AIBU not wanting my parents to babysit despite their offers to help

[Rapunzelsbungalow]

I haven’t really got on with my parents for years. We’re not NC or anything dramatic, we’ve just gradually drifted because I don’t particularly like them and, on the fairly rare occasions I have actually needed help, they’ve let me down.
For context, they do help my siblings regularly. I’m not talking about expecting them to be constantly available to me, I mean the odd occasion where I genuinely needed help. For example, once I had an emergency boiler repair while I was stuck about 300 miles away with work, and they wouldn’t help. Before anyone says I shouldn’t be asking for help from someone I don’t really like, the blatent favouritism towards my siblings was what drove the wedge, I wasn’t asking for favours from people I didn’t like I was asking for help from my parents and getting ground down seeing how much they didn’t for others and wouldn’t for me.

I’ve now had a baby, and it’s just me. I was actually getting on fine. Since the baby arrived, my parents have started coming round much more. They seemed increasingly frustrated that I was happy for them to visit but wasn’t asking them to do things for me.
The problem is that there hasn’t really been anything they could do that would actually make my life easier. When they asked what they could do, I did eventually make a couple of suggestions, and they said no because they didn’t think those were the sorts of things they should be helping with. So I stopped asking. I asked if they could look after my dog whilst I took baby into work for a KIT day, they said no-which is fine, I got a dog walker to come in, but if I ask for help and am turned down I then won’t keep putting myself in a place I am rejected.
My view is that help is only really help if it removes a burden from the person you’re helping. Otherwise it’s involvement, rather than help. So I don’t need the baby’s laundry being done- it’s a pain to separate it out from mine and wait two days to have it back, I don’t need the hoover putting round, I feel uncomfortable with them making beds.
Now they’ve started talking about having the baby for sleepovers and taking them out for days, and I keep batting it away. They keep saying I need a break and that they could give me one.
But I don’t actually want a break in that way. I don’t want them babysitting. I would genuinely rather pay someone I trust to look after the baby if I wanted childcare.
They’ve probably spent about an hour a week with the baby so far, and they’re in their 70s. There are also practical things I’m not convinced they could comfortably manage, although obviously as the baby gets older that may change. My siblings have also had issues with my parents not following instructions when looking after their children.
But if I’m being completely honest, that isn’t even the main reason. I don’t particularly like my parents as people, and I don’t trust them enough to want them having the baby without me.
What is bothering me is that my mum is framing this as though she is offering me something I need, ‘you need a break, let us have the baby’, when what I actually hear is that she wants time alone with her grandchild but rather than saying that she is presenting it as a massive favour.
I’m not against them having a relationship with the baby. I’m happy for them to visit and spend time with the baby when I’m there. I just don’t want to hand over childcare that I don’t want or need in order to facilitate that relationship, and I really hate it being presented as help when it won’t help me and they haven’t helped me in 15 years

YA definitely NBU in my opinion. Having a baby can really illuminate a lot of stuff about family relationships and dynamics. Do you have any help or support (practical and emotional) elsewhere?

I'm sure you'll have loads of replies saying your baby,your rules but I think you'd be foolish and unfair not to encourage a separate relationship between your child and its grandparents. I think one of the most valuable parenting lessons is to realise your children are separate beings and can have separate relationships.

YANBU

It doesn’t sound like they actually want to help tbh, they just want to be able to say they did - to you and perhaps to their friends etc

I would be concerned they wouldn’t listen as to how to properly care for the baby too.

I don’t think people should necessarily have to help with something else if you don’t want the thing they offered, but you’re under no obligation to accept their offer. I can see why they might not want to look after a dog as some people don’t like dogs, but equally the other things they have offered like the laundry (and doing it at their house) don’t sound that helpful!

My children never had a "separate" relationship with their grandparents and they're just fine. My parents wouldn't have wanted them without me being there and my DH's parents were too far away.
My own GPs I saw one set for a week in summer and a little shorter at Christmas, and the other GP for a day in each of the holidays with parents there.

An hour a week with OP there seems fine to me.

But they’re not good parents to OP which is the reason she doesn’t trust them with her baby. Perfectly sensible and reasonable. She also knows what they’re like with their other grandchildren. Everything points to letting them have the baby alone will add to her stress rather than help.

Your parents don't want to help, they want to hold the baby.

No real solution OP, just sympathy - my PILs were very like this when DC were babies. Lots of offers to come over and help, but a very narrow definition of what 'help' meant, most of which actually created more work for me. For example they insisted on doing food shops for us but would buy things that required lots of prepping and cooking, often that day (think large roasting joints yellow-stickered as reached their use by date). Then offer no help with cooking because "we can't work your cooker".

I particularly remember MIL saying "I'll hold the baby so you can clean the house" when DC1 was about 6 weeks old, I was practically delirious with lack of sleep and my stitches were still healing.

I agree, it seems like there's a lack of maturity when it comes to parenting nowadays. Children can and need to form their own separate bonds.

There seems to be some strange internet phenomenon (mostly on here) where if your parents havent been 100% perfect all the time, or won't help out on your exact terms, people think they are justified in witholding a relationship between the child and grandparent. I haven't seen this kind of attitude in real life, thankfully.

It cracks me up when people want to ‘help’ by doing things they want to do while ignoring what the person they are ‘helping’ has actually asked for. Just stick to your guns op. Your child, your rules may be over-used on here, but it still rings true. If you are uncomfortable because you don’t trust your parents with your child, then don’t leave them with them.

OP, you are not being unreasonable not to want them to babysit your DC, especially when so young, but you are unreasonable to take umbrage because they wouldn’t look after your dog. I never cease to be amazed by those on these pages who have a pet and seem to think other family members should step in whenever they need DDog looking after. I can’t comment on the emergency boiler repair because you haven’t given enough details: suffice to say that most parents help if they can, but if they already had other arrangements, or there was distance involved, perhaps they weren’t actually being unreasonable. You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder about your sister - I assume she’s had children rather longer than you have, so of course your parents have had more time to be involved. But your baby, your rules - if you don’t want your parents to babysit, then don’t let them. I would certainly hesitate to allow an overnight visit for a baby. When your DC is a little older, though, you might be glad of the break, so let them know that from your POV, the baby is too young at the moment but when they’re older, it will happen (if you want it to). If you don’t ever want your DC to spend a night at theirs without you, tell them that you’re happy to come and spend time with them with your DC, but they won’t be coming on their own. It’s entirely up to you, OP, how much contact you have with your parents, and how much time they spend with your DC.

Like I said, it wasn’t a problem they said no. But they keep saying they want to help, and then the say no because they think KIT days are inappropriate and you shouldn’t be asked to do that with a baby. So it has nothing to do with the dog, but not wanting to facilitate something they don’t agree with. Either way, it wasn’t an issue but they’re the ones asking to help. You can’t keep asking to help, reject when you are asked and then complain

But if they can’t pick the baby up how on earth can they manage???

just to be clear, they like my dog, they ask to take her for walks which I say no to, but when we walk together they always ask to take her. I wouldn’t usually ask them to look after her, it’s only that they keep on and on saying they want to help that I asked

A small baby does not need to be separate from its mother!

If the grandparents aren’t interested in seeing the baby for more than an hour a week in the company of its mother than how are they going to build up a bond with the baby to facilitate this “separate” relationship?

I think you’re being perfectly reasonable OP - you’re facilitating a relationship by seeing them. Maybe they could take the baby for a short walk in the pram so you can get some jobs done, for example? If they don’t want to / don’t seem capable then I don’t know how they think a sleepover would be possible.

I’m always very wary on these threads about family members who are so eager to take the baby away without its mother so they can play at having a baby. FWIW my own mother is very involved and does look after my children, but when they were tiny she would come round and spend time with both of us.