To expect the same childcare as your SIL is receiving

I'm not sure it is fair to expect them to help, but think it's fine to discuss.

How would it work in practice though? Would you expect the other family to reduce their already arranged childcare and find something else so they could look after your kids part of the time, or double the workload on grandparents?

Personally I think it just adds to much pressure on the grandparents to day yes. If they can help a little I think it's fine, but people shouldn't be having children if they can't look after them.

It really depends on context. My experience is grandparents prioritise the child who needs support most.

I'm an unexpectedly single parent with a young child and a job which isn't available part time and no support from anyone apart from my parents. I rely on them to be able to work and support my child (sometimes I have to travel or go to meetings elsewhere). If they weren't able to, we'd struggle to get by, I'd probably have to give up my job realistically. My brother had children first but they chose to live near his wife's parents 4 hours away. My mum was upset about that but that was their choice. Actually it's turned out her mum can't really help as much as they hoped and sometimes my mum has gone to theirs to help, and truth be told that's been really inconvenient for me and it's meant I've had to take time off to cover it on my end, but it's her choice.

I'm trying to work around relying on my parents by putting my child in nursery more from next term and my long term plan is to have a live in au pair. At the end of the day you never know what's going to happen and grandparents deserve some downtime/to enjoy retirement too and no one can obligate anyone to everything.

My SIL had her first child fairly young and she was just not that interested in parenting, so my MIL has pretty much raised the child. SIL ended up having two more and poor MIL has them virtually 24/7 now. I have another SIL who is similar but only had one child, and he just gets added to the mix so MIL has 4 kids to look after. I think it started out as a nice arrangement but she is definitely knackered and it's certainly expected of her now.

We had our DC after SIL had her first, so things weren't that full on for MIL yet, but I never expected any help because it didn't occur to me. I don't know if it's because I'm not originally from the UK, but where I'm from people have cheap/free childcare in nurseries etc., and grandparents don't tend to help anyway so I never imagined MIL or PIL to look after mine. It would have been nice to sometimes get a little help, but we have managed ok. I do sometimes feel bad because MIL and PIL are too busy to see our DC so they haven't got a proper relationship, but there's not much I can do.

Not sure if SILs are very close to MIL, but they must be if they see each other most days, so perhaps daughters are closer and mums generally prefer to look after their daughters' children? My mum loves hanging out with my DC (doesn't get to do that very often due to distance), but she is also very close to my brother's children, so I guess it just depends on the person.

OP, just to give you another perspective on the issue. I had much more support from my mum than my brother did with DC. My mum tried to help there too but it is fair to say she always was available to care for my DC whereas with my brother’s it was upon request given in advance. She told me once that with my DC it is easier as she just does what she thinks she needs to and if I put some rules she disagrees with she will either argue with me or just not follow them to the tee. With DIL she didn’t feel she can do the same so she always followed rules DIL put on and found it stressful. And just to be clear when I say rules, I mean what food for DC to eat, what clothes to wear, how she will get DC to activity etc. I never knew what she decided to feed DC, never packed clothes for them - she just took some from my wardrobe and left them at hers, never asked if she took a taxi or bus to activity (she doesn’t drive). I argued about bedtime, and she argued back then assured me she follows it but I knew DC always went to bed later at hers. My SIL was much more organised - she packed clothes according to weather of the day, she prepared some meals etc. I am sure she was trying to make it easier for mum but mum found it stressful and felt like she can’t make any decisions. So sometimes it is easier with daughters than DIL in that respect.

I provide regular (2 days a week) childcare for my son's DC. Whilst I get on well with DIL and we have a group WhatsApp regarding DGC; the asking and negotiation is invariably through my DS. I currently don't have other grandchildren, but if I did I would offer equal care if practical.
Just a thought, would your MIL see much of her daughter's children if she didn't provide childcare? As you live very near your inlaws are bound to have a close relationship with your DC, regardless of whether they do regular childcare. This is the main reason I'm happy to do regular childcare, so I have a very close relationship with my DGC.

DP has 4 siblings. I can’t begin to imagine how his parents would manage to treat all 5 of their offspring equally with regard to childcare. What if all of them had had 5 children each? The grandparents could set up a bloody limited company with that number of children to look after. Choices have to be made. It’s not always ‘fair’. That’s life.

But if they help SIL, I think it's a fair expectation they would offer to help OPs family too. If they weren't helping SIL then fair enough, and of course no one is entitled to childcare. But giving childcare to one and not the other, when there are seemingly no differences in the care being asked for, is unfair. I don't ask for my parents help because I don't feel I need it, but they help my sister a lot with her kids. We are both married with similar incomes etc, and there are no differences in the age or SEN status of our kids. That's fine because the help was offered to us both. But if they'd said they weren't helping me when they were helping my sister I'd have been quite upset because that's obviously unfair if there's no reason other than favouritism.

id say it’s not about favourites or fairness but they are tied in to help their DD and need the other days to rest/ recover. Expecting them to do their normal days with other GC and then extra childcare seems a lot- especially if they are older etc…

I had the same. MIL looked after SIL's DD full time so SIL could go back to work. I had no support (my mum wasn't interested) and had to muddle through. Yes, it was unfair but I just had to accept it. I love my MIL anyway and I guess she thought my mum would step up but she never did.

I know it's difficult but if they already have a routine, surely it's hard to change that arrangement, at that age I wouldn't want to take on twice the amount of childcare, so would mean reducing childcard of existing children.

Personally think it's unfair to burden grandparents with kids on regular basis.

It's difficult and there are a lot of variables involved. My cousin has 2 daughters (so no MIL/DM conundrum). At one point it looked like neither of them would have children. But then 1 did. It was like the 2nd coming of the christ child. On tap baby sitting, overnights from 3 months, 3 to 4 days full care a week (not a working mother). There is no way this could have been replicated if the other daughter had had a child near in age without going back a level. What did happen is that my cousin's DD had another child after quite a large gap and expects the same level of support from her DM. But her mother is now a widow, on her own, considerably older (now 78) and the second child is a more 'difficult' one from the 1st. I feel sorry for my cousin but the attitude is very much you did it for the first why not the second.......

Of course you shouldn't EXPECT grandparents to help, they are your kids, however I think it's acceptable to ask them if they could help.

Perhaps they can't cope with twice the amount of childcare, feel sorry for grandparents if it's more than few days, looking after kids is so hard work, when at an age they should be enjoying retirement.

People can be ridiculous, but surely that reaction is not the norm in real life.

I had kids 10 years after my siblings. My dad had passed and my mum was elderly. I certainly wasn't expecting any childcare, even though my DPs used to go help my siblings for long weekends and holidays etc.

"Fairness" doesn't mean treating grandkids the same down to the exact number of childcare hours. It means understanding people's abilities and limits and meeting them where they are, not where you want them to be.

Yes, and if they have them years apart, you're not allowed to have got more tired or have gone in other directions. You're at their beck and call forever.

I think some people will feel differently when they are grandparents.

I understand why you think this is so unfair op
Do your in-laws really not help you out at all ?
I can imagine you must feel quite resentful that sil gets all the help. Does she not see how unfair it all is ? Probably not because she's the one that's benefitting

... And the post you're replying to is another perfect example of why grandparents shouldn't even start doing childcare for more than one of their kids. You can't have your own life until an the GCs are grown, or the remaining kid/s will never forgive you

So she moved away from your brother's kids too? It sounds like your brother had children ahead of you and when you had yours, they decided to retire somewhere different. They're allowed to decide that. It's not their fault you had your children on a different timetable to your brother.

But that sounds like what the grandparents are actually doing yet OP is annoyed it's not more. The OP admits her ILs look after the kids sometimes etc, but she wants exactly the same amount of set childcare days as her SIL.

This thread has been enlightening.

What every Mumsnetter approaching grandparenting age should take from this, is that if you have more then one child, don't ever offer childcare. Because whatever you offer when healthy and energetic enough to do it, you will have to continue offering when you're a fair bit older, achier and knackered. Because if you don't, you're (apparently) being really unfair.

Oh, and forget having a life of your own, holidays, or spontaneity. Because by the time you've done childcare for ALL your grandkids (especially if there's an even averagely wide age range between them), you'll be too old.

But your consistent use of the word “expect” is the problem, and presumably it reflects how you feel about the situation. You are unreasonable to expect any childcare. Engagement with your DC, spending time with you all as a family — those are reasonable expectations of family. But full on childcare?

Expecting that is always unreasonable.

Just be grateful it’s your MIL and not your own mother. Mine was all over my brothers kids, and my cousins before him. When it came to mine she decided it would be a great time to move hundreds of miles away when I was pregnant with my first. She and my dad are shit grandparents and I will never forgive them for their treatment of us

It's not always as straightforward as people think.

My brother has always sniped at the amount of childcare I was given by my Mum. My son was the first grandchild and I 'paid' my Mum to look after him - not the going rate by any stretch of the imagination, but I contributed to her outgoings so she wasn't always out of pocket. My son and I got far more out of it than any monetary contribution, but I felt it was important that my Mum could make choices with some financial support.

My brother always commented that she had no spare time for his son but there were lots of reasons why my Mum would have found it difficult to look after both of them - their parenting style was very different to my Mum's and mine, they wanted to send him to different pre-schools and schools so logistically it was difficult and he never considered contributing financially which would have curbed the options my Mum had to take them out, etc.

By the time my daughter came along, my son and my nephew were both at school so my Mum looked after her for me too, under the same arrangement.

It could just be that they committed to helping SIL a certain amount and now they feel obliged and don’t want to offend her by refusing hours, but also don’t have the energy for any more time spent caring for GC. Also possibly the children’s age differences as younger kids tend to be more effort.

Or it could just be favouritism or old-fashioned mindset (thinking that childcare is mainly the woman’s role so helping their daughter, but assuming it’s mainly your role not their sons)

My parents are mid 70s. They were fit to look after my older 2 when they were babies but I had to use full time nursery for my youngest as they just weren't up to looking after a baby or toddler by then. They look after them all after school now that they're older. They dont provide the same level of childcare for my brothers baby as they did for my older 2. If your kids are a few years younger, its possible that they just dont feel up to looking after them.

My goodness you sound very entitled. And if your DH doesn’t ask for help, why should they mind-read?

You sound a bit like a child who eyes her sibling’s piece of cake and complains because she got more icing. You sound very transactional: they don’t offer childcare so you resent them.

Your in-laws will lose out in the end in that they won’t be so close to some of their grandchildren. But that is not for you to determine. It’s their choice.