To silently seethe when my parents choose other grandchild over my own.

[Busybusy247]

Yet again my parents are looking after my brothers wee boy. We have a longstanding arrangement that my folks watch my 2 boys in a Thursday so we cut down on childcare costs. But once again I find that they cancelled our agreement to watch my brothers child. Another £50. It wouldn't pee me off quite so much but they do not pay out one single penny on childcare. Grrrr

Uh oh. Brace yourself, you're going to get the grabby/entitled flood. :)

Seriously though, if they made a commitment to watch your kids they need to stick with it.

maybe they just find one boy easier than two and dont want to tell you?

How come they didn't look after all of them? (3 in total I think)

Yabu to silently seethe. Stick up for yourself! Seething in silence never resolved anything. Explain the problem and try to sort it out

You need to explain more, it's not really relevant whether your brother pays for childcare or not.

How often do they see their other grandchild, are they babysitting the other GC because of a one off appointment, or is there no real reason?

There must be more to this story.

Just cancel that arrangement and tell them that you need the reliability of professional childcare. I couldn't be doing with the last minute faff - this is why my DS goes to nursery rather than grandparents, even though they are lovely and want to spend time with him. If they get ill, want to go away at the last minute etc then it is great for them, and no bother for us!

YANBU if you've got a long-standing arrangement with them.

It seems very strange for them to cancel this at short notice, leaving you with a childcare problem, in order to help your brother with (I presume) a childcare problem he's having. I too would have thought that, in an emergency (if that's what it was) they'd try to accommodate all 3 children.

Long & short of it, though, is that you need to find more reliable childcare. And pay for it. This sounds way too stressful.

My bro relies on my and his wife's family to watch child. We only have my parents to help, so our boys go to childminder other days and my hubby and I work our jobs so that each of us have our lovely boys 2 days a week seperately. My parents offered their help on a Thursday and we dropped our childminder to 2 days a week to help us out financially.

Is your brother not aware of your arrangement?

Yes. He is. Even more irritating. I really wouldn't mind if my parents didn't watch boys as we have a fabulous childminder who the boys love and we wouldn't have dropped any days if we knew this would happen.

Ach cancel the arrangement, go back to more days with the CM.

Of course it stings, emotionally as well as financially but reliable childcare is crucial.

I am sorry it's not worked out.

Cancel the arrangement, tell them that it's because it's because you've realised whenever DB wants them to look after DN they'll cancel on you, and you need to ensure you have a Thursday place with CM, you've managed it on short notice now, but if CM takes someone else on, you won't be able to do this, so you're going to have to pay for the places as you realise you can't rely on them.

Nice and factual, not saying they should have your DSs, just pointing out that it's not a 'flexible issue'.

Stop the arrangement, it's not reliable and it's causing a problem.