DD leaving her baby with me

[CustardCreamsfortea]

My DD is 17 and had her baby (dgs) just before Christmas. Unplanned pregnancy and her then boyfriend (dgs's dad) wanted nothing to do with them both. She only found out that she was pregnant 7 weeks before dgs was born.

The first few weeks was fine and with support from myself and her older sister, she was looking after him with no issues. The last month or so I think the novelty has worn off for her. She frequently goes out with her mates and leaves dgs with me without asking if it's ok. I've told her I don't mind babysitting if it's prearranged and I don't already have plans but several times now I've had plans and she's gone out without asking if I'll look after him. I've then either had to cancel my plans or take him with me. I try calling her to come home and she won't answer her phone or texts

I've tried sitting down and talking to her but it goes in one ear and out of the other. She says she'll stay at home more then doesn't. Last night she went about 3pm and didn't come back until early this morning. Didn't answer her phone in that time. So I was left looking after dgs all night.

How do I get her to step up and start looking after her son?

@CustardCreamsfortea

"She only found out that she was pregnant 7 weeks before dgs was born. "

I think this is very important. She's had no time at all to think things through, and to get her head around the fact that she's a mother now. Have a look for some parenting support charities in the area, she needs to do some parenting classes and probably needs some counselling to help her deal with this huge, sudden responsibility and the changes it brings.

As for the baby's dad, can you contact him or his family. It's completely unacceptable that he thinks he can just walk away and leave her (and you) literally holding the baby. He's 50% responsible for conception, and needs to step up and take responsibility for the consequences of his actions, even if it's just financial maintenance and visits to see grandparents. You are not this baby's only family.

You need to have an honest and open conversation.

Maybe come to an agreement, ie you will have the baby every Saturday night from 7pm until 7am the next morning (unless you have your own plans). Outside of that time it's down to your daughter to sort things out!

If she doesn't stick to it then you shouldn't either!

Just a thought, do you have any concerns that she wouldn't look after the baby, or would go out and leave him, if you weren't home?

If you know she wouldn't leave him and he'd be OK, then on a night you think she may be going out without telling you, I'd be tempted to just get up and go out like she does and get home late.

She will then realise he's her responsibility and she needs to sort child care arrangements etc in advance!

Agree. Come to an agreement on timetable.

i understand she's only 19 and doesn't want to miss out things in her life but letting you do all the heavy weightlifting is very immature. It's a perfect timing to teach her to be a responsible parent when things just getting started, Unless you are willing to take care of DGS as your new baby who you will be caring him 24/7, otherwise, setting things straight as early as possible will be the way to go.

Another possibly will be hiring some baby sitters, your daughter will contribute a pot of money into an account. Whenever she suddenly goes out unplanned, you will contact the emergency baby sitter and free both of your time. Some money will be spent unfortunately but If there is zero consequence, she is likely to do it again and again and piling up frustrations between you two.

She doesn't need a Saturday night babysitter. She needs a coparent. Her ex has fucked off. Most of the people diving on OPs daughter (and likely OP themselves) had a partner when they gave birth that shared childcare, planned the baby, and had a one heck of a lot more time than 7 weeks to come to terms with it.

OP doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to of course. But if OP washes her hands and says 'you're on your own' the daughter either isn't going to do it and social services will get involved and baby end up in care or she will do it against her will and her mental health will take a big hit.

This baby is only 2-3 months old. At this point my DH was doing shifts with me. I would go to bed at 8pm and he would keep baby until 1/2am apart from a 10pm feed to let me get some sleep as my baby woke every 20 min. If I'd had no help bar Saturday 7-7 I'd have been in a very very dark place. And I'm someone that chose to become a parent, in my 30s.

@SaveMeFromMyBoobs OP and her other DD were supporting with the baby, it's all in the opening post. All OP has asked for is that she be asked when she is meant to be looking after the baby in advance so she retains her own social life. Co-parenting does mean communicating and respecting the other person.

Ultimately looking after a baby requires personal sacrifice of time, sleep and energy , be that from one, two or more people. Everyone needs to know if DD will step up to the plate as if she doesn't then baby becomes OPs responsibility, and she's allowed to want to make a conscious decision if she takes that in or not.

Speak to health visitors see if they can help and sit her down and explain you don't mind her seeing her friends but the baby is hers. They need her.

It sounds as if your daughter might be in shock and possibly suffering with PND. To find out you are pregnant 7 weeks before birth and effectively have no choice about what to do with the baby (ie choosing to terminate) must have been really quite scary for her, especially because the dad wants nothing to do with them.

I think it’s a good idea to contact SS and see if they can give her some mental health support. She may need someone other than her mum to talk to her. If she had found out earlier there would have been lots of support in place to help her prepare for having a baby and what to expect. Finding out that late obviously didn’t give her time to wrap her head around the massive changes and responsibilities she now has.

In the meantime you will most likely need to carry on looking after your grandchild as I doubt she will change overnight, but hopefully once she can get some external support things will improve. If they don’t improve, it’s going to have to be a difficult decision for you as to whether you want to raise another child or whether telling your daughter to put the baby up for adoption would be the better option. The priority should always be the well-being of the child, even if that means you loose out as a grandparent.

please Contact social services. They will know the best ways to support and encourage your DD.
it is awful that she technically abandons her baby son for a night out, and absolutely dreadful that while away from him she ignores all calls! What if he was taken sick and was taken into hospital? Where do you stand legally with that? Can doctors treat him without Mother’s say-so?
You need to nip this in the bud though, next she’ll be jetting off somewhere without telling you and leaving baby in your care for
a week without telling you.

Someone has to put the needs of this baby first. It sounds like that isn't where your daughter is atm. Understandable perhaps but the problem is the baby's attachments. How is she with the baby when she is with him? Does she play and interact well or is she withdrawn and irritated? Imo going out while you babysit is a lesser problem than the daily interactions. And what will she do for childcare going forward?

If she isn't interested, you need to decide whether to parent this baby yourself. Plenty of grandparents do. But others don't.

But I think you need to look realistically at what is going on and decide on a strategy for the next 18 years.

I have 2 adopted children. They were passed around like parcels as babies as birth mum didn't really want them and they will never recover from what it did to their attachments.

Have you considered councilling for her, and also maybe for yourself? If your dd only found out she was pregnant 7 weeks before giving birth that's no time for adjustment that your life has changed for ever. No time to consider if she was ready or wanted the baby. No time to talk it through or think about what it means.

She needs to talk about what it is she wants and or needs to get her head around what's happened to her.

My youngest is 17 this year. I’m 57 this year. I would support them with a baby but I’m afraid id make it perfectly clear that the primary responsibility is theirs. I’m knackered, I’m all over parenting and, frankly, want to spend a bit of time on my job, on exercise and on my health. I’ve got bugger all pension and a limited time to make one up.

I think my main priority at this stage would make sure the baby is MASSIVELY MASSIVELY loved ❤️

everything else will work itself out .. one way or another ..

Are we referring to love as a noun or a verb here?
I'm sure if asked the DD would say she loves her own baby to the moon and back, possibly with some heart emojis, but what babies actually need is 24/7 care involving lack of sleep for the person or persons providing it. We don't know how much care OP can and wants to provide, she may be working and have other caring responsibilities.

I think the suggestion f counselling for both the DD and OP is a good one.

Firstly, I'm sorry you've all found yourselves in this situation. There's already some great advice on here (except for the adoption comment.)
There are family support workers you can contact through your local authority. They can help support you both as you try to figure out what the "new normal" will look like. Good luck.

Obviously she's way too young to take on the responsibility of a small baby and has no emotional maturity to take him on. She's young and wants to go out she probably has little understanding of his development, how important time with her is etc.

Goodness I've just read some really nasty responses here I'm amazed that people think the brain and maturity of a child can switc?? h so quickly into a responsible caring mum

People are just saying a lot of us became mums her age or even younger and never acted like this. Its insulting to other young mums to say "she's 17" as an excuse.

Even the poster who mentioned adoption wasn't unreasonable if mum and gran both don't want to raise the child then it's best to consider adoption asap because it's easier for babies to be adopted than older children and obvs adoption is much better than fostered for the child.

There is a quote in the adoption world "love is not enough". Mothers who have their babies removed mostly love their children but can't prioritise their needs. That can be for lots of reasons - learning disabilities, addictions, putting a violent partner first, not having been parented well themselves etc - but the baby misses out and can never fully recover from the impact of it.

What we have here is a flaky mother and a grandmother who never signed up for this. Gm's only strategy seems to be to expect that her daughter will step up. But what if she doesn't?

This situation can't just be left to drift. Either the mother commits to parenting her son or gives her mother parental responsibility- or social services will undoubtedly get involved. Everyone is howling at adoption- social services are able to forcibly remove children and have them adopted and that's a real possibility if this family doesn't sort this out.

It happened to my friend. Her daughter got pregnant, got fed up being the mummy, my friend couldn't take the baby and the child was removed and is currently in the adoption process. They are all devastated.

I suggest that the OP gets proper support from one of the kinship caring organisations like frg.org.uk or kinship.org.uk

No it won't. Get your head out of the clouds

I’m actually shocked at the amount of people saying adoption as an option! I think that’s very extreme.I think OP is just asking advice on how to help her daughter realise she needs to step up. The baby is clearly loved and cared for. If it came to putting the child in care/ adoption etc OP obviously wouldn’t want that well I guess anyway as seen as she’s already taking on parent role of the baby. I can’t imagine what you’re going through as a mother of A 16 year old myself. I'd be devastated if she ended up pregnant. I think she just needs reassurance, time and love to adjust. I became a mum a 21 I know not as young as 17 but I felt I wasn’t ready and put a lot on my mum. You need to put your foot down and lay out some ground rules and show her you mean business. You said she asks you so maybe you’re abit soft with her? Stand up to her and say no. I think I read in earlier thread someone said have set days times etc make it more official. I know shes her mum but she’s still a kid herself and she needs to learn and needs time to adjust. I hope everything becomes easier I’m sure it will in time. You’re a great mum stepping in the way you have.

Of course adoption is an option

I agree adoption is an option if she doesnt want to be a mum.

Eventually it would be, but social services aren’t just going to take the baby after a brief meeting.

First of all, the DD would have to explicitly say she didn’t want to be a mum and would go through a lot to ensure she was 100% sure about this, and she isn’t. She hasn’t actually expressed she doesn’t want the baby, she’s just being, well, a teenager about it and hasn’t adapted well. If given an ultimatum it’s unlikely she’d say ‘yes, take my baby away.’

Then the first thing they’d do would be to try to place the baby with relatives - voila. So the OP would also have to sever ties to her grandchild . This process would take several weeks if not months, with counselling and other professionals involved and they would try to ensure the baby stayed with its mother.

Do posters think SS would turn up, take the baby with just a brief ‘you sure? OK.’

I would like to get to know some more Mum's. I am a Single Parent of an 11 Year Old Daughter

OP, have you considered the very high likelihood that she will soon get pregnant again and you will be left looking after two babies, maybe more? possibly bringing them up yourself for the next 18 years?

There has been no real consequences to her, other than a bit of notoriety with her mates and getting out of college to do fuck all.

Where's the incentive for her to be more careful in future?