My Mum doesn't want to help with childcare but makes me feel guilty that she doesn't see her grandson regularly

Are you the same OP with the no children at the Wedding thread? I am puzzled by your Mum’s approach on both issues to be honest. Could she not visit you once a fortnight if weekly is too much? Can understand she may not want to commit to childcare every week - but if she’d like to see her GC the. She needs to appreciate how stretched you are and try to fit in.
Obviously if they were allowed to attend the wedding, she could see them then!!

Of course she isn’t obligated to provide childcare. But she can’t have it both ways. Relationships are reciprocal and it sounds like she wants everything her own way.

I’m not sure why you would expect your mum to change your baby’s nappy etc while you’re visiting her. That’s childcare stuff and you’re there to do that. I visited my mum once a week or so when DD was a baby (but I wasn’t working, so less time-pressured), 90 mins door-to-door on public transport and I didn’t expect her to do anything like that.

My mum also wasn’t up for doing any childcare (she looked after my niece one day a week and that was her maximum).

Obviously the answer here is that your mum comes to visit you more, as she is less time pressured. But you need to get it out of your head that she’s obliged to do childcare and that as she hasn’t she should have less of a relationship with your child. Because that niggle is clearly still with you.

Grand parents are grand parents not stand in childminders. Yabu.

What you’re suggesting would work best for you, but wouldn’t be a lot of single grandparents’ cup of tea.

Regular childcare is a big enough commitment but building in being away from home every week overnight would be too much for everyone in my family.

There’s a difference between childcare and seeing her grandson. She wants to SEE him. Not look after him and be responsible for him all day.

She doesn't have to do childcare, you don't have to visit her if you don't want to. Separate issues.
My parents would like to see us more, but we can't always set aside a weekend when it suits them. Just the way it goes.

No way would I stay out of my own home for 1 or 2 nights a week....

Don't you see what a huge commitment chunk out of her week that would be? Every week

She doesn't have to provide childcare and it's fair enough if she doesn't want to. If she complains about not seeing enough of her grandson, you can explain that as you both work full time and he is in nursery 5 days a week, you time at the weekend is precious and you want to spend time together as a family and see friends and have days out etc. Offer to visit or have her to stay once a month or whatever suits you. Don't let her make you feel guilty.

my Mum shows little interest in looking after her grandson - whether it be nappy changes, meal times or bath times

These are your jobs as parents! I can’t imagine looking to a relative and seething that they haven’t taken over my responsibilities.

I think it shouldn’t be presented as weekly childcare or nothing. She could come and stay with you 2 days / month and just keep baby off nursery for those days to spend time with her.

Shes unreasonable to expect you to visit on (every?) weekends when you’re working FT. She needs to make a change if she’s unhappy with less than monthly visits.

If she wants to see you more often, then she needs to travel to you, at least half the time.
I suggest you invite her for an afternoon and if she says she can't travel to you, it's her decision.

But no, she doesn't owe you regular childcare. Even if she is single and retired.

You are being unreasonable.
There is no obligation on grandparents to provide childcare. Your mum may have found the early years looking after you very difficult. You might not think looking after a baby one day a week is much of a commitment but it is and it's much harder when someone is in their 60s. It sounds as though she doesn't live particularly close anyway.

Perhaps she wants to see you as well as her grandchild.
If you don't want to visit her or you can't go because you are busy don't go but it's very unfair of you to say you aren't going to visit because she won't provide childcare. It sounds as though you are only interested in her if she can be useful to you. Do you ever invite her over to you?

That sounds horrendous. Luckily I plan to be working well into my 60s so no child will expect this. I would drive to see them at the weekend though.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for her not to want to be tied to the commitment of weekly regular childcare. I wouldn't want to be nor do I expect my mum to be (I have a 3 and a 6 year old btw!) Regular childcare is a job in itself.

The discussion you need to have is on you guys always doing the travel to see her rather then taking it in turns.

But why should she? Can you honestly say that when you’re 60+ you’ll want to be an unpaid nanny on a weekly basis?

I don't think the op is trying to use them as weapons or blackmail. Its a case of time.

If you work full time and then maybe do 1-2 activities at the weekends (swimming, other sport etc then you are down to a maximum 1 full day of family time. There are usually other jobs that need doing, you want some form of social life yourself so that really limits opportunity to see grandparents. If I could I would see them all the time but its just not practical. So if you aren't choosing to have your grandchild for regular childcare then you need to accept that there isn't enough time to see you as often as you want.

Practically speaking in your circs we would visit monthly, we couldn’t fit in more. And that’s when the child is a baby- we have 3, they do a lot of sports and it needs to be the term holiday for us to head somewhere an hour away. We’d have to cancel 2 x swimming, 2 x football, 3 x basketball matches and 2 x training and 1 x cross country to go away for the weekend. So my parents would have to complain away and travel if they wanted more regular contact.

YABU to give up on weekend time to visit her too often.

Fair enough she doesn't want to do childcare, but she cannot expect full-time workers to cancel what little free time they have.
At the very least, she should be the one coming to see you for 2 hours at most.

IF she was your MIL, you would easily tell her to butt out, don't feel guilty because she's your mum, or arrange something longer for a bank holiday = but less often.

Tbh I wouldn't want to do this every week when I'm in my 60s.

I can see its impossible but I expect she would love to have a relationship with her grandson without a regular weekly 2 night slot.

I think YABU as you are confusing seeing you as a family with childcare as has previously been said. You sound like you are holding her to ransom, if she wants to see you she has to look after your child. You could just explain that it's a lot of travelling if you expected to do it every weekend but will visit once a month and if she wants to travel to see you once a month then great. Maybe she could stay over then, but I think you only want her to stay during the week when she can provide free childcare

Agree with @GoldDuster and @HerdMentality

If you’d rather travel less often to visit her, do that.