Tied into commitment made a year ago

I feel for you OP, it makes me so mad when people think that because you WFH you are constantly available.

Your circumstances have changed. Even if they had not, it would be ok to just say the arrangement isn’t working for you.

the parents need to figure this out for themselves. Since it is family it would be good if you could give them some notice, but it’s still ok to quit.

Perhaps they should look into a childminder. If both Mom and dad used the same provider for the same days, it would make finding someone easier.

@Trianglesandsquares well the parents aren’t solving the situation, why should the OP. Ffs
The OP is putting her child with the grandmother so she can work, yet picking up her step child whilst she’s working. It doesn’t add up.

Honestly if you can’t bring yourself to help you shouldn’t be in a relationship with someone with a child. Things like this are always going to come up. It’s so naive to say “well it’s not up to me”. Either you’re a family unit or you’re not, you can’t be half in and half out.

What make you think Granny needs to be managed? Either she's an easy-going sort and the relatiobship will evolve naturally. Or she will have her own ideas about what kind if relationship she wants with her step-GC and how to achieve it.

@Ghosttofu99 What the heck are you talking about. When people are bereaved people make all kinds of offers of help, because it’s such a difficult time. Cooking, baby sitting, helping move houses, cleaning etc. those offers are never for LIFE. Everyone knows that 🙄

In a normal scenario UANBU, but next time someone you know is bereaved please don’t offer them any ‘help’ if you have no intention of following through with it. Wether ex is taking advantage or not I’d imagine it’s been triggering to be messed around over this as presumably it was the deceased who used to help out.

Oh gosh, it looks like you may be having the same issue for the summer holidays.

There is a risk her that your DH and the ex will fully expect you to cover the summer holidays, for the same reason - you "commited" to do the childcare last year, so you are "letting them down" not doing this year.

I know you've said you've told them they'll have to cover the whole holidays themselves. But after this rigmarole with school drop/pick up, I would recommend being tougher with your wording.

I would suggest saying something like
"DH and ex, just so we are all very clear, I will NOT be providing childcare care during the sumer holidays. I will be working and you cannot rely on me to cover the gaps..
I am setting this very clearly now, as this gives you 5 months to organise childcare arrangements for the summer holidays between the 2 of you"

Be as blunt as you can. There is a risk if you are too nice and wishy-washy they'll nod their heads, but come July they'll re-write history and misremrmber what you said.and fully expect you to cover.

A very similar situation happened with me.
I pick my grandchildren up from school on regular days. A relative of my son in law had a family crisis and they asked me to help by picking up my grandchildren’s second cousins . These children were not blood relatives of mine and I hardly knew them.
After a period of months I said I was no longer prepared to pick them up and look after them with my grandchildren. I then became public enemy number one with their mother.
It had been completely cost free child care for them but I got in hot water rather than a thanks very much.

This year I have already said they'll have to make sure they can cover the whole time

What was the response?

You really need your husband to see your point of view here.

You really need to make the point that WFH is working and that you can’t do
childcare at the same time, even if you are your own boss, the same way as they wouldn’t consider taking their child to the office.

Will it cause friction in your marriage when you tell your husband you're not doing it any longer?
I mean, it shouldn't. But I'm getting the impression that it will.

Oh no! After school care!! My neighbours kids go to after school care, I guess it’s because I won’t pick them up. I’m such a shit person 😞 actually, my own kids go to after school care most days and I wfh some days too. Im a shit mum too I guess 😞.
They aren’t her children.

Who does the summer holiday childcare? I think that you could ask your Mum, but it's fine for her to say no. I'd do it until July. Then they need to find someone for September. How many more years is pickup needed for?

the kid will be going to before/after school to suit the OP

Too right it suits the OP. God forbid the mum takes responsibility for her own kid so OP doesn’t have to!

I strongly agree with the 96%. Definitely not unreasonable

I am one of those children who see stepchildren on par with biological children - but if this was your biological child interfering with work you would put them in childcare so I see no difference doing this with your stepchild.
The only thing I would encourage is your mum building a close relationship with your stepchild. You would have seen the threads where if a grandparent does not have a close relationship with stepchildren it goes pear shaped when they are older.

You don't know that though

In my kids school there are not enough places - not for both mornings and afternoons and not for 5 days. And most places will say you have to pay for every school day so she'd have to pay for the weeks he's with the dad ....

Or maybe if I were her I'd say - the kid will be going to before/after school to suit the OP and the dad will have to pay for "his" weeks 🤔 even if he doesn't use them since it's all or nothing

I have said this doesn't work anymore and it seems to have caused a bit of a drama with DSS's mum and DH saying I shouldn't have "committed" to this in the first place if I couldn't do it.

Ungrateful bastards
You helped them out with their kid (mainly helped her as it was her days!), and they’re whining on now saying you shouldn’t have helped them as much as you did. As though you have inconvenienced them this past year by helping them and made it harder for them now.

Surely they knew it would come to an end eventually and that this whole thing was only temporary? Their mum should have been back doing it herself MONTHS ago. And yet she had the cheek to have you commit to it and is also now complaining because you committed to it. 🤯

Best of luck to you Op. Being a stepmum while dealing with parents like that is bloody hard work. Stick to your guns!

YANBU. It's ridiculous.
Give them a date when it will be stopping and stick to it.
It's on the week the Mum is meant to have the child so it's up to her to find a solution rather than dumping the problem on her ex's wife.
You offered to do something as a temporary solution when the mum was going through a bereavement. You can't keep doing this forever until they decide the child is old enough to not need picking up.
Unfortunately some people treat self-employed people working from home as if they can simply drop everything at the drop of a hat because after all "They're just hanging round the house all day". I'm also self-employed. It's disruptive having to go and collect someone else's child and then care for said child until his mother shows up to collect him.
Stick to your guns on this one. It's the child's mum's problem to solve, with support from your DH who is the child's father.

Explain why the OP's commitment to the child should be greater than the child's own mother.

Op can't do the school run as she is working......what's the mother's reasoning....oh yeah, she's working.
Op can't take the child when ill off school because she's working......the same reason as the mother.

Why is it ok for the mother to not do things for her own child because she's working, but it's not ok for the OP when the reason is the same?

Unreliable breakfast club =
"I don't want to to pay when ex's new wife could do it for free".

I assume you are talking about the child’s mum?

Because OP saying she can’t do the school runs because she works is exactly the same reason than the mum is giving…
Dad is doing it one week, mum should do it the other. Simple.

The obvious answer here is paid childcare. A childminder or appropriate nursery setting (a lot of private nurseries have before & after school care for up to Y6 age).

If it doesn’t work it doesn’t work and making a commitment doesn’t mean that things can never change? He committed to a relationship with his kids mum but clearly something changed…..

I wouldn’t feel bad, I would give plenty of notice but I’d be clearly saying from X term I am not able to do the daily school runs sorry

It is a piss take, I appreciate it’s really hard for parents to accommodate shifts and stuff but free childcare isn’t an entitlement - she needs to pay for it like anyone who doesn’t have family waiting in the wings does