Not helping my dsis with her SN child

[Ghostedbyfriend]

Not UK based, but would go back for one month during the summer. During the summer holidays,I have watched the children of other siblings. Took one NT niece for 5 days to our summer cottage, and another NT niece for 4 days whilst the siblings worked. We have children ourselves.
One sibling who is a single mum has a SN child (10), non verbal with challenging behaviour. Said child gets daytime support whilst my dsis works, however she thinks I am being unfair as summer cottage would be more fun. But I explained that I couldn’t keep my SN niece safe, because she’s a darter and she does not listen. When she was younger and smaller I would watch her for 3-4 days, but now that she’s more grown and larger (overweight) I can’t simply lift her out of “situations”. Sibling acts all hurt her child is being excluded from fun and not treated equally. In my defence, I did watch her over one weekend to give my dsis respite, but apparently that was not enough as I did not take her to the cottage. I watched her at my mother’s house, whilst my dm was busy with gardening and cooking etc (she usually watches my SN niece during the weekend).
Whenever I watch SN niece, my DH has to take full charge of our DCs as SN niece needs 110% attention, it’s simply not fair on my DH, my kids are primary aged. For example when I was talking to dsis over a cup of tea, my niece took a glass she was drinking from and threw it on the tiled floor shattering glasses everywhere. She threw it on purpose, for attention I think.
Yet, my dsis thinks I am being unreasonable for not giving her one week of respite (she thinks watching her child at night is a lot of work)… My DH has put his foot down, he asked me not to bring my SN niece to the cottage as she’s a lot of work and disturbs our family dynamic whereas the other nieces play well with our DCs.
I do feel very guilty of not helping my sis out but I also feel my DH won’t be able to cope. It’s our holiday after all. So AIBU?

Alright, don’t have a cow!

It’s interesting to hear a range of responses and I don’t think there’s any need to shout down posters who feel very differently to you, or to police who posts or doesn’t. Ultimately OP had already said “no” to dsis and wants to feel more at peace with that decision.

It's not interesting or helpful to anyone to get more responses who've read nothing other than the OP. It's also not helpful how many complete lunatics this thread has attracted who keep on projecting their own terrible situation where it doesn't apply and are attacking the OP for that reason. It's not just uninteresting and unhelpful, it really really nasty. It has absolutely nothing to do with people 'feeling very differently to me'.

Oh I didn't notice I was replying to you, who's one of the main offenders and determined to keep at it. Never mind.

There should probably be one special individual who gets to decide which opinions are allowed to be shared on public forums. I’m not going to lie pollyputthekettle on. I think it should be you.

I lived abroad and what people don't realise when you come back for a month that is pretty much your only holiday! Also it's so busy catching up with everyone. Your kids deserve a holiday with you too. Yanbu

This. I live abroad and going to visit family for a month can be extremely hectic. Invariably you end up doing the rounds with a lot of people, so it’s important to be able to have a week just to relax. No one wants to return to normality feeling even more drained than when they left.

How on Earth do your parents cope. It sounds exhausting.

I don’t blame you for not wanting to take DN on your family holiday. Your DH and children need a break too, and you deserve to have time together as a family.

I’m sorry you have been dealth with a shitty hand in life.
My DN sleeps through the night, she has hypotonia and hypothyroidism so is often tired (on medication thank you very much). She sleeps from 8pm to 7am according to dsis. What I meant by sis thinks looking after her in the evening is too much, yes I actually meant she can’t even handle DN for 2-3 hours, because she often fobs DN off to DM. Dsis doesn’t really like kids and never had, even if she had a NT child I’m oretty confident she’d be a terrible mother, now that her child is SN it just made her worse. Any chance she gets to fob DN off she does it, of course we all feel sorry for her situation so we all chip in. But dsis isn’t at all looking after DN 24/27.

DN goes to school 8am to 4:30 pm. She gets taxi service taking her from the front door and back. She sleeps through from 8pm-7am, weekends spent at my parents all year except for the one odd weekend my parents need to attend a wedding or the like (but dsis made such a fuss about those that DP stopped making plans). Holidays, DN gets support from 8am to 4pm, DP fills in whenever dsis is busy with work or other. Dsis gets 2 holidays a year sans DN. She goes off to New York or San Paolo with friends to relax and have fun and the occasional long weekends in Europr. I kid you not.
I am not nasty about her but she spends all her money on herself and whenever my DN needs something my DP provides, and in the past we did too. That’s the status quo. My DM works shifts so often tired too and gets no weekends to relax. I help whenever I can when I come back home.

dsis is not your typical SN mother who works tirelessly for her child.

I can see she is feeling like her child is being differently because she is SN, it is hurtful BUT you feel you safely cannot look after so you have every right to say that.

She could include her child by actually joining her DD at OP's cottage but she refuses to as she doesn't want to spend time with her own daughter. So she is the one treating her dd differently.

Your offer for DS to come to the cottage with DN now that DN is becoming more of a handful is a fantastic idea & it would be the best way to continue the holiday for all but it sadly seems like your sister doesn’t want to parent her child at all here.

I am actually wondering if your sister is in some sort of denial or crisis herself over the fact that she has a disabled child!

From what you are saying DS literally has to parent her child, that sleeps well, overnight & do dinner, which could be challenging, but she also has loads of time to herself & support!

I am a single parent with disabilities, traumatic birth left me disabled, & I would bite your hand off for an invite on a cottage holiday, for myself & my DD, where I was not the only adult having to do & remember everything.

Your sister is shirking her responsibilities as a parent & she needs to be told no more by your parents so she can realise how good she has it!
No-one is saying her life is easy here because having a ND child isn’t easy but that does not make it ok for her to pass the buck & carry on like she is hard done by when she clearly isn’t!
She parents less than any single parent I know & she needs to realise how lucky she is not create unnecessary devision in the family!!

I just feel so sorry for the DPs. They’re at the whim of someone else’s parenting decision forevermore, losing out on trips and activities they want to be doing, and fundamentally damaging any chance of a close relationship with all the other grandkids.

And it’ll only get worse as DN continues to grow bigger and stronger, and they get close to retirement (freeing up more of their time).

It’s abuse, plain and simple.

I feel so sorry for them, and for the DN who is being failed by both her own parents.

But that is not for OP to solve. Your entire family has done enough. If anything any spare efforts should be spent on trying to extract the DPs from the situation they’re beholden to.

Please look out for your DP and encourage them to look after themselves. I know an elderly parent who was in a similar situation who has become ill. The children who ran them into the ground with massive requests for childcare for GC (some with SN) are not helping when the elderly parent needs it.

I wouldn't be able to do it either unless we both were heavily medicated. Ive had meltdowns trying to watch small active children for more than a few hours.