To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

Of course they can. If the GP developed ill health or some other circumstance arose, she'd have to find other care. GPs have the right to resign caring at any time, for any reason.

If you want things to be the same then grandma 1 looks after her daughters children therefore your mum should look after yours. Or do you just want MIL to do childcare for everyone but non of your side of the family pitch in.

Things can't always be 50/50 for many reasons.
My friend was torn because one of her children had four children under 6 and the other one had one around 10 when arguments broke out.

My friend was saying that she tried looking after the 4 children because mum went back to work but because of her hip and knee problems found it impossible. It was easy with the other child who just liked to do arts and crafts, read and watch tv.

She was accused of being unfair. Fortunately the son of many kids told his wife that it was their issue to sort out and reminded her that friend had given them free living accommodation for 4 years before the children, so swings and roundabouts!

Is it while she works? They can’t break an agreement with her if so.

What kind of childcare or you after? Ad-hoc or regular?

This is an interesting question as you have just made me realise that every mother I know has their own parents seeing their Grandchildren and doing more childcare than the man's parents do

How would you like them to redress that? There is no compensation for time that would build a relationship with the GC. If you spend more time with one set of GC, you're going to be closer to them. So someone who lives hours away from GPs, as opposed to minutes, is going to be less close, which makes sense.

But it's also irrelevant to the OP. She isn't not getting child care because the grandparents are 20 years older and now incapable. The grandparents are providing care currently on a weekly basis. OP is just not getting any support because her SIL has basically called dibs.

There's no reason why when the OP became pregnant the grandparents couldn't have said to their daughter "just to let you know we have time to babysit 4 times a week, for the last few years you have benefited fully from that, but now that time will need to be shared with your brothers children"

This is exactly it for me. It’s not that we didn’t receive the same amount of childcare support, that was fine and due to circumstance, it’s that they’ve never attempted to redress the imbalance in the relationships between the different sets of gc. They’re kind enough but not close to our dc who sadly don’t have gp on my side so in laws are the only gp they have.

@Drfosters but people on low income/basic pension can think the world of their children but not be able to afford to help with cost of nursery, or do you expect them to live in poverty so they can help one adult DC if 10 years ago they provided childcare for another adult DC. I would think I hadn’t brought my DC up very well if they had that sense of entitlement.

Either! They can’t be seeing their next-door grandchildren much at all if they’re either commuting to provide childcare (and cook and clean) miles away, or resting to recover for the next trip.

I would say that's unfair, yes. If I had GC two days a week and another wanted me to have their children two days a week, I'd offer to have them the same two days.

If one child said they were fine with that and the other insisted on me having their children without the other set of grandchildren present, I'd feel fine about telling them that I am offering the same time, this is what works for me, if they aren't happy about it, then they will need to make other arrangements. If both aren't happy, then they can have one day each. If I'm doing you the favour of caring for your children, I do it around what works for me.

@Drfosters that sounds like a good plan. I think my in laws have been very short sighted and because we have only ever attempted to have a few chats and still host etc they do not understand the depth of the issue. If they heard what my child had said when she heard whilst in single digit age that the other grandchildren who are both older and younger were going on the same big special holiday together they would have been devastated. Kids aren't stupid. It is only my son's manners that keeps us hosting at Christmas.

The op hasn’t said what the age gap is between the grandchildren. And tbf her DH is a cheeky B offering up his parents for childcare without having even spoken to them.

Yeah I've said previously it's very dependent on circumstances and if one adult child is a single parent, has no support at all, or has a lower income, or if the child has SEN the grandparents aren't able to cope with or the grandparents are a lot older etc then that changes things. But in situations where that's not the case, giving one adult child dibs on all their childcare capabilities simply because their child had their kids first seems unfair to me.

Then there's the scenario that I would have felt completely suffocated if MIL had the same relationship with my family as she had with her DD. I'm glad she was busy there as I couldn't handle someone over daily, taking over my house and parenting.

It’s about equity not equality. You can’t necessarily do the same for both due to different circumstances but in my view you can plan ahead and think this sort of thing through. My children are my absolutely world, I simply cant imagine not doing my absolutely best to ensure I treat them as equally as I can, even if involves having to use money rather than time to make the difference. Childcare is very expensive and I wouldn’t want to help one and then watch the other struggle.

I don't think that is what most sil type posters are saying. I don't ever ask for meaningful childcare and I never have, a few hours every month or so and meet up as a family otherwise. We host everyone at holidays. The issue is when grandparents basically co parent one set of grandchildren and have little meaningful interaction with the others. If they were decades apart that is understandable, but is often not the case. That set of grandparents get so over involved in one set they loose all perspective on the others, prioritising meaningless things like returning some slippers over going to the school show, which isn't childcare. It is quite common for sil and extraordinaryly short sighted and emotionally immature

That really depends on the circumstances. It would be a very unreasonable grown child who resented not getting the same help if there was a big change of circumstances between sets of grandchildren. Surely people have to recognise their parents as human who can't predict what life will bring and aren't immune to change?

Another approach could have been to offer two days and then offer to have all the grandchildren together on the same two days, rather than spread it over 4.

That's what my parents did. My mum wanted to offer 2 days to my sister but my dad said to her that would mean they'd need to offer me two days if I had a child, and then suddenly they'd have lost 4 days of their week. So they do one day for her, and as it goes I didn't need them to look after my DC so they've offered extra support to her if she wants it. If they'd told me that I couldn't have any help because sister is getting all of it, I'd have been hurt (given that our lives/income/children are very similar). To me, it's like saying you have your first child and give them everything because they're the only one. Then if you have a second, your first inevitably has to share the time and resources they've been used to. You don't just say sorry child 2, child 1 was here first and accustomed to having everything so I can't change that.

Obviously there are lots of other factors - if you don't talk to your adult kids about their plans and you have no idea if they even want kids then it probably wouldn't make much sense to plan ahead for it. But my parents knew we wanted a baby at the time my sister needed childcare.

Grandparents are obviously free to do as they wish and give their support as they see fit. But it's daft to think that won't cause resentment from their adult kids if they give one set of GC help and not the other.

its interesting how much of the relationship with grandchildren is in relation to how much help and care is offered. When I was young I saw both sets of grandparents on a weekly basis. We went to them for tea or they came to us for the day. But they never cared for us. Similarly my own parents and in laws saw my children regularly, again it was social rather than care.

i see my granddaughter regularly and I did end up doing a lot of child care because it was an emergency but now I see her at weekends.

If feels like some people (by no means all) think of the grandparent relationship as one largely rooted in help, support and childcare rather than a social family relationship. It feels a bit transactional and mercenary. I’m not capable of looking after a baby or toddler now and I’d be very unimpressed if my value as a grandparent was predicated entirely on how much practical help I could offer

That’s exactly how I feel.

All of this.

We potentially could have over 30 years between grandchildren. My parents had almost that. My son was born when I was 16, and my youngest brother had his youngest at 42.

MY mother will not have any substantial involvement with her (hopefully future) grandchildren. Despite being a "good mum".

I would absolutely understand you being older (if I was your DIL). But this?

I have 2 DILs and as much as I really really like them, they both have there own good mum's who I'm sure will be very involved when/if they have DC. ?

no, I wouldn't understand that. You are your son's good mother, aren't you??

It's not about expecting childcare, btw. It's about showing your sons and their (future) DGC the same amount of love and care as your DD's.

I'd hate to have to think the way some are suggesting. For example if I have a grandchild at age 60 and I want to help and enjoy spending time with them but I've got to always think "ah but I could have a new baby grandchild when I'm 80. Better not do anything that I wouldn't be able to replicate at that age". That seems a really negative and miserable approach.

@Drfosters not all GPs can afford to do that. What happens if circumstances change, and maybe GPs health, age can impact whether they can offer the same or equivalent to each adult DC. What if one adult DC didn’t have children, do you give them something, and if so when? I previously posted that there could be 20 years between age of children of DH and his brother. Health and circumstances of GPs have changed since then, do they still have to do something to make it fair.

If adult DC live further away when they have children, do GPs have to move so they can give childcare to make it fair? If other GPs provide childcare, then what do you do to make it fair?

What about the situation where GPs are still working when their first grandchild comes on the scene so can’t provide childcare (or are they expected to give up work so they can). Then their second child provides a grandchild after they have retired so they are available. Do they not offer with childcare because they couldn’t do it for their first grandchild?

Maybe, grandparents could just have a nice relationship with their grandchildren without having to provide childcare.

In my situation my husband is 10 and 12 years younger than his brothers. When he was in his 20s his mom actually lived with her nieces and nephews and played a big role in their upbringing. By the time my husband and I had kids, his dad had died and his mom had moved abroad and remarried. She’s never given a day or hour of childcare, although is very loving and interested from a difference. My own parents were our saving grace, but even when we had our third child, my mom said a hard no to any more childcare. She felt she’d done her time after my first two and because there was a six year age gap, she felt she couldn’t cope in the same way. My point being that circumstances change, people get older and sadly the more grandchildren come along, he smaller the slice of the pie you get. Not to mention novelty wears off. Tbf, I felt aggrieved at times, but now I’m getting older and my kids are, I can understand that I won’t want to be tied down once I eventually get my own kids off my hands. It’s a big commitment and often a thankless one.