To expect my mum to look after her only grandchild on her own for 2 hours a week?

[Welshlady89]

My mother is 75. She is relatively fit and healthy and leads an active lifestyle.

I am 35 and have one child. She will be an only child for various reasons, including health reasons (I have a heart condition and also had bad PPD).

My child is 1. She is the only child in the entire family as both my brother and my DH’s sister aren’t going to have children.

I work freelance. One morning we have outside help with my child, one morning MIL comes down to help, and one morning my mum helps.

My mum also sees my daughter everyday for an hour or so - she comes to have lunch with me in my house on most days.

Whenever she has my daughter for the morning I can guarantee she will be difficult with me when I pick her up. She is tetchy, snappy and talks about how difficult it was, how tired she is and she is almost resentful at me. She adores my daughter, and I appreciate that she is getting older, but 2 hours isn’t that long considering it’s only once a week.

Each time I go and pick my daughter up, I make a big effort to be chirpy and in a good mood. Today, despite very little sleep for 4 nights, I tried my hardest to not put a foot wrong. Yet still I was met with complaints. I suggested I had lunch alone, to give her a break from my daughter as I could see she was in a bad mood and I wanted to avoid a big argument.

It didn’t work and she became even more agitated and then sent me a barrage of 20 messages about how she wouldn’t look after my daughter again and how disrespectful I was etc etc.

I don’t know what to do. AIBU? Should I send my daughter to nursery instead for the morning my mum has her? I can’t stand the feeling of resentment much longer. When I try to talk to her, she just snaps and denies being in the wrong.

I would appreciate your advice.

She spends most days with you having lunch - which is in a way a gift of her time. She's stopped you going completely mad when the boredom of having a little one - it is so much to cope with.

She sounds like a lovely DM - mine was the same. She helped with coming over but she found actually being alone with my DC at a young age really hard. She felt phyiscally worried about if she would cope.

At 75 it's OK to step back even if she has an active life.

I imagine she wants to do it but feels torn. Physically at 75 things are tough, everything creaks and aches a bit no matter how good you make out things are.

It's sad OP, I was like you and thought she could do it all but in the end, I realised she was just too old. And that's OK. She told me to find childcare arrangments but she was still a really big part of my life.

It's lovely you are so close. Look after yourselves and ignore the horrible comments. You sounds like a kind person who just needed a little steer not a torrent of abuse!

Because at 75 there could well be something else going on healthwise that is either frightening her or she doesn’t want to bring up for some other reason.

Could you request your mum looks after her for just one more year as 1 year old is still very young and then if she is still struggling to look after her, maybe try a childminder or nursery

Just a year of granny being tetchy and snappy and finding it difficult. Oh well that's not too bad then 🙄

Ah @Welshlady89 I hadn't seen your comment saying you were going to hide the thread. Perhaps consider leaving it for a bit and then coming back. You don't have to defend yourself or justify yourself to everyone. Take what's helpful and leave what isn't.

I hope you can take something positive away from some of the advice at least.

Or she doesn't even know there's anything wrong. As I say the first signs of dementia in my parent (in retrospect) were a change in personality, being tetchy and not a grown up about how they communicated. Turns out they were losing their mind, albeit at the very start.

Personality change and communication difficulties are one of the early signs of dementia. I hope it's not that for all your sakes. It's a horrible disease.

We aren't all senile in our 70s, being worried doesn't stop you talking like an adult, if she's worried about health issues she needs to see a doctor not take it out on her DD and grandchild.

We have a close relationship

i think you and i have very different views on what constitutes a “close relationship” on the basis of your thread OP

Nobody is suggesting that. Just that 75 is not 35.

Funny sort of dementia that hits at exactly the same time on the same day once a week. Let's face it she insisted on doing it, she doesn't like doing it and she hasn't got the sense to admit it. The OP can take it out of her hands as it isn't good for her or the baby so she is perfectly entitled to carry on with lunch every day and put little one in nursery or childminders or whatever suits.

I completely agree that the grandmother should have a sensible conversation about it - 'I really wanted to help but I'm finding it too much to do solo care for a toddler' - rather than being tetchy. And then other arrangements need to be made. It's totally pointless for anyone to say 'well I was 92 and still provided daily childcare blah blah blah' - if the woman involved doesn't feel she can manage it then that's all that matters.

God knows better she admits it than ends up neglecting the child or there's some awful accident because she's forgetful/ clumsy/can't run after a toddler quick enough.

The important thing to remember is that it's not a measure of how much she loves her grandchild and wants to be involved. Being a loving grandparent shouldn't be measured by how much freebie childcare is given - what a sad way to look at relationships. It's entirely possible to be a brilliant grandparent without providing childcare. My own grandparents lived 100 miles away and I have the best memories of going to stay, playing games, feeling totally happy and loved. And I cherish the handwritten letters my granny wrote to me regularly. As a young child I even remember feeling a bit sorry for school friends whose grannies lived along the street because i didn't understand how that could feel as special

So now she’s ‘taking it out’ on her DD and grandchild ? I’m out of this shitty thread. I appreciate you can’t teach young people what it’s like to get older, but there should be more than a grain of understanding. And ‘senile’ is a very offensive terms - as health problems tend to come on quicker in older people it’s not inconceivable that there is something worrying her too much to voice. Senile is not the same as worried.

Her mum agrees to do it and then complains?!

One can agree to do something you feel obliged to do, but you have the right to complain.

What? She doesn't like being around because she find you feeding your child stressful??? I would certainly not have lunch with her again (unless special occasion and somebody else has got your daughter). If this stresses her out than I can understand 2 h of babysitting doesn't sit well with her. She's selfish and having to put someone else's needs first is too hard for her. Please don't let her be around your daughter too much since it involves too much "stress" for her. My Mil (80+) loves having one of my DC's for several days because she is genuinly a generous caring person. It's me always asking "are you sure you're not too tired?".

Name change if anything love, don't let the shitty posters force you out.

We don't know she isn't behaving like this at other times. The OP will though.

Thanks for shooting down my attempt to share the exact same symptoms my parent had at the start of extremely distressing dementia which has robbed them of their life as rubbish though, really appreciate that. I was just trying to help the OP consider this as an explanation. The earlier you get help for dementia the better.

Did you read any of the OP's other posts??

And you know that to be the case - how?!

My mum has vascular dementia, and this is exactly how it started. She couldn’t pin anything down or put things into words but she knew something was wrong when she started to dread things that up to that point had been sources of pleasure or everyday routines. She avoided the things that she’d done routinely without a problem and it wasn’t until she had a seizure that we realised anything was wrong. Dementia isn’t something to be mocked.

Ignore them! x

I come from a country where people wouldn’t have kids if their oldish parents wouldn’t look after the kids. It’s so nice to see ladies in their 50s/60s walk around with prams in the day!!

I come from a country where most women in their 50s and 60s are out at work all day.

Well I'm in my70s so a long time since I was a young person.

She is taking out on her daughter and grandchild, read what the OP says, her mother is upsetting her with her tetchy unpleasant attitude and the baby will sense that as well.

If she's worried about something she needs to see an appropriate HCP and if she isn't prepared to do that it is on her not her daughter. She insisted on doing the childcare and now she won't admit she can't do it or doesn't want to do it. Not very grown up behaviour.

Because she is only like this with her DD on the one day a week she cares for her GC for 2 hrs.

Again, how do you know?

She doesn’t. As I explained upthread this is exactly how some forms of dementia start, Reluctance to engage with things the person has done routinely. Withdrawal, quick temper and quick to tears.

Read my post. You clearly don’t have any experience of dementia or you would know that it’s exactly this kind of behaviour that can be a red flag.