To charge my MIL for childcare since she’s stopped helping halfway through the summer holidays?

And you weren’t even paying HER for her time!

X post with you!

Except it’s likely that the OP is going to pay much more now because she’ll have to organise different things for different days vs if she had gone with one ‘provider’.

It’s hard enough to find CM etc…. To do so with no notice is 100x harder.

First post nails it.

Talk about cut your nose off…

YABU

No you can't ask her to pay. It's annoying that she's let you down short notice, but you'd have to pay it if she'd said no from the start anyway. Besides, it sounds like she didn't offer, you asked.

Did you actually sit down Roth her and talk about exactly what help you needed or did you just think as she’d offered to help out it was ‘x’ amount of days, when she was only thinking it was ‘c’ day. It may well be a miscommunication- you assumed and never bottomed out.

however, your child and therefore your responsibility. I’m only 50 and find looking after our DGC exhausting so YBU

I mean, the OP should be grateful that her MIL offered 3 days but decided to not do that with no notice at all??
Leaving the OP in the shit scrambling around to find alternative childcare.

Sorry but in my world, being reliable is a thing.
And if you can’t be reliable, you dint propose the moon and then say NO.

She could easily have said she was going to do adhoc days instead.

That sort attitude is not help. That’s not being kind. That’s adding stress agd problems to people.
I would actually not not trust her again with any proposal of ‘help’ tbh.

Of course Op (& her husband) would have to pay i MIL hadn't offered.

They would also have already organised it & not be scrabbling around last minute.

If I were MIL I'd be offering something as I would feel so bad about letting you down.

I would remember this next time she offers to help out say no in fact if you can remove the one day a week obligation from her shoulders to spare her energy I absolutely would and I would discuss with your DH about getting support in for her because she is clearly struggling

Wow - one of the most unreasonable posts I’ve seen here! She’s in her 60s for crying out loud! She probably wanted to be helpful and just found it all too much. Which is entirely understandable.

So you basically want to charge her for providing one day of free childcare per week and disregard the fact that has she not offered to do childcare you would have had to pay for all the days?

Wow.

This was exactly my first thought.

The second was that OP sounds bonkers.

I think your MIL is shitty tbh.

SHE proposed to look after the dcs.
She waited until the very last minute to tell you she doesn’t want to do it.
Its crap behaviour.

Can you ask her re payment? Well it’s likely to be very badly received.

But I would have no issue in telling her 1- how hard things are re organising childcare with no notice and 2- I would actually not trust her at all and wouldn’t trust her to actually have the dcs during the hols. I would tell her that she won’t have the dcs at all over the summer.

Oh I would involve your dh. Because if we’re honest, if you can’t cover all the days needed now, then he’ll have to take some hols to cover. (Because just as clearly you won’t be able to).

Your MIL should reconsider providing you with free childcare one day a week,

In light of how grateful you are, I think your MIL would be well-advised not to provide any free childcare.

You can’t charge her. Suck it up and pay for your childcare.

You can be disappointed she let you down - but you definitely definitely can not try and charge her for the cost of covering that time.

So she has already done 6 days of childcare for you so far? Yes it’s annoying to be left in the lurch at short notice but she’s already done you a big favour and will continue to do a day a week

If you want to destroy your relationship go right ahead.

It's annoying certainly but you are not 'being taken for mugs'. 3 days of childcare is a lot. She had good intentions but realised it was too much I guess.

Your child, your bill, your problem!

At least you're still getting one free day, that's loads.

If you ask her to contribute, I suspect you'll be needing 2 days childcare not one.

Jesus wept. I get it's annoying. But the entitlement here is beyond staggering.

She doesn't owe you financial compensation for cancelling a favour. Ridiculous.

For fun, ask for half the money and see how fast that 1 free day a week disappears.

Your attitude is vile.

I feel like so many GPs offer it in the moment without actually realising what a commitment it is. My friend has now said she will have her grand daughter the same amount of time but she is very spontaneous and used to being free. I know it’s not going to be very long before she says it’s too much and drops down leaving her daughter in law in the lurch too.

It's absolutely brattish to throw a tantrum and try to charge MIL for changing her mind.