to be a leeeetle bit peed off with inlaws - dh thinks Im being OTT

[mosschops30]

Well I am heavily pregnant (my excuse for everything atm )

My IL's are young and fit, they live about 5-10 minutes drive from our house.
They do help out with sitting sometimes although we rarely ask them unless one of us is ill, or we have a rare night out, even then, we always have to take the kids to them, they never come here (so if we go out for a meal, we take kids over, go out and eat, have to go back and pick kids up, then come home)

Anyway dh has to work tonight, and I have a treatment booked, so I asked IL's if one of them would come up and have kids for an hour.
And they said 'yes but can you bring them down because we dont really want to have to drive home at that time of night - 9pm)!!!!!!
So I said it kind of defeated me having a relaxing pregnancy treatment if I had to drive over there, get kids in car, come home, get kids to bed etc) thats an hour of massage wasted IMHO.
They then agreed they would come up just this once as a favour

DH says Im being stupid, but I dont think it was asking much so AIBU??
(

[pleasechange]

all that planning, it's all so 'english' though. Sense of family and community really has gone out of the window

[Tortington]

i would be a bit pissed off at having to interrupt my evening to babysit whilst my DIL went off for a massage

went for a doctors appt - sure

went shopping without kids - i get it

went out with dh for some lurrve time - certainly.

massage though?

[pleasechange]

well maybe that attitude is why so many MILs fail to be able to adapt a good relationship with their DILs

[Mybox]

yanbu - could your kids stay at their grandparents for the night? That way they wouldn't have to drive in the dark & you'd get some rest?

[Tortington]

maybe allnew, maybe it goes both ways.

[pleasechange]

but say it was your daughter heavily pg and tired. On an isoldated occasion, she asks you on the hop to come and look after the dc's for couple of hours so she can have a massage. Do you a) feel peeved to be asked such a thing or b) happy to help her out

If he answer is different for your own daughter as opposed to your DIL, that speaks volumes

On a personal front, my MIL (lives closeby) has never once ever offered to babysit for us. My mother, on the other hand, has offered on several occasions, to fly over, from a different country, so that DH and I can have a night out

And then people wonder why a DIL has more affinity towards her own mother than her MIL

[Tortington]

i had to pay my mil to look after my children.

qualifying remarks aside,

i think that if you read my post again, you will see that i would be more than happy to help out on any number of occasions, but I wouldn't be best chuffed to have to help out for a massage

i don't think that's mean. I have a life too

[pleasechange]

wanting paid to look after her own GC - wow, we really are in a capitalist society

[sticktoyourgins]

But so many DILs want to keep their MILs at arm's length (not saying mosschops does just responding to allnew). Time and again on MN pregnant DILs will say that they're happy for their mum to visit as soon as they've given birth but want MIL to give them some space. The Christmas threads are littered with DILs complaining about having to accommodate PILs when they'd rather spend it with their "own" family.

[pleasechange]

sticktoyourgins - I agree, and I have seen these threads. What I'm saying is though, if MILs have an 'arms length' approach to grandparenting, this is very likely why DILs also maybe have an arms length approach to their inlaws. At the end of the day, if a MIL is less willing to help out her DIL with DCs than she would be her own daughter's DCs, then it is perfectly understandable that the DIL will see the MIL's grandparenting role very differently to that of her own mother

[Tortington]

wjilst i agre entirely with your sentiment allnew, i still maintain.....massage? whilst i would be very happy to help out on a number of occasions - i can understand not wanting to give up my time so dil can have a massage becuase she's pregnant.

i may do - i might not - depends on how busy i am in reality - but i do understand not wanting to give up my time. My time is valuable too and DIls must understand this.

[pleasechange]

fair enough custy - your opinion and your choice

Yes, I understand MILs have a life too, and I know how important to my MIL for her so spend her days clothes shopping rather than seeing her GC - her choice, but likewise, she is missing out on a lot and is in no position to have any issues to be treated differently as a GP than my mother

[BloodRedTulips]

my parents do this, but they're half an hour away... if we want babysitting we have to all stay there for the night as taking the kids back out of bed to go home is practically impossible.

bloody nuisance and it drives us mad as we have no other family so they're our only babysitting option. i'm an only child so it's not like they're overrun with babysitting requests... maybe 3/4 times a year (not at all since ds2 has been born as he won't take a bottle)

so no, YANBU to be annoyed but i doubt there's much you can do without causing a fight that's not really worth it.

[Northernlurker]

Forget the in laws - they sound hopeless. Book a babysitter next time.

[BloodRedTulips]

pmsl at dropping the kids off on the way to hospital... my mother actually suggested that to us when i was heavily pregnant with ds2 , that would have taken us an hour of route on an already long drive to the hospital.

i used the hormones as a good excuse to have words that time

as it turned out we would have been better doing that though as she took 3 hours to arrive at our house when i was in labour!

[diddl]

TBH, although my Ils would be happy enough to babysit to enable husband & I to have a night out, I think they might be a bit at me booking something for myself when husband was at work and it not being organised for a time when my husband was at home to look after the children.

[Morloth]

I wonder if in 30 years there will be a GrandMumsnet where all the current posters can come and complain about how their DILs expect them to be at their beck and call and then we can all have a good bitch about how easy they have it etc...