baby, but my baby will never see his nana without the twins there.

Mum said she'll struggle looking after thw twins 5 days a week as it's obviously like a full time job. But my sis doesn't care about that as all she ever thinks about is her and DP and her babies. It doesn't matter to her how it affects other people.

Mum is always too scared to say no to my sis.

What do you think I should do?

[newyorkdolls]

Is there no chance of your mam, baby and you spending 1 on 1 time together between your baby being born and the twins childcare starting.
The thing is your mother said Yes to this, so you can't just blame your sister.

[Mumblesmummy]

She hasn't said yes yet but she's worried about how to say no as it's her grandchildren, which makes me think that even though she's planning to tell my sister it's too much, she'll eventually get badgered into it.

The twins childcare will start when they're about 6 weeks old (so my baby will be sort of 6 weeks+ 2 monthsish- the twins are being born early by c section so there will only be a month or 2 between the babies). She can spend a little time with him then, but my sis and her DH are very demanding, and the child care is forever!! It's not like just for a few weeks or a year or something, it'll always be this way.

I thought after IVF she'd have had time to plan some better child care options or time management, but no.

[Sparkletastic]

Yeah I'm kind of with nydolls here - your mum is the one being put upon from the sounds of it, so she has to say what she will or won't do. Is your sis planning to pay her?! Why is your ma scared to say no to her - does she even wnat to? I deffo agree 3 babies will be too much for your mum. Why don't your talk to your mum, explain how worried you are for your own and her sake. See if she'll suggest to your sis that she seeks a mix of childcare for her twins - e.g. she has them 3 days, and nursery 2 days or somesuch? Then your DC can go to her for those 2 days. Mind you - is she sure she doesn't want 1 day a week to herself?!

[Sparkletastic]

Does your sis really have to go back to work when the babies are 6 weeks old?! Everyone gets at least 6 months paid mat leave - why isn't she taking hers?!

[TotalChaos]

I agree, it does sound a lot for your mum, but then that's up to her. I think rather than replaying the sister rivalry, accept the arrangement with good grace, since you have DP's family so keen to help, rather than get worked up over something that's out of your control.

[Mumblesmummy]

These are all the things I tried to say to my mum but I just got dead ends.

Sis is NOT planning to pay her!!!!!! i know, cheeky isn't it??!!

I suggested the 3 days of looking after the twins- 2 days of them going to nursery/childminder thing to my mum and she agreed this was best (a couple of months ago) then she could have a morning with my baby, but when the issue has risen, she has sort of folded... I seriously don't know how my sister manages to get her own way ALL the time. It absolutely infuriates me. I can't understand it.

I anticipate these situations, raise them, so as to put my point forward, everyone agrees something with me, and then she says what she wants and everyone folds straight away. I just don't get it .

But now mum is all upset because I said my baby will have to go to his other nana or baby nursery and she was like 'but I REALLY want to look after him. I'll sort it. I want to spend time with him.' She doesn't want his other nana getting to spend lots of time with him and her not getting chance.

I've known situations like this too many times though, and I know I come second to my sis's demands.

I'm just at a loss.

[Mumblesmummy]

Sparkle- She's a teacher and she checked and they only get 6 weeks full pay. I get 28 weeks full pay and then 11 weeks statutory maternity pay so I'm ok. The weird thing is, my DP is working full time, and I'm working part time, and we're young and only just starting out so we've not got loads of money. yet i still want to take the time with my baby so we've decided I'll only do part time. My sis is 9 years older than me, and her DH is 17 years older than me, plus they've had IVF, yet they're both going to be working full time. It's just silly.

Total- I reckon I might have to just accept it yet again, as I always do when she decides something. I just love my mum so much and we're very close. I can tell she's upset about the situation, and I am too.

[newyorkdolls]

My ma has had my sisters two full time too. Dsis kids are 5 and 3, mine are 13 and 8.
DH and I have always worked at the moment he does nights and I do days. Luckily my days start at 9 and I work opposite ds school, so I take him to school and he picks him up. I work for the NHS and DH gets good holiday entitlement so we work our holidays around the kids, in the past DH worked 6-2 and I worked 4-10 and we split childcare, they were crappy jobs but we had enough to pay the mortgage and and didn't have to rely on anyone for childcare. My pil have always said they will only look after my sister in laws kids but not ours as that is my mums responsibility. So pil have never had them to stay over or for the morning or even babysat, not once. My ma worked full time until she retired at 55, upon which my sister had my niece and then she said to my sister she would look after any children she had for 7 years, only then (my dads retirement date) dsis was on her own. Clever girl my sis, she had dniece 2 on the 1st of September, which will give my ma ONE month before my dad retires.

[newyorkdolls]

sorry posted to early. It pisses me off too. especially pil attitude of we will look after our daughters kids but once our son is left home he has to struggle on his own. But, we can look ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day, and say that even though ds is disabled and has problems we have done it all on our own, always. BTW my kids wil always have equal dibs at any childcare, babysitting, money or anything else they require.

[HansieMom]

I'm grandmotherly age, 62, and I can't imagine looking after a tiny baby all day and certainly couldn't handle twins! I do have three grandchildren, all living across the country--we are moving to remedy that. But when the youngest was born, I visited for a week, starting when he was three weeks old, and I thought the ratio of three adults and one baby was just about perfect!

[thaliablogs]

mumblesmummy, it does sound like a very difficult situation, although I am aloso wondering if you could cut your sister some slack.

First, if they went through iVF it's very likely they didn't feel able to accept that the pregnancy would actually result in a live baby for a long time. I thought I was doing well when I looked for an antenatal class when I was 16 weeks into the pregnancy, for exmaple, so saying she should have looked earlier for childcare doesn't really make sense if you look at it from her point of view. Second, all parents are different, so if she feels the best way for her to parent is to work full time, then you have to accept you don't know how her mind works, but it may well be the right solution for her and her family (and she may well change her mind once the twins are here).

None of that alters the fact that she's being v insensitive and unreasonable re using your mum as a childcare provider, but maybe it will help you be a bit less furious?

[Freckle]

What about the holidays? Could you arrange for your mum to look after your baby for a day or two during the holidays, when obviously your sister will have her twins at home as she won't be working?

I suspect that your mum is afraid that, if she upsets your sister, your sister will cut her out of her life (you said she and her dh didn't speak to you for 3 months when you got pregnant).

[posieflump]

To be brutally honest I think you both sound as bad as each other.
You say " I don't see why the twins should get to see her without my baby, but my baby will never see his nana without the twins there." - that is just so silly, of course your mum wil see your baby on his own, surely you will invite her round? I would work out childcare on your own , tell your mum you think it will be too much for her and leave it at that.

[Pennies]

Neither of you have even had your babies yet and you're already trying to make concrete plans about childcare? You have absolutely no idea about how you're going to feel.

Posieflump has a point - you're both being rather silly, and presumptive.

From what I can tell you're acutally in an incredibly fortunate position to have your family and DH's family so near and so willing to help. Some of us don't have that at all.

"She acts as though my baby's totally unimportant or doesn't exist anyway, when he is the single most important thing in the world to me and DP" - I expect she could say exactly the same about you. We all think that everyone else's kids come lower than ours on the pecking order - it's how it's meant to be, and it's how it always will be.

My advice is for you all to wait until you've had your children. Enjoy your pregnancy and stop getting wound up over a problem that you can easily fix nearer the time with other members of the family who seem very willing to help.

[NAB3wishesfor2008]

If you only want your mum to have your baby for one day a week then YADNBU.

I think the best thing would be to talk to your mum about what she wants to do and see what can be worked out.

[NAB3wishesfor2008]

I feel for your mum and it is about time your sister grew up.

[warthog]

it does seem a bit unreasonable of your sister to expect your mum to look after her twins for 5 days a week.

but i do think that things change vastly when the babies are actually born, so i wouldn't stress about it too much now.

your sister might see that having twins is a huge amount of work, and that your mum might not be up to it.

[Mumblesmummy]

Hi everyone, I was on a real rant last night because I'd only just found out the situation and got all upset and angry. I've had time to sleep now and calmed down, and had a little think at waking intervals in the night and learnt to accept it.

I've decided that when 6-6s are on, or toddler group, mum could take the twins and I could take my baby so they can play together and mum's not stuck with 3 kids ruling her house. I think that's Thursday mornings each week.

I am going to tell my mum and my sister that I think my mum being expected to look after twins 5 days a week on her own with no pay is unreasonable and I don't think she should be used for full time child care. Then I've put my point forward and I can leave it at that.

Everyone wants to look after my baby, loads of my family, even more of DPs family, and we won't be stuck, so on that front I'm very fortunate. However, my mum desperately wants to look after him too. Which is where some of the problem lies, as if she wasn't fussed, I'd just take him to the baby nursery at the college I teach at, which I've just found out has had a fantastic ofstead report, or he could go to DPs family or whatever, it's only 12 hours and he'll be well looked after. However, mum cried when I said that as we're very very close and she wanted to have time with my baby. She felt betrayed. So I'm at a loss.

I only want mum to have a morning with him, as he's my baby not hers and she shouldn't HAVE to spend time with him, but I can't see it happening, so I'll just pop him over of a weekend when my sister's kids arn't there, and he can see mum, dad and my brother all at once. However, mum got all upset about this too. I think she needs to make a decision, but it's important to me that she's not looking after either of our kids for a total of 5 days a week so even if she has a morning off, I don't want to fill it with her looking after my son.

I will take him round when my sisters kids are there as he's soooooooooooo lucky to have cousins his age, I did, and I absolutely loved it. However, I won't be leaving mum to look after 3 kids as it's not feasable and he might aswell be at nursery as do that.

Also, before my sister stated she wanted mum looking after the twins full time, mum had asked me if I'd like to go to church with her, my nana and my brother on Sunday mornings, and take my baby. I haven't been to church since they used to take me, but I said yes, I'd like to, and I think it's important for the baby to go. So we were all settled, and mum was really happy when i said yes.

She doesn't talk about the twins too much as she doesn't have a very good relationship with my sister's DH as he is a control freak, and she's always worrying about my sister (depite her being 31). So they're not as close anymore as he's stuck a wedge between them as he's highly unreasonable, despite him living with us for 8 years when I was growing up, and sponging off my mum and dad all the while. They also live about 5 miles away, where as I live sort of a mile or so. I'm only 22 (my mum's 50 by the way) and so mum still sees me as her baby girl and she always calls my baby 'her little baby' and buys him hundreds of things secretly. Which is so sweet.

So anyway, out of the blue, my sister's DH said 'so on a Sunday you can come up to ours, pick the twins up and take them to church, maybe have them for a bit and then bring them back afterwards'. So that's Sunday taken up aswell now. Mum said 'No, if you want to take them to church, you're welcome to come WITH us, or atleast drop them at mine yourself and pick them up afterwards'. However, she always puts her foot down and gives in straight away, so she will end up picking them up for an easy life, inevitably.

Mum needs to talk to dad about the childcare yet, and I think he'll say no as it will be too much for my mum, and also because they will expect my mum to pay for the baby's food, milk, nappies, everything that the babies use when at my mums. They even get mum to cook their tea and take it to them sometimes (5 miles away).

Sooo...... any one got any more thoughts? Am i doing the right thing? Should I approach it differently? I'm happy to listen to ANY advice anyone can give.

[NAB3wishesfor2008]

They get your mum to cook their tea and deliver it to their house?

Unbelievable.

TBH I would just make my own arrangements and leave them to it.

I think everyone needs to grew up - especially your sister and her husband.

[Mumblesmummy]

Ok everyone's pretty much said I need to grow up. I can deal with that, I'm 22, it's my first baby, bound to be the making of me.

My sister's 31. It's not going to happen.

I think the overall answer is to just ignore the whole thing. Whatever will be will be.

[Freckle]

Now this is a sweeping generalisation and I will probably get flamed for it, but I have found that people who have tried to get pregnant for a long time or who have eventually been successful through IVF have this attitude that their baby is more special than any other baby. Think of how special we all think our babies are and then double or triple that for how these parents consider their children. All babies are special but somehow these parents confer an even higher status on their babies and somehow believe that others feel that way too.

Your sister and her dh are in that way of thinking, that everyone is as thrilled by their babies as they are and that their babies are so much more important than yours (not only because they are theirs but because they struggle to conceive them in the first place). They assume that everyone is going to run around giving their babies priority over everything else. They may be in for a bit of a shock.

I know that my SIL spent many years trying to start a family and when she eventually fell pregnant (by which time I had two children) spent most of her time telling me how her baby was special, i.e. that mine were not.

Maybe once your sister has her babies, she will be so much in love with them she won't want to give them up 5 days a week.

[sophiewd]

For starters there is probably no way that your sister will be ready to go back full time after 6 weeks and having a c section and twins, she is mad to even contemplate that. I take it that she has been employed for less than a year to only qualify for the 6 weeks pay and then SMP, and I have to say your mum neds to say no. I am really sorry but she shouldn't presume on your mother for 5 days a week, looking after 1 is bad enough let alone twins, and doesn't your mother have a life of her own. My mother likes to have my DD once a week but she is busy so often she can't, it's nice that she wants to help look after her ut it is not her priority.

[Mumblesmummy]

Freckle- You're braver than me for saying that as people probably will jump on you for it, however, I must say this has proved to be the case with my sister. I'm sure it's not like that for others, but as you have observed, it is definately the case for her. If i try to talk to her about anything she brings that up as well and she said that she hates that her little sister has started a family with no problems and she hasn't.

Sophie- She's worked there years!! This is what I thought too. I think it's because she has GCSE classes and doesn't want to let them down, but I've no idea how she expects it to work. I definately won't be leaving mine full time for a long time.