What to call “stepgran”

[Newmama29]

Posting on AIBU for traffic. First time poster but long term lurker.

My parents have been divorced for about 15 years, very amicable relationship. Both have new DPs & everyone gets on great. My stepmum has been in my life for 10+ years, we get on really well & she is very good with me & my DSis.

Now I am expecting my first baby in the next month & everyone is really excited (first baby for both grandparents), but starting to have the dilemma of what should my child call my stepmum? My DM will be called gran & as this is her first I don’t want to overshadow her by having my DS call my DSM gran too, but I’m not keen on many other names for gran, i.e nan, nana, grandma etc 🙈 I understand this is purely trivial & it’s not a huge deal, I’m just curious as to what others have done in this situation?

Thats not going to really work though is it

That’s what happened in our family.

Nanny boots is because she brought them all boots in the winter and it stuck.

I know a jumping Hop Hop nanny because she had a (temporary) bad leg!!

Kids have a way of getting their point across

@Redglitter I meant as I won’t push a certain name etc. I call her as her first name so I assume DS will pick up her name but there might be a nickname or something that comes with time we end up using. Or DS may not be able to pronounce her name & she might get some variation that ends up sticking 🤷🏼‍♀️ I suppose we’ll just go with the flow lol!

If they are rarely together I’m not sure how it would overshadow your mother if she was called the same?

My kids have a step grandmother- they call her by her first name.

You may find your DC names her themselves. Ours did...We have to explain to everyone who looks after them as the names are unique.

My DD calls her stepnan by her given name. Not Nanny [...] but just her first name.

We have always just gone with first name for step grandparents. Not sure why, I just always called mine by first name and dd does the same.

I had a step-grandad. He asked to be called uncle by us as he didnt want to be called grandpa, and it is always how we referred to him. Have you asked her what she would prefer?

Auntie would be a safe bet. It's the norm in many parts of the north-west for adults who are family friends.

@RoseTintedAtuin we do spend a lot of time in each other’s company for a blended family. My mum & stepmum both planned my baby shower together & they still socialise in same circles as they have the same group of friends. I can imagine as DS gets older we would spend a lot of time at Christmas, birthdays etc together so they will be in each other’s company a lot. It’s not even about having 2 “grans”, I think I’m just being sensitive to my mums feelings as she is the biological gran & it’s her first time being one so don’t want her to feel put out.

I think I’m inclined to just see how it pans out. My stepmum isn’t fussed on what she’s called & also doesn’t want to tread on any toes so we were looking to see what ideas people had. There is definitely some interesting ones & I’m keen to see what my DS comes up with eventually lol! When I was younger I had a great gran & a gran with the same surname & we called great gran “wee gran surname” & gran “big gran surname” which just came about as my great gran was a tiny woman haha!

We just have gran then their first names. My kid has 3 grans/grannies.

I have step-grandparents on my dad's side, they were introduced to me by their names and I used that for a while then started calling my step-mum mum and wanted to recognise that they were my family too. My cousins called them Nonna and Pops (Nonna is Italian and Pops was a true blue Aussie) so I just started using that as well. My birth mother has had a number of long term partners and my siblings children have always just called them by their first names.
I think in your situation if you don't like any of the alternatives to Gran you could either use her name or call her Gran Name or Gran Where she lives. I knew someone who had a Nanny Norwich and a Nanny Brighton.

I always called my mum’s husband ‘Tom’ and his mother ‘Mary’, because those were their names.

My kids step nan is from another country so she has grandma in that language, which I think is sweet.