To wonder how much GPs usually help out

[Ruperta]

We live about 200 miles away from both sets of grandparents so we obviously get along without any help.

SIL (DHs sister) lives about 30 min drive away from PILs and gets loads of help but to the extent that we have begun to think it is slightly odd (although fully aware some of this may be jealously & also therefore being a bit judgey pants)

Just wondering how much you rely on your GPs to get an idea of what is the norm (if there is such a thing!)

PILs look after SILs kids 2 days a week & then have them overnight on the sat night approximately every other weekend. SIL & her husband work full time too so the real judgey pants bit of me thinks they would want to spend their weekend with their kids.

Anyhoo I realise its lovely that they have that relationship with GPs but shouldn't the GPs be doing more with their lives? Is SIL taking the Michael a little? Or is this completely normal if you live relatively close.

I know IABU as they all seem happy with the sutuation but just wondered how it works for others

Both sets live hours away and both sets still worked when DC were born. So no child care available as such (though using a granny as nanny wasn't something we wanted - too easy for lines to be crossed).

They did however visit regularly and babysit. And DH and I went away for a weekend at least once per year.

My mum and dad do school pick-ups twice a week and would help out much more if we needed them to. They moved across the country to be nearer to us, so inevitably they want to see a lot of our dd, and they have a really lovely relationship with her. They would gladly have her overnight every week if they could, but I work FT and like to have her at home at the weekends.

For those who are feeling jealous of people with hands-on grandparents, I would point out that it is a two-way street. My DSis hasn't had the same help with childcare that we have had, but equally she doesn't have to support her ageing parents in the way that we do. My mum and dad have both had health issues in recent years, and I have spent lots of time sitting in hospitals with them or helping them with stuff when they haven't been able to do it for themselves - and of course, our childcare arrangements fall through at these times too. As dd grows up and my parents get older, I imagine that the balance of "favours" will shift much more towards me doing stuff for them. Personally, I'm fine with that, but I think it's important to emphasise that that is often the other side of the coin.

I spent every Friday night and most of Saturday at my grandparents. We were very close. My parents lived about an hour away but due to health reasons I never asked them to look after dd. Dh's parents, lived 10 minutes away, his mum has looked after dd/ds occasionally when we've needed a babysitter. My aunt and uncle do a lot of babysitting though and take the kids out which I'm extremely grateful for!

My son is only 6 months and my parents live 300 Mrs away and it kills my mother, she adores him. She comes every month and when she does we have a night out. She's happy to and she always says if she were closer she'd have him for a few hours in the day etc. My DPs parents are close and have just had him for an evening while we went out for DOs birthday. I grew up as part of a large family always in and out of each other's houses, kids all over the place and it was lovely to have so many people who cared for us. I think the bond between Grandparens and Grandchildren is lovely and should be encouraged.

I have my grandsons at least one night a week, sometimes two or three, and they stay every weekend. I am exhausted and broke and get no bloody thanks from the parents.

I feel better for being honest, in real life I tell everyone I wouldn't have it any different. Two faced? Me?

I am still at work but thinking of retirement but worry about the finances, feeding two growing boys four or five nights a week adds up as does the petrol

Granny! Why do you keep doing it then?

I am a sahm, and my mum lives a 2 minute walk from my house. She has my DC one afternoon every week so i can do some housework. She genuinely enjoys it. She also has them whenever i have a dentist/doc appointment or have had a particularly bad night and need a little sleep. She is wonderful.

My in laws are great too, though both work full time. Live about ten minutes drive away. They visit us or we visit them every weekend for an hour so so and and they take DC out every so often.

My DP works mon-fri but is home at half 5 every day, we have every evening together and all weekend.

ILs live around the corner. Literally. FIL works full time, due to retire soon. MIL doesn't work and has very few commitments. No health issues.

We get on fine. But they don't do any childcare, never have. When I ask if they would babysit, maybe for me to do done extra work, or go out, or take one of the DC to an appointment, or whatever (so when DH is working himself), they will if they can, but frequently they can't. I get that they have other things in their lives (socialising), and wouldn't ask that they rearrange to accommodate us.

But what bothers me the most is that they never offer to have one or both of our DC. Never ever. They will only when asked, but they would never say anything like 'I can't have them on Saturday afternoon, but I could have them on Sunday' or 'shall we have them on Wednesday night and you can go out?' or 'we are not doing anything next Friday night so can we have them as we would like to?'.

The only times that they might spend time either our DC us if we ask them to.

In contrast, my parents live 5 hours' drive away, and see the DC for a few days at a time every six weeks of so. They help us so much, practically and without us asking. They will have them all day for me to do extra work, and almost push me and DH out of the door to go out to dinner so that they can have them for the evening. DS1 has also been on holiday with them for a week a few times.

grannytomine: you have my sympathies! I do think many parents exploit their own parents when it comes to childcare.

I think this varies such a lot, though - it depends on things like grandparents' age, grandparents' geographical nearness and grandparents' temperament/interest in children/closeness to their own children.

All my grandparents died before I was born, so my own parents had no help.

When it came to my DD, my MiL lived in the same town as us, so she did help out quite a lot, but because she was old and increasingly infirm, I was very careful not to exploit her. So for a couple of years DD would spend Sunday mornings with her, but apart from that, I'd almost never ask her to have DD for more than three hours at a go, and certain not all day. She and DD had a very close relationship, but she is no longer with us, sadly.

My parents adore their grandchildren and would see them daily given different circumstances but they live 400 miles away. My mum comes to stay regularly and encourages us to go out as a couple - she and my dad are asking when our eldest can go and stay with them for a holiday (youngest is just a few weeks old and EBF ).
PIL live 5 miles away and originally offered to have our eldest one day a week when I went back to work as they had just agreed to do this for SIL. Became apparent that they didn't want to do it when they realised that theycouldn'tjust sit on the sofa drinking tea (well they did but our toddler got v distressed) and did the sum total of 8 days in 6 months - they go on about how much they do for us! They have never taken our dd out for the day or babysat in the evening and have seen her 3 times since November. They went on holiday on my due date twice! When my husband was rushed to hospital there were no offers of help with the children or even asking if he needed anything. In contrast my mother offered to get the next flight here.

They look after our SIL (lives one street away) daughter every week, babysit in the evening and weekend s and update Facebook about how wonderful she is and how much they love being grandparents......

They are our children, our responsibility and I accept that they are not interested but object to our noses being rubbed in it and feel sorry for our daughters.

In many working class communities, grandparents provide huge amounts of free childcare, often whilst still working themselves.

House prices/rents coupled with the high cost of child care, mean families on lower incomes have to pull together.

Never had any help from either. Mainly because mine live thousands of miles away. ILs have poor health.

I think it's best if people get and hang onto the mindset that family assistance is a bonus when offered, but that as parents anything regular will need paying for and plan accordingly. Saves a lot of angst, hurt feelings and anger.

MiL provides at least 3 hours of childcare every single day for my nephews (3 and 6) and baby niece. It's all day if the school is on holiday or whatever.

She is 73.

In our case grandparents are not able to help at all. And that is fine.

Grannytomine, I imagine you are not the only one that feels like that. You should be looking forward to retirement and the freedom.

Some people are sadly very selfish and expect others to assist with the raising of their children as it suits them to have them less with little regards as to how it affects the person doing the care. Saying no can be met with accusations or thoughts of being selfish and not interested in the children.

Grandparents don't need to provide childcare to have a good relationship with their grandchildren. My MIL and DS are very close simply from visits.

I am of an age when quite a few of my friends are grandparents and like Grannytomine is honest enough to admit, some of them do feel taken for granted and exploited - but are far too polite/reserved/afraid to just say 'No'. You only have to look at the threads on mumsnet to see how many people seem to think that grandparents are 'selfish' if they don't want to look after grandchildren.

We had our child very late in life and lived nowhere near either my parents or ILs so 'regular' child care was never even thought of. If we wanted a babysitter we paid for one or did 'swaps' with other parents.

If/when I become a grandparent myself I would not want to be endlessly 'child minding' - I would be happy to do the occasional babysitting at night but I imagine I will be busy with hobbies/voluntary work - and probably still working into my late 70s anyway.

I am very lucky that my parents are always offering to have DD for me. My mum has her at my house 2 evenings a week while I'm at uni. She also has her overnight at her house at least once a month, and has to stay for 4-5 nights in a row once a year so I can go on holiday.

My sister has her overnight once every few months and takes her out for day trips in the school holidays.

I am a single parent, work full time and study part time so I really value and appreciate their help. I have all school holidays off though, so I still get to spend plenty of time with DD. DD is also the only grandchild in the family, so she is completely doted on by everyone, they are always asking to babysit.

This amount of help is pretty normal amongst my family and friends. I spent about the same amount of time with my grandparents and auntie when I was a child.

My mum is local & as I work PT she helps with childcare (mixed in with nursery). She also helps if he is poorly to go to nursery so I can work. She also babysits the occasional night so we can have a night out (which is rare tbh last date was Dec). She would do more if I asked but feel it would mickey taking esp as she is single and does not have my dad to help.

I do agree with your comments though as the work FT why would they want to to hand them over to the grandparents every other weekend. Only because my DN I practically lives at my inlaws & BIL & SIL work FT. I'll admit to being slightly jealous though but that driven by IL being unavailable to help us as they have DN (but that's another story).

I would say though without my mum help I would find it hard to return to work & bring in enough to support our lifestyle. My gran looked after us while mum worked & have very fond memories. I would love to be in a position to do the same for my grandchildren.

Ragwort I think if its very one sided then your right, thats not nice and may sometimes bring up feelings of resentment.

A few people I work with who are better off, nicer house, had children later in life seem pretty shocked when they hear about my situation, which is dd is usually with a different relative every day of the working week. A lot have moved away for their job and find the concept of living up the street from your mum, and round the corner from your gran who is your brothers next door neighbour very alien, however perfectly normal in the area I grew up and we couldn't imagine not seeing our mums and grandparents every day. I'll go round to grans with DD in the morning, stick her washing on and make her a cuppa, off to work, back home and make dinner for everyone. Then over to my mums might take her ds out for the evening with dd, mum gets all the stuff she needs doing done or takes gran out shopping etc.
its very much a herd mentally haha and I do tend to see this kind of set up more in working class areas or families, seems entirely normal in my circle of friends.

In laws have visited from abroad (2 hour flight away) this weekend. They haven't seen DD for 5 months (she is 15 months old) when we went over there to visit them. They were here for 3 days, staying at a B&B round he corner. They saw DD (and us) for a total of 4 hours over 3 days, the rest of the time they arranged to visit friends, go out for meals on their own and go to sporting events. I tell myself it's their loss!

My parents and Pil lived very close to us when our dc were little. Mine both worked but would do the occasional evening baby sitting. It was very occasionally because we were skint and really couldn't afford to go out. My mum helped out a bit when I had a new baby and dad used to pop up and take a pre school DC for a walk to the park. Nothing regular, just if he was on the right shift and it was a nice day. I always appreciated the break.

FIL didn't lift a finger to do anything with is own dc so we never expected him to do anything. He would sit and draw with them when they got a bit older but that's all I remember him doing.
MIL waited on FIL and did lots of childcare for SIL. It didn't leave her much time for ours. She did sit with our toddlers/young children while we went to do a big shop every four weeks.

I'm the grandparent now and do try to help out as much as I can. We live 30m drive away (can be an hour in bad weather/heavy traffic) When DDil went back to work both grannies agreed to mind baby one day a week. We looked after her at her home. She started going to a playgroup at 2.5 and we went over later to collect her, give her lunch and look after her until one of them got home. GD1 is now at school but we do similar with the babies.
We have occasionally done extra days and a few evenings so they could go out. I think the other granny and grandpa do more evening babysitting.

I have told DS and DDil that we will do this while their DC are pre school but we will not travel just to do a regular school pick up. We will help out anytime in an emergency and give them whole weeks of childcare in school holidays. Maybe sometime at our house and the occasional day out. I am guessing we will share school holidays with the other granny.

I have also said I will do similar for our new GC if that's what DS2 and DDil want. They live much closer to us so I could help them out more if needed. I will stick to one day a week full time child care though......I love them to bits but I would like sometime to do my own thing.

My mum lives in the next street. We get no help at all from her.

She likes to pop in and see DS when it suits her.

DH's stepmother has only met DS once. MIL comes to visit about four times a year and expects to be waited on hand and foot - she never looks after DS when she's here. I take DS to see my dad about 6 times a year - although he is very disabled so can't travel to see us so fair enough.

Wow chunderella - that's a huge difference. Many people have small children in their early 40s, I cant imagine a whole area where people in their 40s are grandparents. For a start I just don't see myself as that old!

Surely if most people are in their 40s they're at work? Or is it more at weekends/eveings?