Nobody fed the baby.

[shaylla]

I need a bit of perspective from others point of view here please.

A 13 month old - given breakfast at 7.30, then instead of his normal lunch is only given half an eggs worth of scrambled egg at lunch time. No water or milk all day then till 5 when another adult returns home and finds out (and feeds baby immediately). The adult/s in charge of the baby all day 'didn't realise' ... ??

This is neglect yes?

My guess is grandparents actually fed baby treats and juice and don't want to fess up.

I wonder if the father was even present for lunch? It sounds like he left that part to his parents, which might explain them having given the baby other things if they're less familiar with his routine.

An outrageous allegation based on zero evidence!

(But highly likely to be correct. 😁)

It'd be one explanation why there were nappy changes needed whilst the sippy cup remained dry!

How large was the breakfast? Maybe it was full/ refused food? Apparently I was like this as an infant.

The concept of 'snacks' is very recent.

I agree the lack of liquid is a worry.

Absolutely it is and not just food but drinks

@User860131 So you've spent an entire day wasting people's time, being cryptic and vague.

Seriously, fuck off. The OP is concerned about her GDD...you may come her for entertainment only, but OP needed advice and she chose to withhold info to not influence bias.

I agree with PP that something doesn't add up here, grandparents who have raised at least one child between them don't know they have to give a baby liquid throughout the day? I just can't believe that is true, three adults in the house and no one thought to givedrink to the child they were looking after??.. definitely more to this story.

Either they gave stuff that wasn't approved on purpose, or they didn't realise there was stuff left after they offered to watch the baby so the dad could go off and do whatever he did all day. Or dad has lied about what happened because he does not want to be left with the baby one day a week and knows OPs mum will come in and save the day if he fucks it up badly enough.

I know you are concerned OP, but women actually do themselves a diservice by taking over and infantalising their partners the way your daughter is, men are completely capable of looking after children, but if they are never expected to do it, or in the case of someone I know they were never allowed to do anything (feed, nappies, nightimes, nothing!), then they will not have the first clue about how to look after a child, the idea is for both people to learn together at the same time on an equal footing, not one do literally everything while the other does absolutely nothing.. why do women tolerate it?

This is why it's important to give proper information. A random relative babysitting for the day is a lot different from the child's own father failing to care for the child. As usual, we're talking about a woman who has made a rod for her own back by taking on responsibility for everything baby-related because she had the baby with a useless man. This has resulted in the child's own father not being able to look after his own child without his parents' support. And you will not help the situation by taking on the child an extra day. You are just another shit-man enabler. This is their business to sort out.

Well thank you so much for the kinder posts 😊

I will leave now, but some thoughts:

I agree that me having the babe another day a week solves nothing long term. I'm a gran, but my strongest pull is still towards my own children, and looking after my eldest's baby for her another day, to take the stress of this away for her, was my first and purest instinct. (she's still my baby! 😊) It's not the right thing though and i haven't offered in the end.

I'm going to keep a firm eye on this. See what occurs next week. So is DD ...

He was WFH but mon is his lightest work load day - just a few emails - which is why DD and her employer settled on this day to be the one for her to go in. She's done a couple of months being back in on a mon. I'm saying this is the first time the baby has gone without a drink on a mon - but who really knows? It's very upsetting to think about.

I'm amused by so many posters being so positive that in reality the baby did get water and milk somehow and even, in fact, had the time of his life! It's like they can't process reality so pretend everything was probably ok really. The ''chinese whispers'' were: the father (who was there all day)(and the downstairs is tiny by the way, clean and modern but kitchen and living room is one space so you can see everything all at once) fessing up that his parents had offered the wrong food, given simply a bit of scambled egg instead and left a couple of hours later. And then he'd not thought to give milk or water or thought to perhaps offer the normal/correct lunch mid afternoon or something.

Anyway - thanks again to all. I'm going back to lurking now

Has your DD told him how disappointed she was? Is this strategic incompetence at the expense of the baby's wellbeing so that he won't be asked to care for his baby again or is he just completely useless?

Bit of a drip drip drip of 3rd hand drama tbh. First baby wasn't fed at all - except half an egg and a mystery "wrong food". Making out dad was a lazy fecker who can't parent by himself - now turns out he was actually working.... Making out it was the first time, but in fact he has been managing for a couple of months already....
They need to use proper childcare on days they are both working, and your DD needs to loosen up and let dad choose lunch sometimes - nothing wrong with offering baby scrambled egg.

Honestly wtf - I’m reading for the first time here on Mumsnet that apparently some people wfh while having their kids around. That’s taking advantage and abusing the privilege to work from home. Unless you sit down at a later time and work what you’ve missed while taking care of your kid.

Plus, if it was the grandparents who fed the baby, he can't know for sure how much the baby ate and might not have noticed if they'd provided a drink or not. All you know for sure is that he didn't.

Sorry but if the partner is working from home, surely a proper childcare arrangement needs to be in place. A lot of companies do not like this, are they even aware that he is looking after the child?
Is this why the other grandparents were there this time?

To me it sounds like your daughter is just generally annoyed that perhaps the food she made wasn't given - why he couldn't be trusted to rustle up something himself anyway (is she always this controlling?) and has gone running to you.

If this was the first time this has happened and he has managed on other weeks this really is a non issue and no where near as dramatic as the title first suggested.

Totally this. You can't look after a 13 month old and work at the same time. You can't do quality work, and it's unsafe and boring for the kid. They need to pay for childcare.

I want to know where everyone finds these jobs! I would love a work from home job that is simply sending a few emails, and I can breezily look after a toddler at the same time

Same! I usually have meetings back to back and have a hard time squeezing in a pee break.

Unless the OP's son in law actually saw you take your pee break, I'm afraid we have to assume you didn't wee between 7 and 5.

For all you know his employer is fine with it. You're filling in gaps.

That said, even if its all tickety boo work wise, it's clearly too chaotic in terms of childcare. They need a better arrangement.

So dad was working
Grandparents offered food....i suspect maybe a snack and possibly juicevor something. Dad probably had no clue. DD i feel for her that sucks. Its seems overwhelming for them both

The father has recruited his parents to pop in and share the care because ... to be sure, i don't even know - he finds it a lot on his own or something (trying not to eyeroll)

This from one of your posts is quite telling tbh.. he was working from home while taking care of the baby and his parents 'popped in' around lunch time to help, I think most of what you put was extremely misleading to be almost untrue, seeing as you basically said that 3 adults were home alone with baby all day and none of them gave him food or drink... even though this setup has been working fine for at least 2 months?

I take it from the above quote that your daughter normally cares for her baby while she is working from home (apart from the day you have them) and therefore you expect him to be able to do it as well? Surely that depends on the job.. no one should be working from home and also be in sole charge of a baby all day.. if they are both there and tag teaming it then maybe it works okay, but obviously expecting someone to do it completely on their own is too much imo.

Sure, I’m pretty positive bosses are ecstatic to pay their workers for working while they’re on childcare duty.

As I said, there might be flexible hour arrangements - taking off earlier to pick up a kid from kindergarten and work in the evening to answer some mails, but beyond that I doubt any boss would sign off on regular working hours being used to work simultaneously to taking care of a child.

So as I said, you don't know. 'I doubt' means absolutely nothing.

There certainly are jobs where bosses don't mind people doing childcare whilst working on admin stuff, quiet periods are similar. The number of such roles is more than zero. You've no information about whether this is one of them. What we do actually know is that this isn't working from the childcare side.

Was the person in charge of the baby a parent of the child? If not, they never need to be watching that baby again