AIBU to look after granddaughter for childcare but not pick up from nursery?

[BeCosyFox]

My daughter is going back to work soon and plans to have granddaughter in nursery 5 days a week. I have happily offered to have her 3 of those days. I only work part time and would love to look after her on the other days I can. She doesn’t want that and wants her to go to nursery but has asked for some wrap around care. Grandaughter won’t be in nursery full days but half a day with wrap around care from me on the 3 days I can do (as her shift starts later in the day and ends after nursery closing time) I will have her about and hour and a half for those 3 days if I was going by what daughter wants. I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t want me to have her, we have a good relationship and are close and I’ve looked after my other grandchild (from other daughter) in a similar way before he went to school and it was a huge help being able to offer free childcare with lots of one on one time, it’s made me and my grandson have a lovely bond and I’d like the same with my granddaughter. I’m always happy to follow any rules she would like etc but she is adamant on nursery and I cannot understand why that’s the case. So many of my friends say it’s lovely I can offer that and their children would jump at the opportunity for a grandparent to have them over nursery and I agree and am hurt by this to the point that I don’t want to do the wrap around care for nursery. Is it unreasonable to say no to the pick up from nursery even though I’d have her for the whole 3 days? I just feel it’s not a give and take situation and if she doesn’t want me to have her in the day, then I don’t want to do that. I am very hurt she would prefer to pay nursery fees and have her child with nursery workers over her grandmother

She probably thinks you can't handle a 1 year old 3 full days a week but doesn't want to offend you. I would never let my mum look after my baby 3 full days no matter how much she offered

You'd be cutting your nose off to spite your face. You're angry that you don't get 3 full days with your granddaughter, so you'll take no time at all instead? That's a manipulative power play and not thinking about anyone but yourself. And even then, you're also ending up worse off, so you're causing upset for no benefit to anyone!

Your attitude towards this is perhaps why she doesn't want you to be doing significant care. You say you're willing to follow whatever she wants in terms of looking after the child, but that doesn't align with your "my way or the highway" approach to being asked to do fewer hours than you'd like. How can she trust you'll follow other requests, if you go nuclear and threaten to do nothing at all over something like this?

My point is it's nicer to be at home with granny than at nursey especially when you're one year old.
Not really about hanging about.

No I wouldn’t disrupt my days off for a little wrap around care. Tell her to sort the lot out herself.

While I agree it's the mum's choice who looks after her child your examples don't make sense. If OP is sick/on holiday/working her daughter will be screwed anyway because she doesn't finish work in time to pick her child up from nursery..
I would do it though if you want to be involved. You'll still see your granddaughter a lot more than most grandparents do. Plenty of time to build a bond and you don't need to do solo childcare to form a bond either.

It sounds like you are being petty, because she won’t give you all the time you want you are trying to force a situation where she has to accept all or nothing from you. You may end up cutting off your nose to spite your face, she may find a solution that doesn’t involve you for those days her shifts end after the nursery closes and the you won’t get any extra time.

I pay for my childcare

i think declining wrap around because you want full days IS cutting your nose to spite your face.
of course she can do what she likes and decline to do any but it’s a bit stupid to have none because you are insisting on more.

some is better than none.

I don't think the Op sounds petty or spiteful as others have said.She seems hurt , rightly or wrongly.

I understand the choice of nursery, due to development of social and other skills. If you want a good relationship with your grandchild have them for the few hours after nursery on the three days - seems rather churlish saying it's full days or nothing.

It does mess with your day though. If I have an appointment with someone I care for in the later afternoon, it affects my plans for the entire day. I don't see why having the child for a full day, as opposed to part of the day, would make any difference in relation to how much it messes with being able to plan things for the day, but OP may not think the trade off is worth it.

For example, if I want to do a full day trip (I do regularly), if I have to be back by 3 I often can't do the trip at all. I might decide that it's not worth giving that opportunity up for an hour and a half, but might feel it's worth it for a longer period. Or maybe I am willing to give up a day of employment to care for a grandchild, but not for just a short time. So OP isn't unreasonable to say no if what is offered doesn't suit her. She is unreasonable if she's only saying no out of protest or to try to manipulate what she wants.Not her child, not her choice, but she has no obligation to accept an offer.

People have given some really good reasons on here do they resonate? I'd add the socialisation aspect. My kids have thrived at nursery, made lovely friendship groups and were well prepared for the structured learning format at school.
The 30 free hours from 9 months kick in in September too and places are getting tricky to secure. She's perhaps worried about needing something secured incase your situation changes down the line.

I understand why you would feel disappointed and it's fine to say that this arrangement doesn't work for you.

I think the after nursery slot will give you all the worst bits of looking after your GS and few of the best bits as he will probably be tired and grumpy and this is a big tie for you.

So you don't want to help your daughter out by picking hp from
Nursery? What is she to do if you were to go on Holiday or are sick?

If you’d rather not see your GC at all, and make decisions just to make a point, that’s entirely up to you and you’re within your rights to do so. But then I think she’s made the right choice having gc in nursery. And I think you’re disingenuous to say it’s important to you to have a strong bond with DGC becsuse clearly it’s more important to make a point.

also most of the nurseries around here it’s cheaper to do more days, or some only accept people or more quickly accept people doing more days, so she might not have had a choice. Lots of people say children settle better if they’re there more and it’s a routine, so this may be best for your gc, who is rightly the priority, not you.

Not if that doesn't suit OP. She may not want a worn out child for an hour at the end of the day. That's not cutting off her nose to spite her own face, it's not doing something that doesn't suit her. The child's mother will need to also pay for the wraparound like you do or sort someone else if grandparent childcare isn't available.

Well it's far better for a child to be cared for by a family member than a nursery IMO

Why on earth would you think that? Why would a granny with no training be better than experienced childcare workers? Bonkers!

Do you think she’s concerned about you having more of a bond with the kid than her?

I think YABU. There are many benefits to nursery and you should be respecting her decisions and preferences as the parent. I can understand you declining the 1.5hrs a day if it would interrupt something you would now go and do instead of childcare, but it’s fairly clear you are just annoyed and cutting off your nose to spite your face. You are also inserting WAY too many of your own opinions into this situation which is a bit of a red flag (and maybe this is a sign of why your daughter prefers partial nursery?).

So you can respect your daughter’s choices, have a good relationship with her and spend some quality time with her granddaughter every week, or you can be resentful and difficult because someone isn’t doing exactly what you want them to do. Your choice at the end of the day.

OP, YABU, and manipulative. Not good.

82% of people in your survey think you are being unreasonable @BeCosyFox

Can you accept that you probably are and that it is up to the child's parents how they organise care for their daughter, not you? It's petty if you refuse to pick up from nursery despite previously indicating you are free those days and such pettiness could damage your relationship with your daughter and SIL.

I might be going against the grain here, but I wouldn't do the pick ups solely based on the fact that Children after Nursery are cranky! Tired, hungry and it won't be 'quality' time as you wanted. However your daughter does have every right to put her child in Nursery despite your offer of alternative childcare. Maybe you could offer to have DGC 1x Saturday a Month so Mum and Dad can have some 'quality' time together?

Might be the precise reason why OPs daughter doesn’t want her around the kid as much.

this my way or the highway and spitefulness make me wonder about OPs usual behavior towards her daughter too. It could be that she is in general controlling or manipulative in this kind of way.

There may be lots of reasons why your daughter wants her little one in nursery. Ours has a minimum number of hours requirement to access the government funding not to mention it that nursery provides childcare security and it's good for teaching little ones to socialise. My DC all go to nursery because we wanted them to have a fun grandparent relationship with our parents, not a replacement parent relationship which my DH had with his grandmother. If you were to have little one for 3 days per week that would be almost as much as your daughter looked after her and definitely treads into parenting rather than childminding territory IMO, that could cause problems in your relationship with your daughter. I would tread carefully here, it comes across as you only want to get your own way and aren't considering what's best for your granddaughter

You sound nice 👍

While my mum was very nice, she doesn't understand modern parenting and there are things about how she raised me that I don't like. It's about far more than things like screen time and sugar intake, which are easy to define and agree on approaches to. It's things like attitudes, how my mum approaches like, her way of speaking negatively about some things, an anxiety that my mum exudes that I didn't enjoy as a child (and can recognise now). Maybe your daughter wants a different upbringing for her own child than she had with you, OP, for any number of reasons. This can be the case even if you are close (I am with my mum), snd is perfectly valid.