AIBU to not have my grandson 5 days a week?

[Liliana75]

Hi, my grandson is 2 years old. He's a lot of hard work but lovely of course. My daughter is in her late 20s and was doing well for herself working as a care assistant and providing for her son. He goes nursery 2 times a week and I have him on a Friday which completely tires me out. My daughter has just started an access course at college and doesn't do her job anymore but is a delivery person from 5pm-10pm and my grandson goes with her which isn't ideal but I just can't have him all those times 5 days a week but it works ok for now but I had to ask what she will do when she goes to university as she plans to be a paramedic!! She says she was hoping I'd help. I absolutely love my daughter but that's very expecting and I just can't have him for 3 days a week and she will need to still work the evenings too and will probably want me to have him more. I can't do it all. AIBU?

Encourage her to go to a university where there is a good creche/nursery, and tell her she has to use it. If you do one day a week on a Friday, that is a great help for her.

If you don’t feel like you can do it you will just have to say no and your daughter can look into other options.

Is he typical terrible two’s and a bit full on?

Sorry, but unless there is a medical reason why you cannot help I think YABU. Hats iff to your daughter for trying to improve her education and her career.
A job as a carer will always be low paid sadly ... even though they deserve more.
Your daughter is obviously thinking of her and her childs future by doing this.
As for people who said they managed to do a nursing degree, this government have scrapped the bursary making it far more difficult for people to access training ( and leading to a huge shortage of nurses).
I would be so proud of my daughter for doing this and would do everything in my power to help her. I do not think it is unreasonable for your daughter to have hoped you would support her .

As an aside, do her employers know? Will her insurance cover her in the terrible chance of an accident?

She may have to wait. If the father of the child isn’t around and she can’t afford childcare then she can’t do the course yet.

Personally I'd help as much as I could if it was my daughter unless my health was too bad or I was really elderly. Not sure if these are factors in this case. She should've asked what you were willing to do first though to help her but probably felt as you are not bound to any job or commitments then she saw you as free to do it rather than using a childminder. I agree the evening job would be better to help her out with. Can't take a little toddler out delivering with you at that time of night!!

I am sure she has looked into it but friends son didn't do the paramedic science degree before he started it was an on the job maybe he started as an ambulance driver or something, but stilll i think she has assumed you will be her fulltime baby sitter which is unfair

YANBU I don't like it when people assume grandparents will help all that much. My DC is loved by them but I never ask for childcare, MIL is already burned by her daughter's DCs. Not fair.

In fact she should check out what help she will get with childcare as a student - she might be entitled to 30 hours sooner than 3

www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/ambulance-service-team/roles-ambulance-service/paramedic/entry-requirements-and-training-paramedic

Info for your dd op

I actually feel really sorry for your daughter, you say she was a bit short every month but just managed to get by, and she's working all hours, that's so sad. Sounds like she's trying to better herself. I don't understand why he is so exhausting, does he have a behavioural issue?
I know you shouldn't expect help from grandparents but if I was struggling for money and working my arse off my mum would definitely at least help with evenings instead of letting me drive my son around till 10pm.

Well now she needs to look into obtaining childcare. You have raised your children - anything you offer is a gift not a requirement.

It seems she is a single parent as you don’t mention the dad at all.

Once she qualifies, she will be working shifts and I assume the nature of the job means she will not always leave bang on the end of her shift.

What are her child care plans then?

She needs to find alternative arrangements.

I don't think you are BU at all. She shouldn't just expect you to be there - you both need to sit down and talk it through properly - she needs to have all the course information, lecture times and dates and how she is going to juggle that with her son.

Its not up to you to sort her life out whilst she decides to become a student again - you've done your bit.

I think she is really lucky to have the childcare she already has.

YANBU!
Looking after toddlers is shattering, and even though it’s your grandchild, looking after someone else’s is always more stressful than your own because you are always slightly held to someone else’s account, if you cock-up in a minor way with your own, it’s no biggy, a guilt twinge and swift remedy, but if someone else’s child is crying because you forgot to get them that glass of water it’s worse. You also know every nuance of your own child’s moods and habits and can better anticipate and manage their needs and triggers.
Your daughter needs to plan professional childcare for her own child, and if it’s not affordable, then she may need to delay her plans by a couple of years. Sometimes it comes with the territory.
Reassure her you adore said child and that you want to continue looking after him, but that you don’t feel able to cope with being regular childcare and you’d hate to either let her down, or fail to be the carer he needs. Doing grandma days/ afternoons enables you to give him the quality focussed fun and attention that you want him to have from you.
I know some grandparents joyously seek or accept being childcare 5 days a week, that’s fantastic, but I hate the idea that should be expected. You can love a friend’s or relative’s child and think they are wonderful, without wanting to return to the exhaustion of daily toddler wrangling. With my own DD1, I remember virtually hallucinating about being able to read a magazine or book for 10 minutes without interruption. Even when you set up an activity, they want and need your participation, and whilst adorable, they have a mental age of 2 and endless capacity for repetition. They are also astonishingly bossy...
I hope you don’t fall out over this

I wouldn't say she's making the right choices.

She given up a job, now drives around at night with a 2yo until 10pm and hasn't made any arrangement for child care. This isn't a carefully thought out plan and I think she will fail as soon as she starts.

Tootyfilou. Why on earth is it unreasonable for the OP to not want to give her whole week over to looking after, and effectively, bringing up her grandchild.

Why should her DD's wishes to go university over ride the OP's wishes to live her life the way she wants. Just because the OP is older doesn't mean she counts for nothing.

Looking after small children is very hard work and speaking from an older woman's point of view there is no way I would be able to do it without a serious impact on my health and well being.

Are you retired yourself? It must be hard for her to see you with lots of time on your hands and not helping much. As for her doing fine as a care assistant, was this a minimum wage job? She is working hard to make a much better life for her and her child. Is she capable of doing the degree? If she is late 20s it wasn't the child that stopped her when she left school.
You can't do more than you feel able to, though I know my own mum would have done so much more than you are offering (despite being much older and in poor health) so I do think you are being a bit unreasonable. Possibly because two is a tricky age!

As she is Lp. By the sounds of it . She will be entitled to 15 hours term after baby turns 2 . She should be able to get some help with childcare . Just be clear what you can and can’t do.

If you can't manage it then you can't manage it, so the question of unreasonableness doesn't apply.

I've got 3 grandkids and I'm like a wrung out dishcloth when I've had just one of them. I'm 48 . My DD wanted to do an Access course and I pointed out that they all needed to be in school before she even thought of ideas like that.

You can offer to help, but not to parent in her place. There's a big difference. It's lovely she's thinking forward but she also has a child to put first

Yanbu. She shouldn't be assuming that you will step in and look after him for so much. She needs to organise and think about this properly. She isn't considering that you might not be available because you want to go on holiday, you want to socialise and that you will be ill.

Being a single parent is hard, but still isn't an excuse to impose your lifestyle onto others. I made this very clear with mine that once they start having kids, yea, of course, I will help out where I can, but don't bloody expect me to do it permanently.

Depending what Trust locality she falls under, some ambulance trusts do offer on the job training to become a paramedic - thats how i am doing my training.
This involved 3 months of monday to friday learning, then on the road with some further weeks back at training school.

However the hcpc is changing requirements for paramedic registration which means she will need to complete a degree so this may be where it is being changed!

Another option is to look at her local ambulance trust website and see if there are any other ambulance jobs offered - technicians are a slightly lower grade than paramedics but often have in-house training available, with the potential to upgrade to a paramedic when financially available/the trust may offer a top up!

There are other options out there for her which does not involve 3 years at uni... but unfortunately the job does involve 12+ hour shifts: earlies, lates and nights...

Also, yanbu - it's a lot to assume and expect off a parent..

There is a lot of help for full time HE students with children...up to 85% of childcare will be paid for in the form of a grant awarded on top of the usual student finance loans and non-repayable. Maybe have a read, the Student information team at the relevant uni will also be able to offer support and your DD should research this and contact them before her course begins. www.gov.uk/childcare-grant