To want DD1 to be allowed to grow up?

[ButterPie]

Staying with my parents (which we do one week a month), I am constantly finding that people have given her a sippy cup (I only threw out the bottle they kept for her here six months ago), they still have a cot for her (although this is the first visit they have set out the cot for DD2 and a double for me and DD1), she gets given plastic plates and a plastic spoon. She also gets bought at least two loliipops a day and any time I leave the room, they have put cbeebies on by the time I get back.

ARGH! I know they are just spoiling her as her grnadparents/aunties/great grandparents but for one whole week a month she is a nightmare. She is three. Generally if they are watching her, I am doing household jobs or looking after DD2 or my grandpaprents, it isn't like it is once a month while I go gallvanting.

chill and drink gin

1 week a month is not going to stop her growing up. Does she stay there alone or are you there too?

I am there, but so are five other adults who just ignore every rule that DD1 has. They aren't mental rules, just not watching tv ALL day, not running about with a lolly constantly in her mouth and so on. I love that the kids are getting to be properly part of the family, but it is doing my head in!

If you dont mind me asking, why do you have to stay with your parents a 1/4 of the month?

Also, have you told them you dont like it? If they cant stop it for whatever reason, then dont stay there maybe? Extreme, but they would get the point? Surely if it bothers you that much (and tbh, it would probably bother me too!) you can put your foot down about it? If they dont respond to that then well, they are being VVVVU!!

Also, re the spoiling thing, I dont think giving a sippy cup to a three year old is spoiling her, so i dont get that line of reasoning at all! Giving a cot to a three year old could actually be dangerous if she tries to climb out of it - have you told them that? And I would be livid about the lollipops.

I used to get very het up about the totally different style of my ex in laws. These days I am of the opinion that the more variety of experience they have the more they distinguish and value the mummy/daddy parenting and the huge amount of thought that the two most important people in their lives are putting into the job of raising them.

While very young, the appreciation isn't going to be there but the difference will be noted and that is what even now makes you different and special.

Let them do their thing and you will be rewarded later I'm sure.

My 3 yr old has sippy cups, plastic cups and utensils, watches loads of CBeebies and gets two small sweets a day.
She isn't spoilt and I'm not trying to stop her growing up.
I'm with you on the cot thing but the rest?
Mmm...yes, YABU.

I live miles away and my grandparents are getting on as well as us wanting the girls to get to know my side of the family well. I'm a SAHM, so I just come across for a week or so every month to lend a hand over here and see all my friends and family round here.

I think they think I am being OTT and they feel insecure as we live so far away so they don't see the kids very often so they feel they have to make themselves popular. I think the older generation just don't understand my problem with how they behave - eg they think cbeebies is educational, so ok, and since cbeebies is a new thing, they can't get used to it being availiable all the time.

TBH, it is a different "type" of household than my actual house. TV on all the time, cans of lager every night for the younger (ie under 60) adults, they are all lovely, but have some very different attitudes.

Slightly off topic, but what sort of lollipops does she have? They can come off the stick very easily and choke a child - happened recently

Just want you to be aware of this.