AIBU - kids sleeping over at GP’s

[Chiavennasca]

My 2 boys, aged 4 & 8, love staying at their GP’s house (DH’s parents.) They stay over every Friday after school. Me and DH love the child free night and usually pick them up the next day about 1/2pm.

here’s my problem. I know they love being fun grandparents, and I get it but sometimes I do wish they would “adult” a bit more. They don’t put them to bed at all, there is no bed time, they get to lie in bed and watch tv till they fall asleep. This is usually after midnight. But both my boys are early risers so they’re still up at 8am the following morning. This means when I pick them up the rest of Saturday is spent with angry, overtired children. but GPs see it as a fun thing “no bed time at Gran and Papas woohoo!” For note - they are both retired and complete night owls themselves.

my other issue is food. Again, they are coming at the angle of being fun grandparents so every meal seems to be optional. Today, MIL said to me “we offered DC (8) x y and z for breakfast but he didn’t want any of it - so he ended up having a packet of wotsits!” I don’t give my DC a choice for breakfast they eat what’s set down in front of them. I know for a fact if she’d given my DC toast or cereal or whatever without question he’d have eaten it.

after we picked them up today, at 2pm, both DCs were hungry (both only had snacks all day - was told sandwiches were made but not eaten) and overtired and crabby. Honestly the rest of the day was a right off and now they’ve both had to go to bed super early on a Saturday night to catch up on sleep. I’m exhausted. For reference - both kids are genuinely super easy go with the flow kids.

I said to my DH that I think we need a break from sleepovers. They are our only outside childcare so they don’t sleepover anywhere else. Me and DH do love the time alone together on a Friday night / sat morning but honestly I don’t think it’s worth it for how rubbish the rest of our Saturday ends up being.

AIBU?

You can ask the GPs to give them a proper bed time and proper food. Believe me if the choice is not seeing their grandchildren they will comply. I would never dream of doing this to my grandchildren as I would be quite rightly told off. My grandchildren have TV rationed by their parents. Don’t most people read bed time stories anymore?

It's not a win if everybody is having a bad day on the Saturday because the kids are tired and hungry.
It's one thing having relaxed rules it 's something else completely ignoring them.

My friends regularly have their 2 gds for a day and night. I was horrified when I saw what rubbish she was feeding them. She offered them a choice of 5 different ice lollies, opened the ‘treats’ cupboard and chocolate bars, sweets and crisps came tumbling out. The girls then wouldn’t eat their dinner, but it didn’t matter, they could have toast later! They are also allowed to stay up until very late. When I asked what the parents thought, I was told it’s up to grandparents to spoil grandkids and it doesn’t do any harm. However, they did this with their other grandchildren, didn’t stop when asked and now they don’t have sleepovers, rarely see the DiL and don’t know what they’ve done wrong!

They aren't "fun" grandparents.
They are lazy and feckless.
As previous posters have said they should be reading bedtime stories, making nice breakfasts with the kids? and spending quality time together.
Any idiot can let kids run amok and be up half the night.

I'm very sorry to read about your mum and it's lovely that your in laws were able to step in and help during what must have been a very difficult time. I suspect your in laws wanted to make that time as fun for your boys as possible and the not so great habits have just stuck.
I don't have any experience of my DC having regular sleepovers with relatives (the last child free night DH & I had was 14 years ago, before DS was born) so perhaps it's easier for me to say this than for it to actually be done, & I do know how difficult it can be trying to discuss things with various family members without them taking it all as a personal insult. However, I'd explain to the grandparents that the sleepovers need to be reduced to every other weekend as they are having a detrimental affect on the boys and your weekend family time.
If the grandparents are able to enforce stricter boundaries during these visits, which result in improved behaviour at home after the sleepovers then you can perhaps look to increasing the frequency again. If nothing changes then the frequency gets reduced again (from every otherweekendto oncea month).
I appreciate you enjoy the child free time but if it's impacting you as a family then something needs to change.

You could stop the sleepovers and let them go over every Friday after school and pick them up at bedtime.

Do a sleepover once a month and leave things go as they go.

Or have a gentle world about the time they go to sleep. If that didn't work then it would be option 1 or 2.

I think a previous poster has made a good point about whether the grandparents can actually cope with the weekly sleepovers. Maybe they allow late nights and anything for breakfast because they can't cope if the children refuse to do as they are told. You mention with the wotsits that they did offer other food which was presumably more appropriate, so maybe they just didn't want to deal with the tantrum that might have followed if they insisted that they had to eat that item.
Kids can be quite canny and if they know the grandparents are a bit of a soft touch then they might make the most of these sleepover opportunities to get what they want.

They are doing you a favour looking after your children if you aren’t happy look after them yourselves. X

I dont think any of us can make assumptions about how the GPs will respond to being asked to modify the routines and breakfast.

I think if they want to have them that frequently there needs to be some rules. A family member looks after my son 3/4 nights a year so I say nothing about the late night/excess screen time and snacks. But if it was more regular I would be asking for at leaat reasonable bedtime and normal breakfast

My paternal GM used to babysit for us once a month or so and never made us go to bed, I loved it but was always crabby the next day. I don't see why you can't have a gentle word with your PIL to explain the problem and say that you just find the next day exhausting.

Although as i Grandparent i insist on bedtimes with no tv i let them choose breakfast. They would never ask their parents for ice cream, doughnuts or Pringles but know that at the weekend when they are with me they can have whatever they want.
You need to tell your MIL that you insist on them being asleep by 9. Let them eat whatever they like at their Grandparents.

I cannot believe that parents are moaning because gp have the kids every single week overnight and most of the following weekend day! My god I was lucky if I got 4 nights total the whole time my kids were little! Some people don’t realise how bloody lucky they are! You can provide the food you want your kids to eat and you can politely ask gps to make sure they’re in bed by a certain time but moaning because their gps love the kids and the kids have fun, what ever next 🤦🏽‍♀️

I have my grandchildren to stay now and again and I do find it hard to get them to bed! I'm old and get tired, usually get one or both of them in bed with me,readstories and fall asleep myself. I do manage to get them to eat,they are always hungry.
My daughter doesn't seem to mind that they get a bit spoilt at mine. She did t ha e very hands on grandparents. I have to ration the screen time though (hard!)
We always have a great time,I think grandparents should be allowed a bit of slack. Once a week is too much though,for all concerned.

I don’t really think it’s moaning I think it’s a poster asking others if their views on something are unreasonable, which I don’t think they are. You can be grateful and still express concern… children need routine lots of research supports this.

Ask go to give a proper breakie and less snacks and a decent bedtime - you say no later than ……

or they don’t go and you don’t get your adult time

tbh every fri night is a lot. Maybe they want a break and drop it to every other

I’d put it to the boys that if they want to keep going then they need to do 2 things - go to bed by a certain time (sure it can be later than usual) and eat breakfast.
The 8 year old can follow that.

After that tell GPs it’s an agreement you have with the boys to do this.

1. you likely can’t have it both ways
2. 8am is not an early riser.

I have my grandchildren after school weekly, overnight regularly and I have rules. Grandparenting is an extension of parenting and I follow the parents rules. Not super strictly but bedtimes and eating proper meals is non negotiable. I might cut sandwiches into dinosaurs or stars and spend hours on messy crafting that perhaps mum and dad don't have time for but indulging children to the point of exhaustion and poor eating on a weekly basis is ridiculous and I'd limit overnights to once a month and if they still can't transition to some rules down to 6 weeks. Having grand children is a privilege not a right and they are abusing the privilege

Firstly I’d get your husband to speak to his parents. Let them know how much you appreciate what they do. Tell them how difficult it’s becoming for the children. Ask them to set a bed time. It can be later than at home but by an hour or so. They can have some treats but not at the expense of food.

If they won’t agree or don’t do this then I’d stop the sleep overs.

Gosh, what harsh comments

Thank you every single person for replying. I have genuinely tried to read them all but there are so many!

my in-laws adore the boys and love the sleepovers - I wouldn’t let the children go if I thought they begrudged it. The boys also love staying - but they love going for arts & crafts with gran or for running in the garden with the dogs , I know the boys would still love to go if there was an earlier bed an a better breakfast enforced.

they will still be staying this Friday as both DH & I are working Saturday this weekend (we both work in banks and have to do the occasional Saturday shifts) but I finish work at 1 so I’m going to pick them up after work and bring them home for a chilled day for the rest of the day and see how we go. And thanks to the poster who suggested taking fav cereals etc I think I’ll try that too.

Thanks everyone x

Have a gentle word with lovely Gps but 'don't throw the baby out with the bath water ' it is only one night and you are really blessed. It will alter as they get older. Grandma speaking here.

Um no actually. I have a very open relationship with my daughter and she's absolutely fine with this. Of course other meals are available for him at my house. I mentioned pizza as I feel guilty for indulging him in what I consider not very healthy meals but my daughter is fine with it as I said he eats healthy all other times. My daughter may work full time but she also really enjoys cooking and still enjoys takeaways when she's too tired. I think you've read way too much in my post. It's really not a big deal and believe me my DD would let me know if it bothered her.

Also weird of you to think that I don't work either and have all day to make healthy dinners? My family have all been brought up on healthy home cooked food with the occasional takeaway. I don't deliberately feed GS pizza every Friday thinking sod what my daughter thinks. I have him 5 days a week after school and one night a week sleepover. I've saved her thousands in childcare fees but I do so because I have worked myself around his school times to help my DD because I want to, and I have spent 10 years homeschooling my ND youngest daughter and attending her appointments weekly. I'm 52 years old. Not a granny who is sat on her backside all day knitting on my rocking chair. So yeah he gets a pizza on a Friday not because he sees it as his little routine and a treat. My daughter WANTS to cook dinner every evening. And shock horror but he might have a pizza another night in the week!

It's not like pizza is even that unhealthy. It's bread, tomato and cheese, for goodness sake!