DD leaving her baby with me

She frequently goes out with her mates and leaves dgs with me without asking if it's ok

Let's not forget the OP's DD doesn't even ask.

There's a world of difference between asking/making arrangements for your DC to be looked after to just going off out and leaving your DC assuming someone else will be available to look after them.

It’s almost as if women over 25 don’t ask their mum’s for help with childcare. Everyone in my immediate circle relies on their family to support a lot (every half term, school pick ups, my friends with babies ask for mums to stay overnight to help).

and let’s not forget some communities where women have children very young as culturally that’s the norm

Please do not insult mums that have their children young, I was 18 and lived hundreds of miles away from my family, my husband worked shifts and was often away. I was rational, my child was well looked after, my house was clean and tidy and i was a responsible adult. My bills were paid on time, my cupboards were well stocked and i didn't disappear off and leave my child. No wonder our under 25s have a free pass to act like kids. This lass needs to look after her child, no excuses, her child her responsibility, yes she needs help but she needs to face up to her life.

I had my eldest at 16, and know a fair few young mums and they all raised their own babies, with help yes, but all moved out within 1-2yrs and grandparents played an active grandparent role, but not a parental role. I was just as capable of caring for a baby at 16 as I was at 27 and 31. In fact whilst I appreciated my parents support, I enjoyed being able to do things my way without comment or interference.

I had my eldest at 16. My parents said they’d babysit 2 evenings per week. I wouldn’t have dreamt of just walking out. Time to get firm.

This. She's very young, and obviously not ready for a baby. I also think you really need to take into account the fact that she's had her world blown up and had a baby within a matter of weeks. At 17. She also had no choice as to whether to abort as she found out so that. That's a lot and it sounds like she's struggling to adjust. Very understandably.

As her parent, I'd be thinking as the pp had said, I'm probably going to have to bring this baby up for her. If she's not ready, she's not ready. And the only other option is adoption which you've said you don't want.

I am not for one minute suggesting that this will happen to the young mum, but in the papers you hear about mums struggling, leaving kids on their own or other risky things that potentially have negative consequences. I always think it is really sad that they didn't reach out or potentially had no one to support them.
Please ignore the"she needs to move out" etc .She is obviously struggling adjusting but there needs to be conversations with support. I hope the little one is a good sleeper. even for a wanted child the lack of sleep alone is so hard.

You wouldn't make the assumption that whether you raise someone else's child was your choice to make?

The parents that enable it end up raising the kid in my experience of people I know. I had my first at 16 and was made to leave the family home and had to do everything myself that's how you learn.
Keep babysitting and she will just expect it more and more.

If she REALLY doesn't want the kid and you don't want to raise it either then maybe the posters saying adoption have a point, I'm just saying because it's easy for a baby to be adopted than an older child so that's something to look into ASAP if that's the route she wants to go down. Being adopted will be a lot better than being fostered for the child

But I feel like this is a conversation that you would have with her very clearly from the outset in this (entirely hypothetical) situation. ‘If you have this child, I will not be parent’.
OP, do you think your daughter grasped your unwillingness to raise the child yourself? Did she assume wrongly?

As an adopter twice over, I am horrified by all the 'just put him up for adoption' comments. OP, I know you know and are not planning this, but for everyone else, please understand how challenging life is for babies and children removed from their birth parents. Adoption is not a wipe-the-slate-clean initiative, it is a process that brings with it lifelong trauma for all involved. The OP's daughter is a child who has had a child. All the comments about throwing her out on the street. Fucking hell, I wonder how on earth Donal Trump ever got elected once let alone twice and then I read the comments here and realise how it happened and how the concentration camps happened. Some people have no compassion and begrudge anyone they consider a stain on society.

OP, please be wary of inviting SS into your lives. Can you not resolve this as a family? It's likely that you're all in a state of trauma given the circumstances of the pregnancy and birth. Have you researched any teen mums/teen pregnancy charities you could reach out to for advice? I'm happy to do this for you if that would help?

If my 14-year-old DD got pregnant (god forbid) and she insisted on keeping the baby then i would expect her to look after the baby, it was her choice

If my teenaged daughter got pregnant and decided to keep the child, I would make the full assumption that I would be raising the child and that I would pretty much be the primary carer. Surely that is the norm with teenagers and babies - raised by grandparents in their 40s/50s?
Or have I got this completely wrong?

I do have the information: the mother tells her she won't babysit and she can't go out, and she goes. This sort of behaviour doesn't just come out of nowhere; a kid who has always been required to obey their parents (over small things, when the kid was small) and who understands that there will be consequences if they don't doesn't just start acting like that; they wouldn't dare. This girl knows that she can do what she wants, and nothing will happen. That didn't happen overnight.

Yes, I'm blaming the mother. And the father (either he's spent seventeen years letting the dd behave however she chooses, or else he wasn't around at all, which makes him responsible in another way). How can she fix this unless she realizes how she's dropped the ball? Either she sees what she's done wrong and fixes it, or she carries on like this, and spends the next 18 years raising the gc, and probably another gc or two as well. She has allowed the dd to act like this; she has to change her ways and show that she isn't going to allow it any more. The dd isn't going to change until she has to.

What would happen if you told her you are only prepared to babysit on w and x between y and z?

It is because its neglect

Tough love for a while, be out a lot,proper chat once she has realised her responsibilities and that her social life is going to be greatly curtailed for the next few years at least.

I know this has been asked but haven't seen an answer, does she tell you she's going out? Just because you mentioned she leave dgs with you without asking.

I'm not sure withdrawing all babysitting is the right way to go as she is already not acting like a responsible parent, do you think it would be the best thing for the baby to withdraw all support when his mother is clearly struggling with being a parent?

Definitely set up a social services appointment. They won't remove the child now but your DD has to realise that in future that may happen if she is not willing to look after her own child and you (understandably) do not want to raise her baby.

Help and advice should be the first step, not making a point by withdrawing support. She's still a child herself.

"I've always said I'll support her and dgs but I'm not a live in babysitter and I don't expect her to treat me like one."

Except that's what she's doing and nothing you've said or done so far has stopped that. What would you do if any other person left their baby, assuming someone else would take care of it but not having explicitly requested this, and went out all night drinking? I'm guessing report to someone like the police or social services. Which if you're not prepared to bring up the child yourself is what you need to do here. Not so the baby is removed from family but so your daughter gets some help realising what a serious responsibility she's landed herself with.

Does the boys parents know he has made them grandparents? If they are decent people perhaps they'd be willing to help?

That's different to saying that there was one time she defied her mother and it wasn't challenged. You're blaming the mother. That's easy to do, but you don't have the information to support your argument.

We never know anything about any OP's life except what they tell us. This one is telling us that she tells her dd she's not going to babysit and she can't go out, and the dd just goes. And OP babysits. Nothing will change unless the OP changes it. Things have got to the point where the dd isn't going to change her ways until she comes home to find she's spending a night in the garden (or, perhaps, comes home to find SS in the living room, waiting to speak to her about her neglect of her child). OP has taught the girl that she can treat her mother and her mother's home with absolute contempt, and that's what she's doing.

People are saying the girl may be depressed, need support etc and that may be true OR perhaps she really does not want to be a mother.
Of course she is a mother due to the fact that she has had a baby but if she really does not want to actually parent then nobody can make either her or the father do it.
IF thats the case then she shouldn't (and can't) be forced, maybe she would prefer the child to be put up for adoption so she can move on with her life and do all the things 17 year olds should actually be doing.
She has made a mistake and in an ideal world both parents would step up and be great parents (with support) but there is no sign of that so far.

That's bollocks. you know nothing about the OP's life / kid / set up / temperament / circumstances beyond those she has shared here.

The parents decide how "compliant" their kids will be - or, to put it another way, whether they will require (not ask) the kids to obey the house rules for as long as they're in the house.

There was a first time. Whether the OP's daughter was five or ten or fifteen, there was a first time that she openly defied her mother and . . . nothing happened. No consequences. And that's why the OP is in this position now.