Jealous MIL

What a silly comment. Why would they do that? They aren't high earners, childcare is expensive and two trusted family members want to look after the baby for free. There's a small wrinkle to iron out because one of the grandmothers wants to do more childcare. Nobody is being taken advantage of and it's a small matter of shuffling a day around.

You are living on cloud cuckoo land if you think that it's sensible for low earners to willingly pay £1000+ per month for something if they don't absolutely have to.

@lauraloulou1 why would anyone pay someone they don’t know to look after their child, when family members who love their child want to do it? That’s like paying for a wet weekend in Skegness when you could go to a villa in Tuscany for free😂

So your MiL works on Wednesday to Saturday, she has generously offered to provide childcare on Mondays and Tuesdays, which doesn't work for you and you begrudge her wanting to have Sundays off.

Presumably her partner also works & isn't retired yet. It's certainly not unreasonable for them to want to spent time off together on just one day per week unencumbered by someone else's child.

It's unclear why you want 2 family days together, but don't seem to understand why others want a day off at the weekend together. So the first issue is your lack of childcare on Sundays. Simple, one of you works on Saturdays and the other works on Sundays.

The Tuesday thing is a bit of a red herring. Is there any reason why it must be a Tuesday that is your other day off together, not Wednesdays? Maybe your MlL just thinks she ought to offer Tuesdays as well, but is actually breathing a sigh of relief that she will get 2 days off at some point during the week.

@HexagonSun there was a rare thread on here recently about nursery, someone said they saw some bad behavior from a staff member and lots came on to say similar.

Op I wouldn't bow to mil, only if it works for you. One day a week is still loads.

I am concerned that this won't end well. Mil sounds a little toxic.

But in the meantime. "No, mil Tuesdays is like a Sunday to us and we are keeping it for family time seems fine." Repeat repeat repeat.

But isn't OP actually trying to organize a set rota?

And yours is so much more detailed.

Maybe the MIL is hurt/confused because she's trusted with the DD alone and all day - which would tell her she's seen as excellent and trustworthy childcare. You DM only has the DD with the OP there. Yet the schedule planned is giving the DM more 121 time with the DD than the MIL.

You've clearly relied on the MIL to have the baby simply in order for you to have a day free during Mat leave. Which imo is a bit pitiful given you have one baby and a DH - i get the sense that you are indeed maximising free childcare going forwards and expecting the grandparents to fit in with whatever gives you the simplistic/best options for you.

Crumbs! When I had my sons, neither my DM nor my MIL wanted to look after them!

Can she have one of the days your mum was to have?
If not, tuff.
I get so jealous of people with grandparent support, our are deceased 😭

Ehrm, you missed the part where parents actually WANTED to do childcare. So nobody is using anyone. Just wish people could read the thread instead of inventing alrernative narratives 🙄

Problem?

Such a boring reply.

YANBU to want days off with your partner and child.

MIL is NBU to provide childcare only on days that suit her.

MIL is BU to dictate how you manage your childcare schedule.

However, on the basis that you are incredibly fortunate to apparently have people fighting to look after your child, I don't know why you wouldn't just take Wednesday off as your joint day (which it sounds from your posts would be possible) and let MIL look after your child on Tuesdays, to keep everyone happy. If you can't afford paid childcare, this is the pay off - you need to compromise as well as you need to keep your unpaid childcarers happy.

I'd also suggest that splitting childcare equally is a better arrangement anyway. Your mum and MIL might be happy at the moment with an amenable baby, but they might find once baby is a toddler that they are happy not to do so much looking after. Going from never having the baby on her own to 4 days a week is a lot for your mum to take on!

It’s not ‘entitled’ as is entitled to the subsided childcare rate. I think that meant ‘entitled’ as in expecting so much from others. I went back to work part time and DH was full time. We got nothing from the state towards nursery care and I was practically working for nothing but I believed that nursery with other kids their age was important.

I don’t blame her for not wanting Sunday. For many it’s a family day, sports roast dinners that sort of thing. I wouldn’t like a regular commitment on a Sunday.

I think you're being unreasonable to have everything riding on the complete compliance of the two grandmothers, so that if either of them change their mind, become incapable, or in your MiLs case want to do other things with their Sunday, it falls apart. You and your husband have arrived at a model that is perfect for your needs, but pretty prescriptive for the GMs, when the sensible and fair thing would have been to take their preferences into account from the get go. The obvious solution has already been suggested, swap your day off to Wednesday. Another might be to swap the GMs 'rota' so your MiL gets to work the days you'd scheduled for your own mum. If the issue is she wants more time that would solve that.

If you want free childcare, you can’t set all the rules. If you want that, then pay for it. 🤷‍♀️

Good thing that's not what's happened here then.

Exactly.

My children have both thrived at nursery. My son spent 8 months with a childminder before he got a place in nursery and being at nursery was clearly much better for his development. Where I live (in France) people are fighting tooth and nail to get a place in a council run nursery because it is considered the best form of childcare available.

My son now spends one day a week with his grandparents (no school on Wednesdays) and it's fantastic for him in other ways (speech development, table manners, relationship with his grandparents), but in my opinion being with a group of other, non-related children four days per week is fantastic.

If I were a SAHM I think I wouldn't appreciate my time with my kids as much as I do, they wouldn't have such great social skills, they would have watched a lot more TV than they have at their age, we would live in a much smaller home, and I wouldn't be able to afford to pay for the activities they do.

If MIL is causing issues now about her days, I wouldn't consider her reliable childcare. What happens if one week she decides there is something better on the day she has the child and doesn't want to do it? Will both sets of grandparents not eventually get a bit bored and worn out having the child so much? Not sure of their ages but young children can be tiring, and it can be very dull especially at this time of year going to the park in the cold.

I get your biggest issues is working in retail and therefore having to work weekends, as I can understand MIL and your own mother not wanting to do the weekends (especially if that's when family members who work are off and they don't get to see them in the week).

I do agree maybe you and your partner should have different days off so less reliant on grandparents completely, or sort out formal childcare (as others have mentioned there is tax free childcare and I am sure the age for free childcare for so many hours a week has lowered as well).

Welcome to the reality of having children for most people, OP.

As others have said, your daughter is not a toy to be passed around. It's great that your mum and MIL are offering to do childcare, but it's only helpful if it's, well, helpful. You don't need or want childcare on Tuesdays, so someone saying they will look after your daughter on Tuesdays is not helpful. Now all you need to do is figure out whether you have enough childcare to cover the days when you and your husband are both at work, or whether you need to pay for some extra childcare (like most people have to).

Are you a teacher or a practitioner?
I would disagree with the above, it's too simplistic. I've heard of terrible nurseries but then I've heard of terrible parents/grandparents and childminders!
I know of a set of grandparents who put the tv on and had limited interaction all day with the child. It really depends on the setting.

Some wild generalisations in this thread, my favourite being:

”To anyone bitter, the hierarchy of childcare with best interests for a baby is Parents- Grandparents- Nanny- Child minder- Nursery.”

Depends on what sort of grandparents, what sort of nursery, surely? The professionally qualified staff at a really good children’s centre nursery that follows the curriculum is going to be far better than, for example, my very nice but crap with children father-in-law. A childminder with a horrible dog isn’t going to be better than a really good nursery either. A nanny who is just in it for the cash until she can move in with her boyfriend isn’t going to be better than a really great childminder. Ridiculous.

OP, you are super lucky to have so much help, and unlike the bitter people on this thread, I am happy for you! But your MIL isn’t a parent, she can’t demand access like this. You and your partner need to spend time with your child and she needs to understand that. It sounds like she is jealous of your mum so some reassurance in that regard might help.

If the main reason to for the problem is to reduce childcare costs, then it makes more sense to change one of your days to only have one day off together a week. Both having a Tuesday off and considering still sending her to MIL is a daft idea.

But tbh, I think you're going to regret doing it the way you are doing it. You're already finding her overbearing, she's demanding what she wants, and she's let you down for 50% of the week. Your mum doesn't actually have her by herself at the minute, but you're jumping to 4 days a week of childcare- that's a big amount of time. I'm going to assume both are retired, and hopefully are going to want holidays/ plans with friends/ days out. At the minute, you have no back up plan for that, other than try to take time off, which is not fun in retail!

I personally would look for a nursery/ childminder for at least one day a week. That way, if someone books a holiday or a day away, you can at least ask if they have room for the little one (ours generally could if asked far enough in advance). And if you don't like the childcare set up for whatever reason, if one of the grandparents starts feeding her ice cream for lunch every day when you've said no sugar, or whatever rules you want to follow, - which they will!- you have another possible option there to provide childcare.

Yes childcare costs a fortune. You will qualify for tax free childcare, and some free hours, so it's probably not quite as expensive as you think, but that's the reality of having kids, and it's for 3 years- it's over before you know it.