Grandparent child care while parent is off sick

[NannyK62]

I look after my grandson (2) one day per week, he goes to nursery on the other days. My son and DIL both work full time.

my DIL is now off sick due to stress but still wants me to have my grandson on my “usual day”. He is still going to nursery the other days which I understand as they have to pay to keep his space but I feel like he should stay home with mum if she is off work.

I work 4 days a week myself and it would be a nice change to have that day to myself for the next month which is the length of her current sick note. I love having him but it is tiring at my age. Am I being selfish to refuse to have him? Do you think it will damage my relationship with son/DIL?

many thanks

Disagree, I know and have worked with people who take paid sick leave for work related stress whist their stressed colleagues end up more stressed due to shortfall of staff. I met a lady on the bus who I regularly meet on my journeys to and from work. She was laughing and joking and on her way to meet friends. She was off work with WRS!

This is why I didn’t tell either set of grandparents I was off work with depression, neither of them understood and I totally couldn’t cope with anything - work or looking after my child.

I went so far as dressing up for a work day when I dropped off my son to my ILs. I couldn’t cope and no one understood- grandparents and husband.

If she’s asking for support, help her!

But meeting up with friends can be helpful to reduce stress. It's about building up your resources to deal with the pressures. Social support is a resource.

You can’t say that socialising with friends is good because it reduces stress and then at the same time claim someone can’t look after their child for 1 day.

Baking or playing with your child can also reduce stress.

Same question but where your son is in this conversation? He has a sick wife?

Is he not taking any family time to support her?

What would you do if he was off with stress?

@zzar45 I was responding to the PP who said that she saw someone on a bus on sick leave, on her way to meet friends. Meaning that someone isn't necessarily going to stay in the house with this sort of illness. On the contrary.

I'm missing your point probably, but when I bake with my children, it definitely doesn't reduce my stress! 😆

Looking after a small child's daily needs is continuous and stressful, it is not at all the same as socialising on your own terms with friends and having no expectations to meet but what you want to do.

I actually can't believe you've conflated those two things... ridiculous.

Op I think you will cause irreplaceable damage to your relationship if you let your unwarranted resentment cause you to pull back now. I think it would be best to wait until your DIL is back at work.
You either want to continue this arrangement or you don't, asking for a break because she's unwell and off is basically a kick in the face and I seriously wonder what you'd do if it was your son instead of your DIL in the same position.

It's completely understandable that you want to change the arrangement because its getting too much but would be really unsupportive and a bit hateful to do so right now when she actually needs support and was probably relying on it.

Send her child back to her. How is she managing the other 4 days? How is her stress ok then? Nah, she's taking advantage. She has 4 days to rest.

@TomatoSandwiches Looking after a small child's daily needs is continuous and stressful, it is not at all the same as socialising on your own terms with friends and having no expectations to meet but what you want to do.

She has at least 4 days a week to socialise on her own terms. Her childcare responsibilities are not continuous, it’s 1 day out of 7.

Sometimes that's too much whether you like it or not.

I feel for your dil. It is so easy with a physical condition as you can usually see if someone is unwell or on the mend, whereas with mh I think because it is 'invisible', it is all too easy to assume someone is capable of looking after their toddler, for example. Our Dil was very poorly recently, in hospital, surgery and then a recovery period where she couldn't look after the baby. DS was given a few days compassionate leave, but not the several weeks required. She has no parents to help out so we stepped in. Dh does some of the childcare anyway, but I still work. We were doing about 13 hours a day for a few weeks. I am glad we could help out and I know ds and Dil were extremely grateful we could. I hope that we would have been just as helpful if Dil had had MH issues.
If you are planning to cut down or stop the childcare anyway, that is one thing, but if it is just because she is 'off' work at the moment, I wouldn't change anything.

I'd still have my grandson. He's older now and can entertain himself., but when he was younger I'd do stuff with him that he didn't do at home, like we'd watch animal programmes or he loved those when things go wrong programmes.

What would be best for your grandchild?
Your DIL might have serious issues like suicidal thoughts or, for example, I know someone who had a stress induced diarrhoea for a month….
If you look at people with childhood trauma then witnessing a parent’s struggle with depression is a common one mentioned.

She might just fancy a month off and be taking advantage of the system or she might be in serious trouble and genuinely feel it’s not safe or beneficial for your grandchild to have 1:1 time with her.

You sound lovely, very compassionate and caring, your DIL and grandchild are very lucky to have you.

I had four months off in total plus a long phased return. I absolutely couldn’t have take care of a young child in the first month or so, I couldn’t even really take care of myself. It’s also life that people are ill and can’t do what they normally would.

A lot of good points here, my main worry was them both thinking I wanted to give up the arrangement altogether which is absolutely not the case so I’ll just keep quiet and assume if she felt well enough to look after him herself she’d say so.

I’d be asking the same question if it was my DS who was poorly, or in fact my own DD who I do school drop offs for a couple of times a week.

forgot to add, my son is self employed so although can be flexible with work it’s not as simple as taking a prolonged period of unpaid leave - that would only add to their stresses I imagine!

think they’re both cf

you don’t stop looking after your kids due to wrs!

First, I would do all arrangements via your son rather than directly with her while she's been signed off. I know it's work related but she is physically unfit to work therefore she's also unfit to worry about family drama and falling out with her MIL. Your son can buffer if she 'really needs' help from you or if it is a 'nice to have.' If you don't want to do the day then perhaps your son could take an afternoon off to help his wife rest.
You said you have offered this day for bonding. If it's too much time hours wise, then in the future you could offer half day eg just mornings or afternoons with him (still saves them some cash and gives you time with him as well as some me time).

I do echo pp that have said if she was off sick with physical illness would you expect her to have him on 'your' day.

@OMGsamesame but op committed to doing it. If she doesn't want to then it's fair to give them a hit of notice.

She's not " off work" , she's off work because she is unwell. Please do not dump a toddler on her on the only days that she can rest.
If she had flu would you do this?

I don't doubt that many nhs staff are physically and mentally so drained with burnout and overwork that they get to the point of needing to be signed off with stress. You clearly don't work in the hellish climate that is public sector helping professions - I think private sector workers think we are lazy people who should just be great for our good pensions.

That’s what we hear from our friends and family in the public sector who are sick of the piss takers.

I think the problem is that think she could cope with her own toddler equally as well as you can, and so you feel taken advantage of. Which is understandable. You're happy to help when you see it as necessary, and all doing your bit, but feel it's a bit of a cheek when she isn't doing hers. Unfortunately while I sympathise, I think the official narrative is that she 'can't cope' and 'needs' you, so if you push back on this, you will be framed as letting her down. So I think your decision is really between two poor options. Feel resentment or be judged as being in the wrong.

@StormingNorman without meaning to get snobby I think there is a diffence between professionally qualified helping professionals in the public sector (midwives, teachers, social workers, doctors etc) and not so qualified admin type roles. I think those who are in the helping professions are taken the piss pity if completely by their government employees.
At my work for example we have had admin support totally removed. We now have to do all our own booking off appointments and rescheduling and sending out reports etc. it's such a waste of time but it doesn't come out of our service delivery time as we still have the same work to deliver (more actually, as maternity leave doesn't get covered) so it just pushes our workload into evenings and weekends.