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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To work to a totally different routine than my dsil asked for my baby nephew?

106 replies

wallyfrog · 31/01/2015 17:38

My db and dsil have gone away for the weekend and left their ds with me, his auntie. I have 3 children, all older. We have a very busy house... 3 kids all over 7 but not teens, 2 dogs, 1 cat and 1 rabbit, I do 2 jobs and life is chaotic in a loud but fun way.

Dn is 14 months old. Lovely. He doesn't spend much time with me. He doesn't spend much time with anybody. He has no siblings. He lives a very quiet life in terms of level of noise and what he actually does each day.

My db and dsil watch TV with the subtitles on and don't flush if dn is asleep. Both of them have brought him up to live on a Spanish routine, in that he wakes at 9, has breakfast at 9.30, snack at 11.30, lunch at 1.30, siesta from 3-5, dinner at 7.30 and bed at 9.30.

I have no problem with that routine at all. Each to their own and he is thriving and very happy. However, I have brought my children on a traditional 1970s English routine. Up at 6.30, breakfast at 7, lunch at 12.30, dinner at 5.30 and bed at 6.30-7. My dh and I like an evening to ourselves and they have to get up early for school anyway.

When I willingly agreed to babysit for the weekend, I hadn't realised that they would want me to follow their routine. I've had written notes, with the times in different colour and under lined bits.

Now I know that it is for my benefit so that if my nephew gets upset I can know what may be wrong by looking at the clock etc. But I can't really follow 2 routines, it is quite difficult with so many other pressures/people. So I have kind of ignored all notes and done everything to my families routine. He seems okay with it.

Perhaps I will 'pay' tonight. AIBU?

OP posts:

Starlightbright1 · 01/02/2015 09:16

I think your thread here would be different if you mentioned you were MIL....

However at 14 months old there routine is far more important than older children...

Why don't you embrace it and let your children stay up late...Are you thinking of waking the baby at 6.30 as that is insane... As for naps yes naps are important as a tired grumpy baby is far less fun than a happy one.

I wouldn't watch TV with subtitles and if he wakes up earlier then that is different...

Your children would find a bit of change to their routine exciting...My DS 7 goes to bed at 7.30 normally but was up till 8.30 last night...He really enjoyed that extra hour.

A 14 month old won't be interested on what is on TV.

DisappointedOne · 01/02/2015 09:27

DD set her own routine as a baby which has never really changed. Unsurprising given she comes from a family of owls. We loved being able to take her out of an evening - I think that's something the 7-7 children really miss out on. (We were out at a party last night until gone 10pm - we left when she was tired.)

Last week of August last year she would wake at around 9-9:30am. She started school (full time) aged almost 4 the following week and her routine changed accordingly and naturally. 2 tired days and then absolutely fine with a 7:45am wake up. She wakes up at 8-8:30pm now on weekends. We sometimes struggle to do things with her best friend as she's up ridiculously early and hence struggles to stay awake past 7pm.

So no reason in my view to train them to a routine for school when they're babies and toddlers.

I wouldn't deliverately break somebody else's royal time to the extent you intend to, but I'd be a little bit flexible with it. If it bothers you so much don't have him to stay again.

DisappointedOne · 01/02/2015 09:29

Royal time? Should be routine!!

ourglass · 01/02/2015 09:34

YABU. It's only a weekend, which you have agreed to. You should have gone over these details before agreeing.

Hakluyt · 01/02/2015 09:37

Only on Mumsnet is looking after a siblings child for a weekend an enormous,massive, huge favour!

But I would stick (ish) to his routine. He's only little and bound to be unsettled and worried.

I'd love it if the OP posted the same situation but said she was the paternal grandmother, not the aunt. I usupect that by now she would have been told that she would be luckly ever to see this or any subsequent grandchild grandchild again.

Passmethecrisps · 01/02/2015 09:38

The op hasn't been back so i presume whatever happened has happened. I would like to know how the wee boy got on though.

There have certainly been occasions disappointed when my dd being more able to be up late would have made life a little easier or just slightly more fun. We didn't heavily push the 7-7 routine but she just seemed to settle into it. We are generally not late nighters though as I am often in bed early anyway. I suspect they simply follow our lead

Dimplesandall · 01/02/2015 09:43

Hak, you think? In over a decade, my dsis hasnt offeeed to look after dc once, even for an hour! She has no dc and gets quite emotional over the phone about them but NO actual interest in their lives : ( we asked once or twice and qere made to feel it was a massive favour!

SummerHouse · 01/02/2015 09:44

You are amazing to have him. If someone had been kind enough to have had my pfb at 13 months I would have written down his routine but said that of course he needs to fit in with whatever the host family are doing and to do whatever they think is right. I had a friends little boy once and she was so inflexible on his nap I had to change my whole routine and do two lunch sittings. I still resent this!

Passmethecrisps · 01/02/2015 09:47

I do think it is a massive favour. I consider it a massive favour when my parents and in laws look after dd. It is a huge thing to take someone's child and look after them. I live a long way from both so it has to be a big thing - maybe if you live locally it is no biggy

TeddyBee · 01/02/2015 09:49

My sister looked after my kids while I was in labour with my third. That was it.

TeddyBee · 01/02/2015 09:50

Just to say I don't expect her to, just that even though she lives nearby, it's not a completely normal everyday thing for some families to look after each other's kids all the time. We've offered to have the DNephew but i don't think his mum trusts us...

Bunbaker · 01/02/2015 09:51

How has the weekend gone so far?

Floggingmolly · 01/02/2015 09:52

Let him live as your family normally does. Sounds like it'll be the best thing that ever happened to him!

DisappointedOne · 01/02/2015 09:54

Floggingmolly - how so?!

sebsmummy1 · 01/02/2015 09:55

I didn't realise I adhered to a Spanish timetable too!! How European of me

KahloSherman · 01/02/2015 09:57

Sounds like they're being a bit PFB! If you leave your child to stay in a busy household, you expect them to be slotted in to the household routine, and be bloody grateful for the help!

Jackieharris · 01/02/2015 10:03

Reading between the lines I think the op (or more the ops dh) want to change DN's routine not because of the impact on their other DCs but because they want to stick to their routine of adult time/a nun child friendly film in the evening.

If I was babysitting I wouldn't expect a dc to go to bed at 6.30 (I think that's bonkers!) even if they were in that kind of routine. In a strange environment, with all the excitement of other DCs to play with and a house of someone else's toys I don't think there'd be any chance of that early a bedtime under any circumstances.

I had my 1st dc on a similar routine to SIL. It was great- I was so well rested compared to the other mums. Even when he went to school we only needed to get up at 8am so he only went to bed at 9/10pm as he only wanted 10/11hours sleep at age 4.

Something else- if she was babysitting for you would you want her to put your DCs in her routine if you'd asked her not to?

Yesitismeagain · 01/02/2015 18:01

Hello. I'm the OP. I'm back. Baby free. I wasn't deliberately with glee changing his routine. However, Saturday mornings are manic getting 2 boys out for football with shouts of "where is my kit? where are my shin pads?" Sunday morning is much the same as it is rugby "where is my gum shield?"

Saturday afternoon was a 'tornament' of 6 boys around my 11 year old's new Christmas snooker table.

Both days my children were up as usual at 6.30ish. They tried very hard to be quiet - they are only 7, 9 and 11 themselves. But by 7 - 7.30 their noise had woken up my nephew.

This earlier start pushed everything earlier. Breakfast was at 8, not at 9.30 as the instructions gave. However, he wanted my 9 year old's breakfast of toast at 8, rather than my forcing him to eat. He wasn't going to watch as everyone else ate - he likes his food too much.

He had an afternoon nap after a 12.30 lunch, which lasted an hour. He had dinner at 6.30 and was in bed by 8 with my other children. He was tired.

It is very hard to run a busy family house around a different timetable. It just doesn't work. For a start, every time we ate, he wanted to eat. We ate at our usual times because, although I can wait and eat later, my children were chomping at the bit and kept pestering as they were hungry.

He was perfectly happy and slept all night. It may have been tricky when they get home as he is out of his normal routine, but they did get a weekend away at a spa. He is alive and happy.

Bunbaker · 01/02/2015 18:12

Thanks for the update and I'm glad it went well.

KatieKaye · 01/02/2015 18:52

Glad to hear he is happy and well and managed perfectly well in your active household.

All those prophecies of doom and gloom about separation anxiety and the necessity of sticking to his routine otherwise he'd be unhappy and unsettled while ignoring the crucial factor that you have three DC and a busy family life!

Bettybodybooboo · 01/02/2015 18:59

Don't Spanish parents have to go to work?

What's going to happen when he's supposed to he at school for 8.40 in Britain? Kind of think 'we do it The Spanish way' sounds a tad daft teapot unless you are in spain.

Bettybodybooboo · 01/02/2015 18:59

Teapot!!! ??

wetbehindtheears · 01/02/2015 20:01

I'm surprised anybody that precious about a routine is prepared to leave their DC for a whole weekend

Whippet81 · 01/02/2015 20:14

I wouldn't purposefully have changed his routine just in a 'your way is stupid' type thing to get at them but I can also see the point that he needs to fit in with your routine so I would just go with the flow. He's going to be excited and out of routine anyway being somewhere different with three older kids.

Not making any noise however is utterly ridiculous - I always encourage people to carry on as normal around my DS - I often wait until he falls asleep to put the hoover on - surely he wakes up if a sparrow farts in next doors garden if he is tiptoed around during the day?

CatThiefKeith · 01/02/2015 20:36

There is nothing Spanish about that routine.

When I lived there I was up by 6.30, school started at 7.45am. Lessons til 11.45 then a break for siesta til 3. Then more lessons til 5pm.

It's got fuck all to do with sleeping, it's too hot to study from 12-3, so everyone goes home and shelters indoors from the heat. There is a reason for all those marble floors and window shutters.

Just tell sil that your house was noisy and interrupted dn's sleep. And don't you dare watch the tv with subtitles on, that's deranged.

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