Toddler care during labour

[Kl86]

Mother in law has asked if our neighbours could look after 3 year old if we unexpectedly go into labour in middle of the night. Apart from passing conversation we don't know them too well and I also feel I don't want her help at all based on this. Any thoughts? And I am searching for babysitters in the wiltshire are who can help with this.

Bizarre suggestion from her- I wouldn’t be leaving my toddler with neighbours I wasn’t close with. Do you have any other family members or close friends you could call upon at short notice?

Haha no you can’t do that. Why can’t your mil babysit?

That seems like it could be totally fair enough though - does she know whether or not you know your neighbours well? If not, surely she's just asking to find out if they're a possibility, e.g. if you needed to go straight to the hospital before she could get there, and you were good friends with your neighbours, it would make sense to ask them to sit in the house with your sleeping toddler while your MIL made her way over. I have several neighbours I'd be happy to ask to do this, so it's not totally implausible.

If she means 'I don't want to do it, can't you get your neighbours to instead', that's obviously a bit different.

I wouldn’t ask neighbours no, why is MIL even making suggestions, this is up to you and your partner surely?

Go on the childcare choices website. You put in your postcode and what you're looking for, eg babysitter/nanny/childminders and it will show you candidates in your area. It also tells you what qualifications and if they're DBS checked. It's brilliant

You mean she asked you if you thought your neighbours could? I think that’s a reasonable question and unless she lives we you she probably doesn’t know how well you get on with them, that’s why she asked you. People used to be much more neighbourly.

we are very close with our neighbours and look after each others children all the time. Prefer the mutual trust from people with we see everyday and leaving our children with someone they know who also has kids than paying and hiring a stranger. Obviously it’s also much easier to walk next door and knock them phoning around to see whose available short notice.

there’s also neighbours I don’t really know well at all but if they knocked on the door in the middle of the night and asked if we could look after their 3 year then I absolutely would.

Presumably they’ve mentioned needing childcare during labour so she asked a question/ gave a suggestion.
she hasn’t gone next door and signed a random neighbour up.

That's what I thought, other family members are over 45 minutes away and we are not in a close enough friendship with our nearby friends. Also our neighbour's husband has cancer and Mil knows this

Presumably so her and her husband, who happens to behave like a big baby and is in control of her decision making he's 66, can sleep.

What is her reason for suggesting this? I assume that she doesn't ant to leave home in the middle of the night. Some people don't like driving at night, could it be that? I wouldn't ask the neighbours if I didn't know them very well.

I would ask the 45 minutes away family to be on standby.

I think it's the latter, she speaks to them in passing when she visits and they have each other's numbers but apart from that neither of us spend a lot of time with them or know them very well

I think in an emergency type situation aka baby is coming NOW and parents are 45minutes away it would be ok to knock on your neighbours door and ask for them to watch the toddler.

As a society we’re really slipping under if we cannot help others in their time of need.

Yes it is, she can be bit bossy and controlling, her husband is bossy and controlling with her and sometimes he makes decisions tells her what to do then she comes out and passes them on to the rest of the family when he is the source... We never asked her for her help in an emergency although we did assume she wouldn't mind as she's only 20 minutes away and has our daughter on the odd occasion

If you aren't comfortable asking them I would say your husband will have to drop you to the hospital with toddler and then go home until family can arrive. But if a not close friend asked me this as a favour if they are stuck i would 100% say yes, I've actually offered this to a school mum I kind of talk to at the gates as she was worried about a similar situation but you'll know what kind of people they are

In fairness if you don’t have any other family or friends nearby then in an emergency situation your options would potentially be neighbour or husband stays behind until family/friend etc arrives.

I’d take this as her saying she isn’t prepared to do your emergency childcare and make other arrangements.

If "we" go into labour?
I would be gawping, if a neighbour expected me to look after their child.
Am I missing something?
😂

This is unlikely to happen though? Labour takes hours doesn’t it?

If labour starts at 2am, you can probably drop toddler off at a reasonable hour

It totally depends on the person, and especially second babies tend to be quicker than first.

Of all my friends who have had their second child only one of them would have been able to hang on until even 7am if their labour had started at 2am.

How far away is your mother in law. Is she just asking whether there is someone who lives close by who can look after your child if necessary until she can get to you?
My friend and neighbour looked after my eldest when I was having my second child.

Which is totally fair, it’s not her responsibility. You clearly don’t like or trust her very much but yet seem to expect and be happy for her to look after your child.

What if it takes three days or sthg? Not sure there's a "my neighbour has no appropriate social boundaries" box on my work leave request system.

We had 3 neighbours on standby for birth of dc2 and dc3. All friendly and we chat to regularly, all have children under 15 yo. I’ve offered to be middle of the night care to local mums also. It’s not a crazy suggestion. Our grandparents live 2.5 and 5 hours away.

birth of dc3 our neighbour had our eldest for 8 hours

This!

I’m so sorry you have such a terrible network of support around you. She’s the grandmother and should absolutely be volunteering to look after GC so you can have partner support you. I wouldn’t leave my child with a neighbour irrespective of how long or well I knew them because you cannot be sure if a third person has access to their home etc if getting a babysitter or childminder arranged for that period isn’t a possibility I personally would leave partner with DC and have no choice to labour on my own which I know and completely understand why you’d object to this.

Since when do grandparents have zero responsibility towards their grandchildren? Honestly worlds gone mad and then we cry about isolation and loneliness in old age. Relationships of any sort are a two way street.