to be glad to have returned my best friends DD back to her after babysitting her for 2 days!!

[superv1xen]

...i babysat my friends 3 YO DD from yesterday morning to about half 3 this afternoon and I am SO GLAD to have handed her back!!!

she is mardy-arsed, a drama queen, spoilt, ill-mannered and disobedient. and bloody hard work.

it has made me realise that i am so lucky to have my DS who is just so lovely in comparison, he is chilled out, , well mannered, polite and well behaved.

am i horrible for disliking my best friends kid? (obvs i didnt show it in any way! lol)

yanbu - to have her for such a long time, you deserve a medal. Maybe she missed her mum though?

Is she like that with her mother as well, or was it in part being insecure because she was away from home?

TBH, having anyone else's child for too long convinces me that I don't like them all that much (come to that, I don't like my own DC all that much sometimes, but I love them anyway so that's OK-ish)

Hope her mum doesn't read this! Lol

It also may have been good for the little girl to hang around such a balanced, chilled out child.

Ditto SS.

Other people's children are hard work. We looked after a friend's kids for the day when they moved house. 2 year old dd was a gem and played v happily. 7 month old ds was miserable and as I remeber it cried for about 6 hours solid. Wouldn't take food from me, wouldn't take his bottle. It was the most awful experience for all of us - dh and I felt dreadful. I took him out in the pram and that calmed him enough to sleep for a bit and I think he did then have a tiny bit of porridge but it was a huge relief to give him back! What we should have done was said dh would come and help them and could the ds have his mum back please but of course you keep thinking you'll crack it in a minute and you don't want to worry them or let them down.

no, she is like it with her mother as well. and she just indulges her and lets her get away with it.

i wasn't expecting to have her for such a long time. initially my friend and her dp asked if i could have her "overnight" as they were going to see a band in london and staying over. i (naively) assumed they meant from maybe, 6pm the evening before then i would drop her back mid morning. i felt i had to say yes as no one will babysit for them otherwise; my friend has fallen out with her mum (who rarely babysat anyway and never overnight) her DP is not her DD's dad so his parents dont have her, and her ex (her dd's dad) is not interested so wont have her either so they never get a break whereas i often do as my parents love to have mine and have them at least twice a month overnight. plus my eldest has a different dad who has him twice a month overnight as well so we are really lucky.

but anyway they rang me sunday night to finalise the arrangements and informed me they would be dropping her off at lunchtime monday and would be back around 3pm today!!! i was like but felt i couldnt say anything!

and then, as if they could take the piss anymore, when i dropped her back they just took her off me on the doorstep and didnt even invite me and my kids in for a coffee or anything. i felt like the bloody hired help!

I think that next time they ask, you should say no. You did a nice thing an they weren't even appreciative, so you can guilt free in not doing this again

i know

but i probably will do it again, should they ask. as, as i said, they dont have anyone else that helps them out, and i would go mental if i never got a break from my kids

but i won't have her for quite that long again!!! ;)

grrrr just remembered something else she did that drove me mad, messed about with her food every time i gave her her something to eat and then asked for something else! (which she DIDNT get from me but clearly does from her mother ) i would just smile sweetly and say, right, ok, we'll throw it away then shall we?

aaarghh why cant people bring their kids up right!

Its hard when the child is going through a bit of a vile stage. My friend has a DS my DS's age and I'm dreading her asking me to babysit one day because he's so awful at the moment, violent mainly, and I'm not sure I could be fair and civil if I was in sole charge!!! She'd come to collect him and I would have put him in a cage and poked jam sandwiches through the holes at meal times...

I really sympathise as I hate all children except my own DD and hate looking after other peoples kids. Some are tolerable but one in particular makes me want to scream as she's such an annoying thing. She refuses to eat what I cook saying she doesn't like it, then when mummy comes to get her mummy informs me that her DD just loves that particular meal and she can't understand it! She ignores me completely when I speak to her, won't give me eye contact and never says please and thank you. She snatches things, demands treats and snacks all the time and spills her drinks all over the house. It's not just me being evil, my mother who loves kids can't stand her either and says I should refuse to have the little cherub but I've no back bone and the Mother is a lovely lady who treats my DD so well. I always pride myself that whenever people meet/look after my DD they always comment how polite and sensible she is, even though she can be a bugger for me! It's bliss to hand them back YANBU

Sorry to say, I love that my DS has friends, but I do LOATHE looking after them. I do it as often as I am asked however, cos he loves going to his friends' houses and having sleepovers.
I am also always grateful that DS is mine, though, when I spend any length of time with any other kids

If they do ever ask you for something like this again, I think it is fair enough of you to specify times up front. So in this case, if they had said they were going to the concert, you could have said fine, if you drop her off at 6pm after her tea and in pjs ready to go to bed soon after, and then we've already got plans for the next day so how about you pick her up at about 10.30am, that way you won't need to be up at the crack of dawn to come and pick her up and we will still be able to get out and do our plans. Making sure of course that she knows that they are not suitable for her dd to join in.

That's the point at which she can say - oh problems with trains so we need to leave an hour earlier and any chance that you could drop her off after lunch time. And then you can say no problem about dropping her off an hour earlier but because of our plans you need to pick her up by 10.30...

She may have been working in reverse, thinking what is the maximum I can ask, expecting you to knock her down to a more reasonable amount and therefore adding in a chunk of time 'to be knocked off' to give her the full time she wanted. And thought she'd chance it and it worked as you were so shocked you didn't say anything or just felt guilted into doing what she asked. And maybe she's suffering if her dd plays her up as much as she does you and saw her chance to have a few hours at home child-free / out in london early etc just for a bit of a break.

haha brightyoungthing - i actually think we are talking about the same child!!!

the ignoring when spoken to, the no eye contact, spilling drinks, snatching, demanding treats etc etc!!!

my DP says her diva-ish behaviour is a "girl thing" (he has a teenage DD from a prev relationship) but I just think its a "spoilt brat thing"

aarggh just thought of another thing too - she constantly gets down from the table when eating and tries to wander into other rooms, messy food and wobbly cup of juice in hand! whereas i have instilled in DS from an early age that you sit still at the table and dont get up till you have had enough. and you don't eat anywhere other than the table!)

(and i oosted last week about my OCD houseproudness so you can imagine how i feel about THAT!)

I have OCD in the house too!! And this girl is always grubby looking and TBH I don't even want her on my sofa!! I forgot to mention but her Mother is always banging on about how wonderful her DD is, how clever and the best one is "my kids know how to behave"! Whenever the little angel ignores me or doesn't say please or thank you my DD looks at me in horror just waiting for me to explode. I haven't as of yet but my god she'll get a shock one day!