help am i unreasonable not wanting to baby sit 6yr

[yourbuildersteve]

Ok my wife n i just had a baby on monday.
Now my sister wants us to babysit her 6yr old for 3 nights a week for the next yr so she can go to university.
Starting this Saturday.
Im the only family she has in the uk n she dosent have any friends.
Shes only just moved out from living with us for 8months.as a returning resident.
Id love to help her out n have said i can have him for one of the 3 nights.
Am i being unreasonable not to have him for all 3 nights for the next yr so she can better her life by getting her degree

No way. Family or not that's taking the piss. How old is she? Where's the father? It's all sounds a bit odd to me, very last minute and presumptious. She seems to rely very heavily on you.
Our lives pan out as a result of the choices we make, and if there's no father to help with the child she chose to have, she'll have to adjust her subsequent life choices accordingly. As many of us do.
You're very generous offering one night, but really, your nuclear family is your priority and I feel you'd be risking a lot if you agreed to this.

During the eight months your dsis stayed with you did you intimate casually that this was something you would help with? I ask because it is easy to say such things but not really think they will happen.

I have firsthand experience of this and it was a hard pill to swallow
particularly as I had provided the childcare first when you are let doŵn by family. The difficulty is how you move on from saying no, I am no longer close to dsis as this experience told me that she did not feel the same about me or my children as I did for her.

I'm starting University soon and I have a 6yr old. The only childcare help I will be having is After School Club and looking at my time table I may actually only need that 2 days a week, oh and holiday club for a couple of weeks in the year - the University will pay a massive chunk of that.

If I had to be relying on anyone else, other than child care professionals, then I simply would not have gone. Even if you say 'yes' now then what is to say something won't happen whereby it's just not feasible any more? Someone gets ill, 6yr old gets ill (wouldn't want a sick 6yr old around new born if it can be helped), so many different things could go wrong and once she's completed the first year then you'll feel under so much pressure to continue with it even if it's making your lives hell or putting a strain on your relationship.

If it was one night a week then maybe, but 3 nights a week? No chance.

What course is she doing that requires her to need childcare for 3 nights anyway? It seems odd. I'm assuming some kind of course with placements such as nursing?

My BSc was generally 3 evenings a week (6-9pm) - although over four years not one! Some of my modules were shared with students on a one-year graduate conversion course - not sure whether they also did three evenings a week or more than this. Even if they did do more, though, this was in a relatively teaching-intensive discipline, so I could imagine that for a more reading-based subject it could be as few as three evenings.

I should clarify that these were never Saturday evenings though. And the uni (Birkbeck) offered childcare, although I didn't use it as DS was too young. A 6yo wouldn't be though (although would dragging a 6yo home at 9pm three nights a week be my first choice? Doubt it...)

I think it's too big an ask, but if you had a similar aged kid I would consider it as your life is already set up for school, half-term cover etc.

But you're at a completely different stage in life and this would be a lot to deal with. I'd personally decline 3 days but may consider one.

Well, OP? Is it you that'll be looking after the child or have you volunteered your wife?

So in the real world, a mother applies and secured a place to university and tells no one that she requires childcare until the very last moment?

In struggling to believe

It's far to big an ask when you have a newborn and I think she is very very unreasonable if she's sprung it on you just now because she would have know for months.

It's nice to help family out but not nice if they take the piss and assume and expext rather than ask well in advance so they can get things sorted when you say no. She's got a good guilting hold over you now if you let her, is she the type to start sayin that now she can't do her course and guilting you?

Or did she have other plans which fell through?

I'd do it on a very once in a blue moon day if she'd sorted childcare and the child minder was ill one day for example. But no way like this.

Starting Saturday is odd.
And it's quite a favour she's asking and a big commitment from you.
Can't she do a distance degree?

What is your niece like? What is your baby like?
With an easy baby (although things can change) and an easy child, I might say yes. But making it clear that she should have checked with you before.

I wouldn't be at all keen on this given that there's a very new newborn baby who also needs to be cared for. Emergency childcare if there was a temporary problem with pre-arranged childcare, yes, but not routine 3 nights a week for a year.

Why didn't she ask earlier? Did she discuss anything about this when she was applying for the course? She must have known that she'd need childcare before now?