How often do you see MIL? (Particularly if you have DC’s)

[JustAnUnimaginativeUsername]

I know everyone’s lives are wildly different, but just trying to gauge what the somewhat 'norm’ is for MIL visits/frequency of them?

DH and I have 2DC’s, and I think MIL has seen our youngest DC - who’s almost 18 months old - about 4 times since birth, one of those times being a flying visit of less than 10 minutes. DC1 will be 3 in December and I genuinely don’t think he’d even know who MIL is if she was to walk through our front door right now.

She works a regular 9-5, so granted the weekends are hers to do with however she pleases, but she only lives about a 10-15 minute car journey from us, so wouldn’t have to move heaven and earth to get here for a cup of tea, a catch up or some play time over the park with our DC's.
A couple of times DH has messaged her asking if she’d like to do a particular thing with all of us, to which she’s either not replied or has been ‘busy’ (usually at home watching football..), I too have sent a couple messages over the last few years inviting her to ours, saying we’d cook lunch and that it'd be nice for her to see her grandchildren in the process, but she doesn’t reply to me whatsoever.

I know we could go and visit her, but we don’t have a car, and the journey from ours to hers via bus takes well an over hour which is no fun with a two year old and one year old in tow.. far easier for her to jump in her car and drive for a few minutes for the sake of her seeing her grandchildren, but alas, it never happens.

I don’t really know if her lack of interest/lack of visits is the norm for MIL’s? My DM, for comparison, sees us as often as she can, at least once a month but usually every other weekend if we’re not busy doing something else, she also tries to take the DC’s out one at a time for some one on one time with them which is lovely and means our eldest gets really excited when he knows she's coming round. My step mother and DF will try and get round to us/have us over at theirs an average of once every 2-3 months, but if they can’t make it/a fair amount of time has passed between visits, it’s no big deal as I hear from them a few times throughout the month anyway for a chat and a catch up, whereas MIL quite literally never checks in to see how we’re all doing or asks after our DC’s.

Is this is a common thing? Or does it seem like there might be something else going on here?

Do your MiL’s make an effort and seem interested in your DC’s?

I don't have PIL but my parents see their son's child as often as they are physically able. We live 400 miles away so there can be 1-3 months between visits.

So 10 times in 18 months I think.

DS is six months old and MIL has seen him three times since he was born. She lives a 10 minute drive away. We can’t visit her because she has lots of dogs and her house just isn’t suitable for various reasons.

She came once shortly after he had been born but complained afterwards to DP that I ‘hadn't let her hold him for long’, he was nursing when she walked in and as anyone who has BF knows, newborns nurse for hours... She held him once he was finished for like 10 minutes then chose to leave . Came at Christmas, so almost two months after he was born then again at Easter...

She does work full time Monday-Friday and has too many horses so uses this as an excuse. Never enquires about him via text or anything. I’m not really bothered, she’s a bit of a twat.

PIL did regular childcare for us when DS was younger but even once we no longer needed it he still goes one night a week from school for his tea. He says when he starts secondary in September he's still going to his Nanna's for tea on a Tuesday

I see MIL roughly once a week, if I haven't seen her for longer I'll pop in when I'm walking the dog just to say hi.

DH sees them roughly every other day.

We see my Dad once a week/every 10 days.

I would point out though that none of these visits take place at our house, it's always us who go to PILs or my Dads, but I don't mind that anyway.

I see my PIL as my second set of parents, it makes me a little sad when I read the posts on MN about bad relationships with PILs

Mine live a 5 minute drive but visit SIL who is 4hrs away more than ours. I used to go there but got fed up of every conversation be changed to what DN was doing that i stopped

About every 2-3 months. She lives 1.5 hours away and works part time. The complicating factor is that we can’t visit her because we are NC with her partner (he’s a paedophile, I mean that in a literal sense, like he is actually convicted of child sex offenses). Because of that, there was about a 2 year period when she didn’t see our dc at all because we weren’t even comfortable with her having contact with them. Now she has limited supervised contact. Thankfully we don’t see much of her. Four times a year is plenty.

Every two weeks, sometimes more during school holidays.

Every single Sunday. For 25 years ffs

My MIL would give her right arm to see my DS more but she lives 250 miles away. Usually it's 4-5 visits a year plus lots and lots of FaceTime. He knows who his Nana is.

Sounds quite sad OP but you can't force the relationship. She's the one missing out.

No MIL.

This year, we've seen FIL (who lives several hours away, but is retired) 4 times - once we went to him, one family holiday, and he's visited twice, -and expect to see him several more, not least because he'll be looking after DS while DC2 is being born in July. He's hoping to be up once more before then. Usually see him a few times a year - Christmas and when he's available for a semi-spontaneous trip. Haven't seen his DP so much this year, but she's been busy - hope to see her again before too long.

I've seen my own parents (who also live several hours away, and have school aged children and jobs) twice this year - once visiting them, once them visiting us. I might see DM and youngest DB again before DC2 is here, but otherwise won't see any of them again until afterwards. Usually see them a few times a year - Christmas and a couple of school holidays generally.

I am the MIL. I see my dgc probably about three times a week. Once at the weekend, once when I pick dgs up from school, and once when ddil needs a bit of babysitting.

We go once a week to see mil and fil. They never bother visiting us. Once a year for ds birthday party and that’s it. Pisses me off that we have to make all the effort but hey ho.
I see my mother twice a week with ds. I’m nc with my father so I don’t go to their house

Probably about every 3 months. They live 3.5 hrs drive away. We see my parents loads more because they live 5 mins away

I see my mum couple times a month if that. My son rarely stays over his paternal nans and my mother in law from my marriage now lives in England so hardly ever.
Suits me down to ground and we both work full time and on days off want to spend time together as a family and not running around appeasing grand parents.
I'm very glad my mum and dad have a life and there is no pressure.

I see mine every 6 weeks or so.

If she was still working though then she'd probably hardly give us the time of day, our daughter included.

Some people just have shit priorities.

About once a month. And yes my mum sees our kids much more but only because she provides regular childcare for us

Between 2-4 times a year here. She never, ever contacts us so she only sees the kids if DH takes them to hers or we ask her to come and babysit! I can’t imagine never phoning my kids (I speak to my mum roughly every 10 days) but that’s the way it is!

I live with MIL so DS sees her every day. She offers to baby sit most evenings if me and DP want to go out and is on hand for me to go to work. I see my DM once a week, she drives but not long distance so I go through to see her. FIL on the other hand has seen DS once this year frequently ignores DP's phonecalls to meet up or has an excuse when we arrange to meet up. It really annoys me but I'd rather focus on the people who want to be part of DS's life not who dont want to put the effort in.

Mil sees my DD’s once or twice a month, she lives about an hour away and is a nervous driver so we tend to go to her. But she FaceTimes with them every other day. She comes over and stays every few months.

My parents live 2 hours away and they see the girls every few weeks if our schedules allow. We either go there or they come here. They have the girls for a few nights at theirs or take them away for a long weekend to London. They FaceTime my girls every night.

Every Sunday we have PIL and my dad over for a family Sunday dinner. MIL pops in twice a week now I’m on maternity leave, or we meet up for coffee and we go to theirs once a week for tea.

We are very lucky that they adore the kids, and love spending time with them, and us.