Grandparent child care while parent is off sick

Sadly it seems to be true that some parents on here, who have had support from GP's, take it for granted.
I thought the 10am-3pm solution was a good one, but it could start an all-mighty rumpus.
OP I think you are great xx

I’m with you OP.
I really can’t understand why there are some on here that are giving you a hard time. Your son and daughter in law are lucky that you are saving them a days nursery fees. Before anyone thinks I am being unsympathetic to DIL being off work with work related stress - I’m absolutely not - and I am sure that if she was totally incapacitated you wouldn’t be thinking that you’d like to take the opportunity to have a break, but she is having 4 days when she’ll have plenty of time to focus on herself and presumably your son will be available to help her at the weekend. I don’t t think it’s unreasonable therefore that on one day out of the 7 she looks after the little one so you can have a break.

Yes she is your slave she must obey you

It drove you mad? She gave you free childcare while you were working ffs.

Hmm, I'm assuming that the child would have had a nursery space for that day if you hadn't asked to have him one day a week. I think I would feel differently if they had asked you to do the day but the fact you asked to have him a day a week is swaying me to say you really need to either stick to that agreement or tell rhem it is too much for you on a permanent basis so they can book him into nursery

It's great how some are concerned about dil. What about op wellbeing? She is having to hold down a job and care for her grandson. She mentions feeling tired. Does her health and wellbeing not matter?

My dm used to do this.

i was a single parent and she helped me with childcare. But if l was off sick she’d never take ds.

It drove me mad.

In fact I've seen threads like this where it's the dad off work while the mum works full time and the kids are in childcare.

Our usual response in that instance would be "what does he even contribute, you'd be better off splitting with him".

She asked for help when she was working, she isn't working atm.

You may be right @ShyMaryEllen but if so it is the DIL who gets to decide what she is capable of, not OP. No one chooses to be ill, and "cuts and bruises" level illness doesn't get you signed off work.

Meanwhile OP remains entirely at liberty to withdraw her help, she's a free agent. But unless she's on the brink of nervous collapse herself she should give fair notice, and she has no right to dictate that her DS&DIL's backup plan should be DIL taking up the extra, if they decide her wellbeing is best served by DC having an extra day at nursery or DH changing his working hours. OP doesn't get a choice as to how her DIL manages her route to recovery.

I hope YOU don't get run down OP.
You are a grandparent that works 4 days and childminds on the 5th day.

That's a busy full on week.
She has 4 days to herself and still wants you for the 5th day for the full month.

I would think that is a bit CF-ish.
I would say you will see how she feels next week to your son as YOU are actually feeling a bit tired yourself.

Sadly I think free childcare tends to be taken for granted very quickly.

I don't doubt that some mental health conditions are so bad that you can't look after a 2yo for one single day a week, after four whole days off. For example, full blown psychosis. But anything that doesn't meet the threshold for sectioning should leave you capable of at least one day looking after your child, after resting for four whole days.

I don't know how she can look at herself in the mirror just doing nothing at home all day for 5 days a week while everyone else works and/or looks after her child. What's she going to do with her day? There's only so much housework and batch cooking and long baths you can do before you run out of stuff to do.

Surely having such low expectations of oneself has got to be bad for your mental health too.

And I'd feel absolutely the same about a dad behaving like this. We'd all be shouting "what a lazy arse" if it were the dad doing this.

I follow your logic, @OpizpuHeuvHiyo , but it depends on whether or not you see family relationships as about money. I see this as a MIL generously donating time/energy so that her DIL can work to provide for the child, even though it means that MIL gets no time off during the week. She is not being paid to do it, so she doesn't really fit into your transactional way of viewing the arrangement.

I would see someone seriously injured as probably unable to look after a child, but someone with cuts and bruises as probably capable one day a week - it depends. Clearly you are choosing to assume that person B is incapacitated (which we don't know) as opposed to a bit battered (which we don't know either). If that is the case, maybe SS need to be involved, as I suggested upthread.

It’s one two year old one day a week, not someone else’s child, her own. If she’s really incapable of doing that I hope she’s getting very intense professional help.

OP, you matter too.

Each out of OP, (A) OP's DIL (B) and OP's DIL's employer (C) have a set amount of time/energy and money.

The normal situation (when no one is ill) is that B gives time/energy to C in exchage for money and A gives time/energy to her grandchild to facilitate this.

When someone is on sick leave, the employer C agrees to give B money (sickpay) without expecting time/energy in return so that B can use that time/energy to get well instead.

OP's original proposal was that rather than this, the employer should still pay the sickpay money but B would get no freed-up time/energy, but instead would have a busy and stressful day of childcare, meanwhile A gets the freed-up time/energy which was given from C to B, and B has less time/energy to devote to getting well again.

If someone was off sick from work due to a physical reason like having been in a serious car accident or suffereing from a debilitating ohysical disease that made it impossible to work whilst coping with the physical symptoms would you expect it to be ok for childcare providers to cancel their arrangements because the ill person doesn't need it if they aren't at work? I hope not because it would be insane and cruel. Mental illness shouldn't be treated differently.

I know. And I'm not trying to go head to head with you when neither of us knows the severity of the illness. But in many cases the impact is massively lessened when work is taken out of the equation, as the stress of thinking about it goes away.

I have worked with people who go on holiday, start businesses, renovate their house - all sorts of things that seem stressful in themselves - when off sick with stress, and say it is therapy, or that it doesn't count as the stress was caused by the workplace. I don't think that's uncommon, in the public sector anyway. Looking after a toddler one day a week pales into insignificance next to that, although as I said, I don't think there is a template for how these things 'work'.

Anyway, the MIL offered to have the child when the mum was at work. I don't see it as her moving the goalposts by wanting to renegotiate now she's not. If DIL is really too ill to look after her own child one day a week maybe SS need to be involved? What happens if her husband has to go away, or the mum is ill or delayed and she is unable to cope?

Well maybe they can start asking their FiLs to be their unpaid nanny instead? Funny how the expectations suddenly change.

She's off sick not on leave.

@Willyoujustbequiet I really agree with you. She's just taking the piss because she's got the option. Also it's not healthy to spend time off sick with stress alone doing nothing

In that case, can your ds not work whilst his ds is asleep and give you a break? They chose to have a child even though she had a history of poor MH, which they must have known would be challenging. You're a family so all members needs should be considered.

I think the lazy mornings picking your gs up at 12, then doing an activity and dropping back at 4 posted upthread may be a good compromise. But please don’t rule out taking a day to yourself. Your dil had stress, you’re a lot older so naturally have less energy and could more easily burn out.

I don't think she has to sort it. I think taking away someone's support when they are vulnerable and ill is a bit shitty but if it has to be done it has to be done. I was suggesting alternatives. OP doesn't have to take them.

Yes, she has work-related stress, but she’s not at work it's very rare for work-related stress to suddenly go away the moment you leave the workplace for the day and return the moment you walk in the next day and not have any impact on your life outside work

After seeing your update, continuing to help with your grandchild and also encouraging her to be involved on those days if she feels able to would be a really lovely offer.

Work related stress doesn’t follow a template. It certainly can ‘work like that’, if ‘that’ means that people can live a ‘normal life’ if they can take work out of the equation. Maybe not every time, or for everyone, but you are generalising wildly to dictate ‘how it works’.

Right but then day 5 she's then left to look after her child by herself for a whole day which she might struggle with. We don't know how ill she is.

it's called parenthood 🤷. and the child has a dad too. I don't understand why you think this is for the grandmother to sort.