To now be worried about DM/MIL childcare?

[BananaDrama34]

I am currently on mat leave but due to go go back to work in a few months.
Original plan was for PFB to go to nursery full time, however both DM & MIL have offered to have DD one day a week and myself and DH are very grateful for this.

Neither DM/MIL will accept money for this so my idea was to pay for petrol (as they will be coming to us) and leave money for if they want to do something - ice cream at the park etc.

Another idea was to meet near my work at the end of the day to do a drop off/pick up with DD as this will shorten both of their journeys home.

I saw no problems with this arrangement (maybe looked at it through rose tinted glasses) but after reading another thread about family providing childcare, I'm worried I've been naive.

AIBU to now think this arrangement needs a little more planning to ensure it runs smoothly? If so, can anyone give me advice on things I should do to ensure this happens as I'm now starting to panic?

What expectation regarding DM/MIL holiday?
Are you able to make back up plans in case of sickness?
Sometimes, for some GPs, what seems like a great idea is something they change their mind about and drop you on your ass.
If they won't accept money - perhaps put aside £20 a week (substantially less than childcare) and treat them to a holiday of their own a year.
Communicate and change if if cannot be resolved/doesn't work.
Remember as they are doing you a favour, you irritatingly - especially with a pfb - have no say whatsoever in how they do the looking after. If they fil them with sweets, let them sleep all day or watch 4hrs of TV, you may not complain, but will need to make alternative arrangements.
Depends I think on your relationship to begin with.

Good luck with return to work.

Be careful, my mum had to travel a few miles to care for my son in the first weeks I was back at work, she was late every morning by hours making me late for work and eventually stopped coming as she didn't like how demanding I was being, so FIL was left to pick up her day As well as once a week himself. It's only for 5-10 hours a week and if I am off I have him myself and use my annual leave to cover his holidays. However I can't really argue if he feeds him bad food or does something I'm not happy about as I get it thrown back in my face that it's free childcare.

The positives are im sending my son to someone he knows and loves very much and is familiar with, he's always happy to go there and runs to FIL on the days he is there, he's also happy at nursery but nowhere near as happy as he is to see FIL.

It can work- DD is with DM one day a week and they both love it. DM doesn't fill her with junk or put her in front of the to for four hours- she respects my parenting decisions. I am so glad she and DD have the time together. I think it depends on the relationship you have with the person and the persons usual personality. My mum had never been one to be controlling or interfering she is genuinely the most laid back lovely person you could ever meet.

I think you just need to have an honest thought about what they are like and how it will work. For us the one down side is that DD is not as good at napping for DM so is sometimes tired when we get her back- no big deal. I think it helps that we are laid back too actually. If you want to micromanage your child's day they need to be with paid care. (Not saying everyone else is- you just see threads about it sometimes) I trust DD will have a great time with DM and let them get on with it- I know we are very lucky, but wanted to give you a different perspective.

I'd be aware that mils and dms can change their mind - leaving you in the lurch. Also, they can say one thing and do quite another, so you can make plans based on what they say then it just doesn't happen.

My mil always says stuff like 'everyone knows how much I love my grandchildren' but when she visits (twice a year!) she sits and reads her kindle and just wants one photo with dd to show her friends what a good grandma she is.

If you can afford the childcare I'd totally take it -saving money by using 'free childcare' ends up costing you far more.

Don't not do it because other people have problems! What's your own relationship with them like? Are they likely to respect your parenting decisions? Do you get on with them? If the answer to both is yes then go for it... MN isn't the best place to talk about childcare from relatives. A lot of people have quite strange views...

Just to try and even it out a bit. I went back to work full time when dd was 9 mths.

We can't afford childcare so had a conversation about it with DM and df before we TTC. They do all of our childcare for us and won't take any payment (although we've tried) - I take annual leave when they go on holiday and DH is term time only that's 13 weeks of the year DM & DF have 'off'.

They are very respectful of our parenting choices and if they were doing something we didn't want we would just talk to them about it (although we have never had to).

They have never thrown 'free childcare' back in our faces we are very aware that their kindness has allowed us to have a family and try to show our gratitude as regularly as possible we also avoid asking them to babysit outside of work hours unless its a emergency.

I suppose it depends on your relationship with you parents and in laws really but wanted to say it works for us because you rarely see a positive post about it on here.

I would say if you have good solid Childcare arrangement with a parent or PIL it's worth gold. However I went from arranging to work 46 hours to cutting it down to 26 and having to find a 16 hour nursery place with a few weeks warning as parents and ILs went from wanting to do 23 hours a week each to deciding they only want to do 5 each, which Is completely their choice and I am greatfil for the hours they do do, but as they are people and not a business they have a right to be unpredictable and sometimes this poses problems for me personally.

My dad looks after my DD up to 2.5 days a week and absolutely loves it, they have a whale of a time together

He won't accept any money either but I'm working on this! On top of obviously providing all food, snacks, nappies etc. that goes without saying.
I also do drop off and pick up at their house each day and do things to help where possible like taking my mum to work so its one less job for him, booking leave around him etc.

I think like a pp poster said the biggest thing is not to criticise how they do things if it's a bit different to how you would do it, just smile and nod and think that they're doing you a huge favour and it's only 2 days a week!!

I love the great relationship my DD has with my dad and mum now, it has been such a positive thing for us and DD.

OP I think the posters who are asking what your relationship is like with them both are spot on.

Be honest, do you get on with both, are there any issues that you find difficult? Are they (or you!) too rigid in the way they do things? Are you able to have honest conversations with them?

Also I agree that the number one problem with family as childcare is that they are doing you a favour and they will often see it as such so, for e.g., retract the childcare offer with short notice if they have made a social arrangement. You will need a back up plan and you will need a plan for when they are on holiday.

I have 3dc all school age but both dh and I work weekends (not all) but well in advance I will ask mil/dm to have the children and on Tuesday mil dropped it on me that she needs to cancel as she has now told SIL she will have her dc instead dm has now booked in a shift of her own and neither dh or myself can book a/l as its too late!! Still trying to figure out what I'm doing yet it's not the first time this has happened when SIL needs a babysitter at last min x

Perhaps it might be more practical to have them alternate weeks to start with, so that you can all see if it's going to work out?

You are very lucky - we live too far away and both work, so mine rarely help.

It entirely depends on your mother/mother-in-law and your relationships with them. Yes, there are lots of potential pitfalls but it can work very well. I had childcare from both sets of grandparents and I will be eternally grateful for it, saved me a fortune and lots of worry. I don't think I could have managed without it particularly after ex-husband left. I didn't always agree 100% with everything they did. - mother-in-law particularly fed them rather more sweets than I would have liked, but I know that they did it out of love. Now at 20 and 22 my children have a wonderful relationship with all of their grandparents.

I just came on here to say that my dm looked after both of my dc's for anything up to 3 days each week and I am so glad that she did. They have a really strong relationship now and o never felt that I couldn't say 'please don't do that' or 'please do this' other, she only ever wanted what was right for the dc's. I realise I am lucky and she is worth her weight in gold but I just wanted to say that it can work without any problems.

I am very lucky. I work part time and my PIL do a day and a half and my DM one day. PIL come here and DCs go to my mum as she is round the corner. She picks them up. My DM and I are very similar and my PIL are brilliant so I have never had any issues with activities, food, tv time etc as we are all on the same page. I take my holiday to cover childcare and the times the kids have been sick, we have all been sick so I was unable to work. That was awful but couldn't risk passing it all on!

Amongst the horror stories there are success stories too and I find it works really well for us. Your plan sounds great to me but i appreciate I may have rose tinted specs on as this works for my family

My mum had dd when when she was small, before I had ds. She didn't need to have ds as dh was home during the day at that time.

It works better if its planned well. So we had set days, set pick up and drop off times. A plan in place incase dd was ill, a plan in place in case mum was ill. We always let her know at least a week before I we needed to change something and she tried to do the same. Sometimes stuff just pops up last minute though. And I accepted, if she went on holiday I would need to use my annual leave or dh would, if she was going on holiday. I also know that if mum let us down, it would be unavoidable. She isn't flaky in the slightest so I knew it would work, if we all worked together and communicated.

It definitely can work and does work. But no one comes to mums net to start threads about how wonderful their free childcare. People only talk about the horror stories, same as RL.

It has worked for us (1 day a week, DM, term time only as I teach) but my DM is reliable. We have needed to find cover for illness and holidays, which has not always been straightforward. Ideally if you can find a nursery that has a bit of slack so that you can occasionally get an extra day there, that will help (or a local childminder with spaces). DM does things a bit differently to me but I have no problem with that. However, if she hadn't offered I don't know if I'd have asked, as you do feel a bit beholden. Also she is in her 70s so I need to pick up as early as possible as she gets tired - I do prefer nursery as I can finish planning for the next day rather than rushing. But 8am to 6pm would be a heck of a time to expect a family member to do IMO.

It can work brilliantly. My mother took care of my nephew three days a week and did things pretty much as my sister would have wanted. It was great for both grandma and nephew, but my sister would never have kept her mouth shut if something wasn't great. Our family is very outspoken though (sometimes too much so, but in general it's good), and my sister had a pretty similar outlook to my mum about things like food, TV and playing outside in all weathers.

Oh and yes we have a good relationship, she always tried to do things the way she felt we would do it. If she was unsure she would run it past us. I always felt I could speak to her as well. I would have never felt embarrassed about asking her to do things slightly different. Luckily me and mum were on the same page, so it didn't really happen.

She even used to write down her nap times and whether she had had a poo or not, like nursery do.

The relationship she has with dd is amazing, she is very close to ds to, but that took longer to form as she didn't look after him so much. Just the odd day here and there.

My DM refused (I never actually asked: she told me that I better had not ask!). MiL spent the first four years of dd1's life begging to look after her and her sister who had arrived by then, but we don't allow it. She might do the odd day in the summer holidays, but frankly I would sooner spend ££££ on childcare than send my dc to MIL's, for the following reasons:

She can't accept our parenting decisions.
She has very strange ideas about what constitutes a sensible diet and takes pride in filling them with junk.
She has a dog she insists on walking eight times a day so they cannot actually do anything.
Any trips out to the park etc are marred by her complete terror of children being physical. If they try to climb a ladder she almost cries in fear.
cbeebies is on all day.

These are minor things in isolation, but put together mean we would not be happy, so we don't.

After having dd I went back to work 2 days a week. Her dad had her one day and my DM had her the other.

Reading this thread I think I'm quite lucky!! My DM would stick to my routine and rules. I paid her £30 for the day. She has a dietary requirement and I always had food in for her to eat. I pre cooked all dd's food and mum would feed her whatever I left out/wrote down that she was having.
AFAIK she didn't give her sweets/choc as we never had it in and my mum can't bear to see me giving it to her so I doubt she would have done that.
I wrote down with approx timings dd's routine and DM stuck to it as closely as possible. Even to the point of sending me messages saying 'just put her to nap, she went without much crying' 'finished lunch now, she ate everything except this or that'
DM would have her fed and bathed by the time I got home so I could spend an hour playing with her before bed.

I was the one insisted on the £30. Said it made me feel more comfortable with setting rules and calling the shots. Made me the 'employer' if you like.
That and nurseries where I live are £90 a day at least!

When I stopped working to stay home with dd and DS full time my DM was actually upset and we kept the day each week as a 'grandma' day. She comes to me or I go round there (it's about 30 min drive).

You do have to be comfortable with the situation and the persons abilities. There were times that boundaries were crossed but these were so few and far between that I could accept and move on.
You can't expect them to parent entirely your way. No one can do that but you.
But you can set rules and routine and they should respect that.
All this you can't have a say in how they care for your child' is wrong to me. It's YOUR child, they are doing you a favour. By letting the GP run riot and call all the shots the child is being confused and exploited at the happiness of the GP. Imo anyway.

Good luck

All best plans.....

My MIL promised the earth when I was pregnant. She said she would have ds 'whenever needed' would pick up from nursery 'whenever needed' as she knew I had to go back full time. All through pg and mat leave OH stressed she didn't have to, we could make arrangements as we had plenty of time to plan....'no, no, I insist' she says. In the first 4 weeks she let us down 5 times, I used my whole year's emergency carers leave in the first month no annual leave left .......within 2 months I was on permanent nights as I couldn't make arrangements at such short notice.

Thing is, we have a great relationship with her and had no reason to believe she would fuck us over so royally, and so quickly!

Proceed with caution.

manchestermummy

apart from the dog i thought we had the same MIL plus

she makes my son crawl through the car rather than walk around because its "safer" (there are no cars coming but just in case one does) at a junction she will wait forever for the road to be clear then a bit longer to be sure then wait because there is another car a fucking mile away she actually is in my opinion a dangerous driver because she panics and worrys about everything she cut a car up once by accident she was still going on about it a week later (fil said she didnt even cut the car up he was in the car at the time she did nothing wrong!) a christmas tree fell over she caught it and a bauble broke she literally spent the entire night awake worrying she should replace the bauble and that it might be precious (it was a plastic woolies one) fil had to ring the following day and offer money to replace it

food = love if the kids dont eat they dont love nanny and she tells them that too!

she microwaves food after its been cooked just to make sure its cooked then microwaves it again because dh allowed it to cool before giving it to the two year old then she stood there making nom nom noises and pretend eating to get them to eat the scalding hot now ruined food MAKE NANNY PROUD CLEAN YOUR PLATE!

she gave my two year old food poisoning and cried because my six year old told her off about it he was livid and told her to leave there food alone! (sibling rivalry aside he loves his brother to pieces)

If you can afford the childcare I would do it. If things go wrong with family members looking after the children it can seriously damage relations for years.

I look after my sons' children occasionally either in my own home or at theirs. Because the parents are grateful and because I have exceptional nice DiLs everything is fine. However, they are very tiring, possibly your DM and MiL may have forgotten, how much physical exertion is required. Also mentally, being sole responsible for the safety of a child who is not you own, but is so precious is draining.

When weekly help was required, whilst my DiL was on a 6 month course, we two grans took turns. Perhaps you could get each GP to do one day each fortnight. This way they can cover for each other in times of illness, or other commitments.