Childcare woes

You are not turning your back on them, they have support and money, they aren’t homeless in a hostel! You are insisting on inserting yourself into this, despite your negativity about your DIL (which she will feel, BTW, and which won’t be helping)

You don’t need to show the nanny the ropes. It won’t be her first rodeo and your DS and DIL can do that. Nanny doesn’t have to learn everything on day 1 about routines and food preferences or whatever.

I’ve no idea what private education and wealthy families has to do with anything. They don’t do anything to make a woman a good parent. You’re being utterly unfair to your DIL.

My husband was desperate for children. I didn’t think I had it in me. We eventually had one. DH worked away. I had no family within thousands of miles. Hardest 18 months of my life. He hated being away and came back. I went back to work and he became the default parent. Both worked full time, my job needing me to be on site every day and eventually involving considerable travel.

DD is hurtling toward adulthood. I still find parenting incredibly hard. DH still does at least 50% week in, week out.

Is your son actually worried about his job or are you just looking for more big sticks to beat your DIL with?

But it feels like my business as he could lose his job because of the amount of time he has to take off.

To be clear, that has sweet FA to do with you. You’ll have to find something else to brag about than “my son earns £250k a year” to your friends and acquaintances. You could try “I have two beautiful grandchildren”, perhaps.

OP what is motivating you here?

If my MIL made a post like this about me I’d never see her again. She’s struggling and asking for help. You give it and resent it. Stop helping. My MIL helps me a lot, I’d be mortified if she actually felt like this and spoke so badly about me. You seem to think your son is a martyr - he is in a relationship and chooses to help his wife. He’s doing exactly what a husband should do and stepping up - you should be proud that he’s doing what he can. Realistically he’s not going to lose his job over drop offs. It’s a difficult time for new parents but it doesn’t last long. Help if you can. But only if you genuinely want to.

I had a similar age gap with my children and I had 4 weeks (mon- Friday) of help from my mum as my eldest was not in nursery. My husband then took paternity leave and after that we muddled along.

I have found that being thrown in the deep end gave me the resilience to get through the tough days. If I could get through a really hard day without external help then the next day would feel like a breeze. It is really difficult so it’s lovely to hear you do support them.

You may be enabling the “uselessness” as you’re there to pick up the pieces and if it was me in your DILs position I would have loved the extra pair of hands.

But maybe give them a time frame and say after that I can’t do it. Being useless is no excuse, it’s almost the lazy way out and hoping somebody else picks up the pieces. Which is unfortunately you!

Why would you be not "decent" if you take a step back and let them deal with it? They're adults and he earns plenty of money to buy help in.

Sorry but why the hell do you need to show the nanny what to do?

Why are YOU showing the nanny the ropes? Sounds like you need to drop the rope. Stop treating your son like a child and let him get on with it. Unless you’re loving feeling like you’re needed, as that’s how it’s coming across.

OP, do you suffer from anxiety? Are you Catastrophizing?

Stop stressing about your son losing his job.

Jobs are much more family friendly these days. Also much more flexibility to complete work at home.

Calling his wife useless is horrible. She has 2 very young children. It is not unusual to struggle.

Your assumptions about it being a marriage of convenience! Just wow!!

If this post got back to your DIL and DS, they would probably end up no contact with you.

Seriously, take a chill pill and back way off. And stop being so judgmental and horrible.

You sound very harsh towards your daughter in law, who is quite possibly in the depths of pnd. It doesnt sound like her family can be physically, which must be present, ,which must be hard.
As you are exhausted i would simply back off and encourage them to use a nanny sooner. Your son should go with his wife to gp.

This is a baby that can’t be more than 6 weeks old. Many mothers don’t manage anything more than breastfeeding and healing from childbirth during that time.

I had hyperemesis so could barely do anything while pregnant.

Some babies are practically little demons who just scream and scream unless their mother’s are holding them.

It’s hard to tell if you are being unreasonable and expecting a woman who just had a baby to be superhuman or not. There are so many times that this time of life is just impossibly difficult and the father really does have to step up and do almost everything except the breastfeeding.

There are also rare cases where the woman is just a diva. Maybe you do have one of those. If that really is the case, just step back and let your son make his choices.

So OP, who asked you to show the nanny the ropes?

Voting isn’t obligatory.

Most voters get why you are exhausted so have voted YANBU. I think what you consider to be unpleasant comments are from people looking at the whole situation.

Many of us have been criticised by our own MILs and I think there is a bit of projection with that. On the one hand the way you describe this woman sounds very harsh, on the other hand none of us here know her and you could well be being accurate.

For me it's that you come off with a bit of a saviour complex. These people have the money to hire a nanny. It doesn't sound like your son is in immediate danger of losing his job and it doesn't sound like social services has them on their radar either. Many of us simply don't see the need for you to burn yourself out in order to rescue them, they don't need rescuing.

Let them utilise the nanny and whatever other support they need and enjoy being a grandma.

And most people vote without reading the thread. My impression of OP certainly changed with time...

What a roundabout way to avoid answering properly.
Too much free time now the nanny has started?

Have they threatened no contact if you don't comply with them?

I'm trying to understand why you feel that you can't say no to them despite being so exhausted.