Any advice for happy intergenerational living?

[Thedogscollar]

Hi, as you can tell by my title I'm looking for advice on precisely this.
My son, dil and grandson age nearly 5 are moving in with us so they can save money towards getting a house of their own. They were in rented accommodation but it was over £1k a month with another increase pending before any bills.
We all get on well but I realise living with each other is a different thing completely. I already do a lot of childcare, pick ups from school which will be even further away and I have said about looking at transfers to more local schools. We are also possibly looking at an ASD diagnosis as gc on reduced timetable due to problems at school which presented within a week of him starting last Sept, EHCP referral is ongoing.
My son and dil both work I'm recently retired but husband still working.
Has anybody got advice how to deal with any problems that might come up. Oh and I nearly forgot their dog is coming too, a spaniel puppy very cute but very active. I've never had a dog so don't really know what to expect.
Any advice greatly appreciated.

@Trishthedishthankyou for your post. No I've never had a dog. I like dogs and I have just started to read up about spaniels.
It's going to be a steep learning curve. As you say a sense of humour and patience will be required well I've got plenty of them after retiring from the NHS after decades.
I'm not afraid of hard work. I know we can do this. It's not forever.

Also it is very easy for your child to fall back into old ways with mum and dad doing stuff. When my daughter and husband stayed for six months while they had building work done, I had to remind her that she was an adult and used to running a home, so no mum wasn’t doing it all.

@Thedogscollar you're doing a very generous thing.

Boundaries and rules from day one are the key - and sort all of these out beforehand.

I think it's madness to attempt living as two separate families in one house - you need to operate as one big unit. A rota for cooking/washing etc. is a must. Maybe you & DH cook for 3 nights a week, and they cook for the other 4? And whoever cooks also cleans up!

The puppy could be an absolute disaster so there has to be a plan for rehoming if necessary.

They're moving in next month - so in May? Which starts tomorrow, so have that conversation and get those rules established ASAP.

Can't afford to rent but got a dog! Not a responsible decision by any means. You recently retired and they are moving in with you, sounds premeditated to me. We can all see where this is going OP. This should be your time to enjoy life but good luck, you may very much need it

Not read the whole thread but have read your replies. You mention that your GC is ASD - to ask a maybe tricky question - who else in the family is therefore neurodivergent? I ask because we have neurodivergence running in the family and realistically whenever we moved back in to all live together it is often those neurodivergent members of my family who usually ended up clashing the most. This has been particularly the case when kids have all moved out, became adults, everyone got used to their own way of doing things, having their own methods of coping with being ND and it didnt often work out all that well to be forced back together while living in a small ish three bed place. Perhaps having a discussion about everyone's needs and expectations and how to ensure everyone's needs are met will be in order.

We did this several years ago when my son, wife, two children and two cats moved into our four bedroomed house whilst work was being done on their home. I seem to remember that it was about five months in total.

I suppose I carried on as normal: I still cleaned communal areas and did the cooking, apart from when they had a different schedule. The cats were no problem as we already had a cat flap, so not comparable with the arrival of a puppy. My DiL was a SAHM at that time (two children under 3). My DH and I tried to go away for a weekend once a month. Tbh the worst thing was DiL buying stuff for their home and we had boxes everywhere. They didn’t take advantage of us, I didn’t feel, and I seem to remember that they gave us £200 a month to cover food and electricity (this was ten years ago, I think, and we were happy with that).

We did find that we were going to bed to talk, as there was no opportunity to discuss things.

Good luck. I don’t regret it, but in the scheme of things it was only a few months.

That's a good point @988ujk .

It is really tricky for the DIL. Getting stuck in is necessary and expected but at the same time it's your home, your territory and it can be difficult to discern the line between pitching in and treading on toes. We don't realise how many little rules we have in our own space until someone else comes along and stacks the DW wrong or fails to empty the vacuum cleaner after every use.