Mil wants weekly night stays

[Abw96]

My baby is 8 months old, last week my mil had him for us for an over night stay while we went out. She’s now demanding to have him again this week and every Saturday night regular. How is best to approach this? I’m happy to have him stay at mil’s maybe once a month for an over night stay but I don’t want to leave him every weekend. Has anyone else experienced this situation

Trying to 'demand' anything of me is the best way to ensure that I dig in my heels and refuse.

I agree with pp who suggested that your husband should deal with this, since it's his family. Every week is too often for your (as a couple) preferences. You're happy she wants to spend time with DC, and once a month (or whatever) would be wonderful, because you want DC to have a strong relationship with her, but you'd miss him/it would be too disruptive to his schedule/etc.

If she tries to insist, the bottom line is that she can't demand things, and if she tries, it will only make things awkward for everyone involved. It's not her decision to make.

Reply "lol no."

How ridiculous.

She can say no without acting like an asshole.

I honestly don't understand why people find it so hard to say no to things they don't want to do. It's really not a hard thing to say that you want your baby with you

"That's really kind, thanks for offering, but we feel that's too much for him (and us) at this age"

As pp have said, much better if your DP leads on these types of communications so you show a united front and you don't get painted as the evil DIL.

My nephew did this basically at his nans(not my mum) and has the best bond with them now.

that being said I would probably get your husband to negotiate a little better like you said once a month or what not? If it was offered to me id probably say once every 2/3 weeks would do! It’s your baby your life and you say what goes but don’t turn down the help cause I’m sure your relationship with your husband will benefit aswell as both of your mental health as for me when my child is at the childminders I can breathe and feel like me!

It’s quite concerning that you need to ask MN how to respond to this. You need to be able to politely asset your boundaries when it comes to your child. I’m struggling to understand how it’s so hard to say ‘oh thanks for the offer but I don’t want to be away from him overnight every week.’ Genuinely unsure how this is such a dilemma!!

And to PPs, it would have destroyed my mental health to have my baby away from me so often. Everyone is different and this time away won’t help every mum, it would be awful for some. The OP clearly doesn’t want or need it so she isn’t obliged to be grateful or see it as a positive. As for talk of ‘negotiating’ for a bit less often WTF?! No one else has ANY ‘claim’ on my child, negotiating is for situations where both have rights and you have to come to an agreement. That is not this. The OP is not obliged to be nice, kind or anything else - she doesn’t want her baby taken away once a week, end of.

Sounds bloody lovely to me! Id be saying 'great'!

BUT honestly if it isn't what you want then just say so. Maybe 'we'd love you to have baby every week but sleepovers just once a month then we can have a date night. Maybe we can increase it when baby is older'

Is 'demand' the new 'livid'? MN substitutions for 'ask' and 'slightly annoyed' when indignant responses are required.

Just say that then. Say no but thank you. Maybe once a month? Or whatever you're happy with.

Yeah did she demand or did she say "how about I do this every week to give you a break?"

You should hav immediately said no, and you need to have her son help her to manage her expectations. His mother, let him deal with her.

I'd say ok that's great and go out 🤣 I'm definitely past the PFB stage. Haha

As everyone else has said say no, just say "that is really kind, but we don't need you to have baby that much, but once a month would be really nice so we can have a date night"

Is she "demanding" though? Or has she said she'd really like to have your dc stay over monthly? Either way, just say no, and keep saying it. I find on here that the word "demanding" is very overused, especially when associated with in laws.

weekly

Demanding or just offering?

Your and dh baby, your rules. Tbh I'd probably be a bit diplomatic on this one as you may require her help at some point and her requests might be simply out of being happy to be a grandmother. But I do think at this young age her request is a tad too much, and your suggestion of once a month a much better arrangement.

If she's actually demanding, say no. If she's offering, accept something that will suit you, once a month for a date night would be nice for instance.

Is she actually demanding it though or offering. I realise demanding suits the MN/MIL narrative better but I'd be interested to know exactly what was said and was it actually just an offer to babysit regularly now the first one went so well

If you don't like it, say no. If you find you cannot say no, that's your real dilemma: why can't you say no? Or, if you have said no, why wasn't it heard?

I keep coming across “grey rock” on here. Sorry, what does it mean?

Did she really demand it?

Or offer? Or suggest you made it a regular thing?

And seriously - you have a chance for a child free night each week and a lie in and you'd be annoyed about it?

It's really easy just to say "that's great your happy to have him anytime. We'll have some weekends where we stay home as a family but I'll certainly take you up on the offer when needed."