Help. Advice please

[mummyhappiness]

Am I being unreasonable?
We live next door to my DH mother. My SIL has one DS who is 5 and lives around an hours drive away. She works full time.
I am a stay at home mum with 3 DC, 8yr, 12yr and 13yr. My DH works away and is home every 2nd week.
I try and arrange things to do with my DC when they are off school at weekends. My SIL turns up to see her mum most weekends as her DH works away too. My issue is that I always end up with SIL DS. I understand that he is not going to want to stay at nans house when his cousins are next door. I have no problem at all on having SIL DS if it was not so frequent and she were to phone and let me know she is coming and if it were convenient, or that I don't have anything arranged ( I can then plan accordingly). On numerous occasions I have had to cancel or change what I have planned because she has just turned up. When this was mentioned to her she became very off and said she was coming to see her mum and could come when she liked without an invite!
It has got to the stage that when I see her car pull into the drive I have to quickly gather up my 3 DC and go out for the day.
This also happens whenever SIL DS is on school holidays only it's not just a weekend I have him, it's until the school goes back. She drops DS at her mums and heads back home, I have him then until she decides to come back for him ( which I never know when that is, it could be a week or 10 days)
I have asked my DH to have a word with her but he doesn't want to rock the boat as they had a big fall out around 3 yrs ago over the same issue.

Glad you had a lovely time with DC and glad sil kept away.
Enjoy your Sunday.

Aha! You need to do that more often then. I do feel sorry for dn, as I know what it's like for only children when they're not in school, but your sil (and mil) do need to at least ask you. I can see if it were sil who lived next door, so all children are running in and out of both houses, where there's reciprocation, it's fine, but this is so one-way.

Glad you had a lovely day.

That's goodbye news! Keep going your over the first hurdle.

New to this thread today.
Congratulations you have solved the problem. Keep it up, and make sure you are never in a position to ask mil to mind dn!

Update
Think I've serously pissed off SIL .

SIL turned up with DN last Friday eve. DN then ran in our back door and made himself at home. I let him stay for about an hour then took him back to MIL and said I was going out.
Early Saturday morning DN came banging on our door, my youngest DS let him in. I let him stay for around 2hrs then I took him back to MIL and said we were going out and we're unable to take DN. I said I would leave my youngest DS to keep DN company if MIL and SIL were willing to look after them. SIL ( did not look too happy at this stage) said she was not able to look after my DS and DN.
I went back to my own house, then 10 mins later I saw SILs' car pull out of MILs' drive, with SIL, MIL and DN. They did not return until 8pm and DN never appeared at our house.
On Sunday morning SIL came round to see me. She said that it was not worth her while driving an hour to get to her mums if we were not going to be in for DN to play with his cousins.
I saw my opportunity to get my point across.
I told her that, as much we love DN coming to see us. I did need to know when SIL/MIL were thinking of DN Bring around. We do have busy weekends /school holidays and it's not always convenient to have DN.
SIL was not happy and said that "she may as well go home now".
She left our house collected DN and her things from MIL, got in her car and left.
Not sure what happens now

Well hopefully she is getting the message.
Well done for keeping up the taking him back etc...
Just keep doing that.
Has your MIL been round to see you yet?

I'm amazed that you didn't drop in the words, 'unpaid childminder' into the conversation!?

She must have the hide of a rhino.

Good! I'm staggered this is all being made to be your issue!
Plus I now feel slightly sorry for the MIL who only gets visits if all circumstances suit the sil.
Well done you

I think you are doing well - you let him visit and returned him - sounds like SIL is just looking out for her and hers - you are just a facilitator- now she is blackmailing you into believing you will be the reason she stops coming to see her own mother - where she no doubt has a lovely relaxing time drinking tea while you feed and entertain 4 kids!!

Well done you did the right thing!!!

(I would've added - oh that's a shame - maybe you'll ask fro free childcare next time)

Brilliant!

The next thing is to say what's happening. "So, SIL, you only bother to visit your mother if you can send dn over to us and go off for a nice jolly time on your own, then?".

You could always make up a friend who lives next door to her, and do the same.

Better still, actually make friends with someone who,lives very near her!

Your SIL has no shame - clearly it's not about playing with his cousins as she refused to have your DS to enable DN to play with him.

Oh well done you for standing your ground! Your SIL sounds like a complete brat, not worth her while indeed!

Good for you. There kids is hard enough. Keep it up and pretty soon your sil will stop...hopefully!

Update
Weekend before last. I phoned SIL to say I was planning a shopping trip ( she has a large shopping centre near to where she lives).
I said that I would call round to her house first and leave my youngest DS to play with DN. SIL was not happy with this arrangement and digested we met at a park near to her. I agreed, it was a beautiful day and boys could run around and play. When I got there she instantly piped up that DN wanted a crepe pancake from the pancake stand. We ordered then she told me she had no change. I said I would buy it for him.
I did say that I wanted to get to shopping centre and would need to leave the park shortly.
She then said that was fine as we could eat lunch there. Cut a long story shirt I ended up paying for lunch for everybody too.
After that it was ice cream, again I had to pay.
Feel totally taken advanced of

Oh you wally! she has blatantly had her revenge on you for stuffing up her lovely free childless time!

You were doing so well, you should have just dropped your ds off with her at the park and driven away, waving gaily and cackling hindsight is a wonderful thing though can you try to get back on track with the same attitude as before she wrested control back from you? Just treat it as a stumble and carry on but be better prepared. There is great advice upthread, and it almost worked!

Something that has struck me though, say you are out and she comes over to MIL. DN disappears and comes to you, you aren't there, they think he is with you but in fact he is on his own, milling about, unsupervised. Surely that is not ok and as a parent she should be aware it is a possibility that he isn't safe if she doesn't even bother to check you are there to look after him?!

You sound lovely op but your sil is a cold cold bitch. Such a sly trick to get you to pay.

Thanks for the updates, we're all rooting for you in the next match of mummy vs sil. Channel your anyfucker

Are you happy to have DN sometimes? If so I would have a word with SIL and say you are happy to do that if she would do the same for you so it's mutually beneficial. You deserve a break as much as her.
And paying for lunch and treats! Next time you go for lunch again I would be saying "I think it's your turn now to pay ".

Keep at it, good always triumphs over evil Lesson learned, next time just drop and run... Make sure you 'forget' your purse too

I don't mean this maliciously but why can't you just look after him? I mean if he's a lovely boy and gets along well with his cousins. You're all family, aren't you?

Jane he is sent to her house unexpectedly leading to her having to cancel activities and plans with her own dc. And SIL knows exactly what she is doing and doesn't care.

Dizzy why can't the plans involves the cousin too?

I don't know, he's not my DN!? Seriously though, there was an example of not enough seats in the car upthread, and it's not always possible to suddenly include an extra person in everything. Especially if it might have been organised by someone else - birthday party or similar. It's the lack of consideration from SIL that is the issue, not DN actually being there, as i understand it.

Oh she is a sneaky one. Next time you go shopping there (in a couple of weeks?), arrange a time to meet at the park, arrive half an hour early and drop ds at her house - "got here quicker than expected tra la! bye ds" - without even getting out of the car.