To try & ask for some/more grandparent input

[TheOnlyHonestOne]

I think what I am looking for here is just some sisterly words of encouragement. I’m trying to work up the courage to ask for some more grandparent support. Our child is 3 1/2. He starts school in September next year. Grandparents live two hours away.

Before we had him MIL made a big song and dance about how wonderful it was to have a grandchild and she can’t wait to spend loads of time with him. Sadly, it’s panned out that they just have/see him 3 to 4 times a year on the weekend. It’s not for want of asking. They’re always ‘busy’, but when we ask father-in-law, he says they have nothing on.
I’m not resentful of this, but in my mind it was going to be more like once every six weeks.

my husband and I have full-time jobs & are really tired and could do with some more support. But also, whilst he is in private nursery and we just take him in and out as I like. So they want to see him on a Friday one of us pick him up and drives two hours round-trip to meet them halfway and our son stays overnight. Mother-in-law said more than once to me on a FaceTime call that Family is more than anything to her, and she loves to spend more time with him.

How do say to my mother-in-law you should make hay while the sunshines because when he’s at school in September I can’t just be getting him in and out of nursery to see you guys.

They’re both fit & have plenty of money.

Has anyone ever achieved this request? Mother-in-law is quite nice but also been known to have a couple of drinks and get a bit prickly. If you try to say something in conversation it often gets twisted, but I’m not sue I’d be able to word a text without offending.
They are coming to us for Christmas , and I just kindly want to say if you’d like to spend more time with your grandson between now and September is a perfect opportunity, why don’t we get a plan in place?

Any ideas? I am cringing at the thought of even asking her. Why do I always feel like a failure when I need to ask for my help?

I've been a lone parent for 15 years so I understand how tired you are.
However they live 2 hours away so what support do you want? It's logistically difficult.

The other thing is I guess I would love to support my daughter when she has kids too but after 40 years of working full time I'd be reticent to so do more than once a week.

I wouldn’t want to leave a 3 year old overnight with people he isn’t that familiar with, even if they are family. That’s without the added bonus that one of those people drinks and gets ‘prickly’.

Sadly some people just aren’t that interested in their Grandchildren. I’m also in that situation and it’s taken a while to accept but I don’t try and force it. It’s their choice at the end of the day.

Your op isn't clear.

If you want more time together invite them for meals for the night over around birthdays, celebrations or just because. "we're thinking of having you guys for a bbq when can you come"

How do you visit them. Do you do it there and back in a day? Mine didn't do that easily when small bit did when older. Do you go and stay overnight some weekends as a family?

I'm confused as to whether the times they seem your son are always bbsitting? If so I'd try and move towards more shared family time with no expectation of bbs or otherwise they will dread visits/they become a chore.

Similarly you could facetime them and he can show little pictures he's done. "just ringing so he can show you what he did. Today at nursery" etc. Build the relationship you want.

How often do you see them all together as a family and spend time making memories? I’d guess they’d really like to spend some time with their son and you too rather than just looking after the grandchildren as a babysitting service so you can go away together. Dropping them off to be picked up halfway seems transactional to me. I’d feel used.

Sounds like you want to use them for unpaid babysitting. What if they want to see you all family but without them being the ones doing all the childcare work?

Can you go and see them for the weekend/invite them to come and stay/book a weekend away to all spend time together?

You need practical help with this age not weekends away and you live too far away from them for this to be an option.

If you moved closer then you could ask for more help but at the moment you are frustrated at a non issue because no matter of their offers or your asking could make this possible.

I do think your expectations are too high @TheOnlyHonestOne. How often do you see them outside of the few overnights that they watch your DC?

Every family is different. I have friends whose parents take the kids at least one overnight a fortnight. I have some who don’t have any grandparents input at all. There are kids at Dads nursery who’s parents I’ve never met because grandparents do every pick up and drop off 🤷🏻‍♀️

In our family - all grandparents were hugely excited about pregnancy and talked constantly about spending time with grandchild (now 4yo). The reality is very different:

My Parents - 3 miles away, physically see DS twice a month at my house for an afternoon each time. FaceTime him probably 3 times per week too. Can’t go to their house due to dangerous dog. They have looked after DS once for most of a day while DH and I went to a wedding of a close friend. Wedding was a 3 hour drive away but they weren’t comfortable looking after DS overnight so gave us a midnight curfew 🙈😂 That’s the extent of the alone time DH and I have had since DS was born 😂 car journey, ceremony, meal and journey home lol.

MIL - lives 5 minute walk away. Doesn’t welcome visitors in her home and is very much in her own routine so we don’t get to drop in and visit her and are limited to when she wants to see us. She comes round for 1 hour every fortnight. We occasionally see her in passing in town too so it’s a quick hello. DS would never feel comfortable being alone with her at this stage, he’s very shy around her as he doesn’t really know her.

FIL & SMIL - Lived abroad for first 2 years of DSs life. Saw him twice on video call. Moved home to spend more time with Grandchildren (DS, and 5 GC on SMIL side). Live 15 minute walk away and have seen DS 6/7 times in 2 years, mainly all at events rat
her than casually spending time together. They look after 3 of SMIL GC 3 days per week and the other 2 of SMILs GC have bedrooms at their house and see them as and when they want. They live a 5 min walk away.
Whenever we try to make plans to spend time with them (as a family - I would never want/expect childcare!) they’re busy with SMILs kids or “needing some time without GC” - which I get as they have their other GC a lot. DS would walk past them in the street, he barely recognises them at all. SMIL did pop round a few weeks ago to borrow something and DS asked her why she never stays to play with him 🫠🙃 I think it’s the most he’s ever spoken to her tbh!

I think its the distance. In my experience the children who see the grandparents very frequently live under an hour from them and the grandparents don't tend to do as much of the travelling. They live close by and the whole family see the grandparents regularly rather than the grandparents providing a lot of childfree time for the parents. Eg whole family go most weeks for sunday lunch.

When it gets to 2 hours away, the travel time means no one can manage it as often. Every 6 weeks - no way. My parents live that distance and i consider we're doing well to see them 4/5 times a year and thats not them providing childcare, that might only happen once a year. It's more us all visiting.

Your MIL loves to think of herself as a really devoted hands-on grandmother but actually can't be bothered to make the effort. I wouldn't even bother asking as you will only be disappointed. The comments she makes must be really annoying though.

Both sets of my son's grandparents live an hour away from us, in the same village. That's too far for day to day help and only my parents have had him overnight as babysitters and only 3 times since we've had him, he's now 12 so 3-4 times a year is loads. It's hard when you work full time as we both do and don't have any family close by who can help out but it does get easier as they get older.

@TheOnlyHonestOne are you leaving you lo there without one of you for the night? I definitely wouldn’t, he doesn’t know them, this could really freak him out and also you said she likes a drink ? I definitely wouldn’t leave a little child in that situation, especially when they spend so little time with him.
All the grandparents on our side have been totally hands off and aunts and uncles. I have a relative who visits (has never once offered to mind my kids ) goes out themselves but wouldn’t dream of offering to watch them so we could go for a walk or get a coffee . In fact my inlaws cause work , the complete opposite of help. I remember my mil asking me to get her a cup of tea when she visited a couple of days after I had my 2nd, like you couldn’t make it up !!
It is what it is🤷‍♀️ Some families want to help each other and others don’t.
Some grandparents just want to see their grandkids with their parents which is fair enough I guess. I would not be pulling him out to drive 2 hours and leaving him there with people he doesn’t know properly yet .

I wouldn't bother, personally.

I would only remind them that DS will only have weekend and school holidays soon and leave it there. If they really wanted more time, they would plan it, not just say it.

We had v little support with our two. It's a bitter pill to swallow, OP, so I get it, but some people like the thought of being grandparents more than the reality. It's not socially acceptable to say you're not that fussed and barely see your grandkids, though, is it.

The tiredness you feel now does get better. He's very young. It won't be like this forever.

@TheOnlyHonestOne do you visit then as a family? Do they come and visit you for weekends?

I don't really understand your posts. It seems like you're just looking for them to give you weekends off, but I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding.

My wonderful in-laws lived 2.5 hours away. It never once occurred to me that they would have our children to stay alone. We saw them every 6 weeks or so for family visits. They'd come and stay with us or we'd stay with them. But it didn't occur to me to ask them to give us a weekend off. Their role was to love their grandkids, not to provide childcare at that distance.

Bit unfair- they're all thoughtful, they just don't all tell you what you'd like to hear. It's not that 3 weekends a year is a lot, it's that it's a lot for someone who lives quite a ways away. I suppose my only advice would be to bulk up your visits to them, show that you don't just want a transactional relationship. It might be 3 or 4 overnights with their grandson, but you could still go down and see them more often for a visit.

We saw grandparents a lot with ds but it was family visits not rests for us as a rule. It was sometimes a bit of a break as eg dh and FIL would go off with ds for a few minutes, but tbh there was remarkably little of that. Most visits were about me trying to keep ds appropriately entertained in someone else's house while waiting for big family meals.

I was perhaps lucky that my own grandparents were pretty old by the time I came along, and there were so many of us, that my expectations were low. I think my dad's mum babysat me for my parents for the evening once, and we lived in the same house! As for my mum's mum, she had 17 grandchildren and i was number 15 of those so i was no novelty. I have good memories of my grandparents but they didn't pitch in as substitute parents in any way.

I think if you visit parents, it's to maintain family relationships, not to get a break as such.

How old are the grandparents OP?

I think a lot of grandparents only remember the easy bits of parenting, and then when presented with a boisterous 3 year old who gets up at 5:30am, they find their energy levels can't keep up.

My DPs live 3 hours away, so we all go to see them every 8 weeks or so. They used to come to us more, but struggle with night driving now.

They'd probably have the kids twice a year when they were young. They loved their grandkids, but being early retired, they also had full and active social lives.

In-laws live 4 hours away, and we will probably see them 2-3 times a year. Again, we all go. They used to visit more, but can no longer drive long distances and health issues mean public transport is difficult for them.

So to pop in means they are in the car for 4 hours is that right? If so why not invite them to stay? The wanting to meet half way makes it sound like the drive is the issue. I'm 60 and get very stiff if in a car for an hour despite being very fit and active.

Your post said your exhausted and want support not that you want the relationship....young children are exhausting but you make it sound like you want them to have the kids weekends so you can rest. ....that's not a relationship that's work.

Or can't be driving 4 hours so Dil can go out.

@TheOnlyHonestOne YABVVVU by framing this thread as wanting GPs'"input". Weasel words or what?
You want them to look after your children. Own it.

What are your parents offering? You say nothing about this.

Seeing your grandchild three times a year in total isn't a lot at all. But having him overnight on his own three times a year is a lot, given that they live two hours away. Don't you all spend time together, with you and DH there too? Do they only see him on the occasions when they have him to stay for a night on his own?

This
As hard as it is OP, I wouldn't ask or make suggestions
If they wanted to see your son more, they would.
If they wanted to be more involved, they could do so easily.
This situation isn't unusual

I wouldn't ask - ultimately it's their choice you can't make them see gc more. 2 hours is a fair distance do they still work?