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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

G/Children sleepover at granny's house

719 replies

Zabelithe · 04/01/2015 20:00

I'd be interested to hear at what age most of you mums let your DD and DS sleep at granny's house. I ask because our GD who is 4 and a half has still not been allowed to stay at ours despite the fact we have looked after her during the day while mum was working.

OP posts:
NotEntirelyWhelmed · 09/01/2015 21:29

I think the problem is everybody thinks everybody else has parents who weren't a bit insane, emotionally withdrawn and made childhood a bed of nails. Or parents who didn't turn their son into a passive aggressive emotional cripple through their overbearingness and expectations of family enmeshedness.

Not all grandmas are smiley, bakers of goodies and respecters of boundaries. Clearly not all mothers have a desire to be free of their children before the lochia has stopped. And, quite frankly, some of you seem a little bit unhealthily and unquestioningly codependent on your parents and parents in law, which I find creepy. It's time to grow up and stop living in mummy's pocket.

For our children, my partner and I make the decisions. We ask nothing of grandparents. No babysitting, no money. Nothing. In return, we desire the right to raise our children as we see fit. We don't need to justify the decisions we make because they are our decisions to make. Why is that so hard for some people to understand?

iamusuallybeingunreasonable · 09/01/2015 21:37

Notentirely you speak my mind so succinctly, I live my life by your words and I didn't realise I was so unusual but it seems I am - an adult who runs their own life and that of their family without the crutch of their parents mopping up after them forever more

southbucks77 · 09/01/2015 21:44

DD at 1 year - hence DS!

She then stayed 2x week for 3+ months whilst DS was in hospital aged 20-24 months. Different circumstance though.

Both together - probably 4&3 - we had to wait until DS health was better otherwise would have been earlier.

Mehitabel6 · 09/01/2015 22:23

Not hard to understand, but your children do as you do and not as you say- they are quite likely to treat you the same as you become grandparents- it is their norm.OK if you want to be cut off as grandparents.

slithytove · 09/01/2015 23:50

Why the extremes? Why is it either sleepovers or being cut off?

My kids cannot sleep at their GPs. Pils one day but maybe never my parents on their own.

Doesn't mean they are cut off!

ANewMe2015 · 10/01/2015 00:05

Good lordI@m envious of some of these grandparents.

6 and only one night away when I gave birth. (Older friends and that was tricky to manage - the second night when I was in intensive care my husband had the baby and I was on my own. )

ANewMe2015 · 10/01/2015 00:07

Sorry my husband had the 3 year old and the baby went to the midwives and I was on my own. Still bitter I spent days and nights on my own as I had noone who could take my child overnight.. and the last 3 months of pregnancy panicking my husband would be away and my older one would go into care when I went into hospital.

NotEntirelyWhelmed · 10/01/2015 00:13

Our children see their grandparents. They just don't need a bedroom and several changes of clothes there.

RedSoloCup · 10/01/2015 00:21

DD1 was three months
DD2 was older as having two I thought might be a bit much, once she was sleeping through etc maybe a year?
Didn't have DD3 until she was about 2-3 I don't remember 100%.

I wouldn't have minded earlier though but thought it might be a bit much for them and they didn't offer :)

2rebecca · 10/01/2015 00:46

I agree that you can have a good relationship with grandparents and sleep in your own bed and find the all or nothing attitude bizarre.
My kids aren't cut off from their grandparents and have been on holidays alone with them as secondary school kids, they just didn't spend the night there alone as young kids. It wasn't thought necessary by any of the adults. They have grandparents, they have a bedroom of their own to sleep in.
Fine if it suits all concerned to have young kids sleeping with relatives but if it doesn't it seems a fuss over nothing.
I don't think anyone is harmed by children sleeping in their own bed at night..

BramwellBrown · 10/01/2015 02:46

DD was about 2 months, DS and I lived with my parents til he was nearly 5 so there wasn't any need for him to have a sleepover before then, I went away without him for the night when he was about 6 months though.

they are 6 and 11 now and in-laws have never had them, MIL because I don't trust her or her husband with them and FIL because he's never asked (I'd be happy to let them stay with him if he asked)

GinIsCalling · 10/01/2015 05:23

I live a 12 hour flight from both grandparents. My DS has overnighted without us with both sets whenever we visit, since he turned about 18 months and could go longer stretches without breastfeeding. He spent ten days with my DM without us this summer while we went on honeymoon (at age three) although we had all been together for two weeks staying in same house beforehand.
He's always enjoyed it, as have they.

iamusuallybeingunreasonable · 10/01/2015 11:00

All power to you if you want to but I just don't get why you would want to go on holiday without your kids either, to me that's really alien to family as I know it, so it just goes to show we are all different and all view normal differently

Hakluyt · 10/01/2015 11:33

So the two most vociferous "no sleepover" posters have now said that their childrens' grandparents are emotionally damaging people.

Which is an excellent reason for not allowing children to stay.

Why do you find it necessary to be offensive to people who are lucky enough to have parents/parents in law who are not like that, and who are loving and benign influences in their children's lives? I assure you, it is neither co-dependent or creepy for children to have happy strong relationships with their grandparents and other extended family. Often rather the reverse.

tobysmum77 · 10/01/2015 12:05

I find the sleepover obsession bizarre. Interestingly enough my parents babysit in the evening/ look after my children lots but they won't have them overnight. My in laws on the other hand will have them overnight and if they have to babysit sil's children prefer to do it in their house (reasonable imo, they live too far away from us for casual babysitting)

It's also interesting the number of posters who have more issues with their inlaws. Can't be coincidence surely? Although smoking would be a deal breaker for me.

I dunno maybe I'm lucky my in laws are as normal as most people really. Yes MIL irritates me sometimes but I probably irritate her too.

Starlight9 · 10/01/2015 17:46

The vile comments against those who allow sleepovers with grandparents on here is disgusting! Bold: so what if I allow my daughter to have a relationship with her Grandparents? It isn't strange or creepy, she's fortunate to have such a lovely extended family!

I think we should all bold: respect that there isn't a definitive normal, parents should be allowed to make decisions over their own children. But less of the bitchiness? Yuck.

HungryHorace · 10/01/2015 17:55

I don't recall ever staying at either set of grandparents' houses overnight (definitely didn't my nan, almost certain I didn't with my gran and gramp).

I don't know when DD and DS will stay with my inlaws (in the same town). Not for a good while, I'd think (they're 18 months and 5 months). They won't stay with my parents as they're 170 miles away and not physically capable of looking after them.

Each to their own though.

slithytove · 10/01/2015 18:21

See this is really frustrating

so what if I allow my daughter to have a relationship with her Grandparents?

That isnt the same as allowing a sleepover. I "allow" a relationship, (weird terminology), dc still don't sleep over. You don't need overnights at gps house to have a loving, close relationship.

Hakluyt · 10/01/2015 18:46

I know I will be accused of going on, but I still don't understand why, if you have a kind, loving non toxic capable grandparent, and a child that wants to, you would not allow the occasional sleepover.....I know it's not essential and all the rest, but if both of them will have fun, what could possibly be the objection?

slithytove · 10/01/2015 19:08

Age
Breastfeeding
Geography
Smoking (can still be kind and loving etc etc)
No space

Doesn't mean one or all of those things won't change in the future.
Right now, sleepovers wont happen. And they have lovely grandparents.

iamusuallybeingunreasonable · 10/01/2015 19:19

Have fun while sleeping?!

Grandparents can bob round to read at bedtime, can do the same and make breakfast but sleep is sleep, when did it suddenly become fun?!

atotalshambles · 10/01/2015 19:23

I still don't get the obsession with sleepovers. You don't need them to have loving relationship with your grandchildren so what difference does it make whether or not they happen if your relationship is good?

We are all completely different and allowed to have different approaches to parenting - aren't we??

PrimalLass · 10/01/2015 19:26

Quite small with both of mine and both sets of grandparents. 11 months maybe with DS (would have earlier but my mum lived abroad). Maybe older with DD. I honestly can't remember but it is great for us and them when they are away for sleepovers. I just feel sorry for their grandparents Blush

Hakluyt · 10/01/2015 19:44

"Age
Breastfeeding
Geography
Smoking (can still be kind and loving etc etc)
No space

Doesn't mean one or all of those things won't change in the future.
Right now, sleepovers wont happen. And they have lovely grandparents."

But all of those are excellent reasons not to allow sleepovers!

Hakluyt · 10/01/2015 19:46

"
Grandparents can bob round to read at bedtime, can do the same and make breakfast but sleep is sleep, when did it suddenly become fun?!"

So you are expecting the grandparents to come to your house, do bed time, go home, come back first thing, do breakfast......WHY!!!!!!!!!