expecting grandparents to buy a car seats for their car.

[thinker]

AIBU to expect both sets of grandparents to buy car seats to put in their car. I have a 3 yo and a 10 month old and am pregnant with third. Everytime they go anywhere I have to change them all over and one of them is dead heavy. They just stand there watching me struggle every bloody time. I told my mum she could buy one for £28 and she said that if I buy it she will have it in her car. And my DH dad is such a cock because he will carry it out of his car and place it in mine but not strap it in. Twice now i have driven with it like that not realising it isnt strapped in. The other day, DH parents picked my DD up from pre school and I forgot to leave the seat for them. They sent a message through my mum that I was "in trouble" for not leaving it there, why don`t they fucking buy one save me having to lug the thing about gggrrrrrrrrrrrr !!!! Am I being unreasonable????????

DS2 thrives in the Kiddi Comfort. I've done more detailed feedback elsewhere but I would, like Silver, thoroughly recommend - especially if you have to move between several cars. We do. and it fits in fine in all of them

I don't drive, My parents bought a carseat. My ILs didn't. My parents take my dc a lot, my ils couldn't care less.
If i had a carseat i wouldn't mind sharing, and i would probably want to do the strapping in myself.
Yanbu though because carseats are heavy things, especially when you are pregnant.

YABU, but it's probably the pregnancy!!! Actually, I was lucky, my mum went ahead and bought a couple of high-back boosters for her own car, but then my bro has similar age kids so she had a fair flow of grandchildren to ferry around. DH also bought a set as we shared the childminder drop-off and pick-up and got hacked off with all the seat-changing. Once you get to high-back boosters it's much easier and cheaper to buy duplicates, but not worth it for the little stage 1 seats.
Anyway, I have 3 dcs (only two on boosters now) and now have about 8 boosters in varying degrees of disrepair sprinkled about the various cars (mine, hubby's, granny's). It certainly helps when they have gangs of mates home from school to play, but sometimes I think I could open a shop.

Yeah, I agree with everyone else. YABU, but you seem to be accepting that. Congrats on your pregnancy!

I think you should buy them as they are your kids. Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear but you did ask.
My parents are dead and so are my husbands. I would give my right arm to have involved grandparents in my life again. You're so lucky.

I do understand as my DM is exactly the same

Part of it is that she finds the straps hard to manage (which, I understand as they are fiddly buggers and hard to adjust) but also I think it's a generational thing. When me and DB were toddlers, Car Seats didn't exist and DM has spent many an hour lamenting how much 'easier' it was to drive your kids around in the old days (cue 'hilarious' tales of me clambering on and off the parcel shelf and DB getting stuck under a seat..."Oh how we laughed, you little scamps etc etc...". It took me ages to convince her that car seats were not only necessary but were enshrined in law!

I too, used to be a 'Tit' and get a bit narked when my DM and exP (different story tho - he was just lazy) used to refuse to move the seats around and strap them in, or buy a seat for her car. It used to annoy me until I realised that a) my kids, my car etc and b)she is actually v nervous of using them incorrectly as she sees them as a bit 'new-fangled'.

I paid for all our seats and did all the lifting, carrying and fixing and, like most of the other posters, am just hugely grateful that I have a parent around who is happy to help out - she is not being difficult, but just nervous!

So, you are BU, but I useed to be too - welcome to the 'Tit' club!

my DPIL and DPS bought second hand ones cheaply, no need to get the latest model. A 1998 model would still be perfectly fine.

Otherwise it´s quite a cost!

your kids - you should buy them

Chandon - car seats usually have an expiry date of 8-10 years so a 1998 one might not be the best

have to say that i think YABU, however i do have an excessive amount of car seats considering i only have two children for this very problem!! The ones my parents have got have had hardly any wear and so i will probably pass them onto a friend (for free - as i wouldn't charge for a car seat) - if they remain in good condition and i had peace of mind that they are still safe to be used.

have you got a friends seat you could have (that you trust)?

I understand why you're getting irritated by it - I was the same.

Both grandmothers have my DS one day a week. My DM bought a car seat for my DS which just stays in her car permanently. My MIL didn't buy one, which meant I had to take the car seat out of our car and install it in hers, and then the reverse when she brought him home. It was such a fiddly one that it would regularly reduce me to tears (and DH uses the car for work so often takes the car seat out - it would always ALWAYS be me having to put it back, so several times per week).

I offered to show MIL how to fit it but she always refused, saying she wasn't competent. Drove me absolutely crazy, especially as she also looked after another grandson of similar age one day a week too - couldn't understand why, if you were driving grandchildren 2 days out of every week, you might not think to buy a car seat suitable for your own car. (They are not short of cash, by any stretch, and usually very generous.)

Anyway, they've now bought a car seat, and we have bought a far less fiddly one. and everyone's happy.

So you might be being a bit U but I can totally see where you're coming from!

I bought car seats for grandparents. Wouldn't dream of asking them to buy them, it was our responsibility not theirs.

..But you haven't made a tit of yourself because you checked on here first, so no harm done!

YABU about them buying the car seats
YANBU about having people watch you lugging car seats when pg.

i had to buy 2 extra car seats for my mum's car which did annoy me ( a bit) as they are v wealthy and they are expensive! but i guess that's not the point, she wouldn't have known what seat to buy or where to get it. she probably also thought i would want to choose the seat.

my parents are young and not doddery, yet they still seem to have problem fitting the car seats or remembering which way the straps go, not so bad now they are in the high back boosters (though she still thinks she has to put the car seat around the back not just through the shoulder loop) but before with the maxi cosi priori xps i was always having to re-fit them.

do everything you can to encourage them to spend time with your kids. it'll be your lifeline!!!

From a Grandmother who minds her grandaughters and has car seats in my car, I refuse to strap the car seats into my car on the rare occasion they have been taken out.
For one I'm not sure it is ever fitted properly so get my son-in-law to do it then if anything happens I'm can be assured the seat is properly fitted, as a mother I would have thought you would have bought the seats so that your children were safe and to save you the bother of swapping seats all the time.

YABU

I bought car seats for the IL's car.

They are YOUR children. The grandparents are doing YOU a favour by picking up children from pre-school for YOU.

How utterly ridiculous!

If I ask the IL's (I don't have parents) to look after my son as opposed to them asking to look after him, I always ensure that I have more than met any expenses that they may have incurred.

We have six car seats for two children (one set for me, one for my DH, one for granny who picks up twice a week). We did try swapping, but DH gets in late at night and we would be struggling at midnight getting them swapped over, or the cars would be parked miles away from each other, or you would have to leave both the children to fit the seats which was more dangerous (our road has no pavement)...

In the end, we use the 'best' ones for everyday and motorway journeys, and cheap boosters (now they are old enough) for the quick school runs of 10 min.

I am in the process of passing them on to friends and relatives too so they can have spare seats and be spared the frustration and tears of rushed swaps and crying children.

And we did pay for them all ourselves (most pretty reasonable ones from Kiddicare or Halfords)

I do have sympathy for the op because lugging car seats from car to car is a right pain.

Choose easy to transfer and fit seats to help make things easier. It is unreasonable to expect gps to pay for seats for your kids though.

Gps often don't really get car seats because they didn't have them for their own kids!

I was really touched and pleased when my parents bought car seats for their car for my DCs - so I think it is an unusual thing to do and can't be expected.

But they SHOULD help a pregnant woman with lugging heavy things around.

So YAB half U.

Buy them, show the adults how to fit them. Be pleased and grateful that they bother helping you at all. Or cope without the lifts.
To describe someone as a cock because they don't get how to use a carseat is just nasty.
Why should they fund your children? They've done it once already with their own.

I hope this is just your pregnancy hormones getting to you!

YABU - Thats like saying because you look after their dog when they go away you should pay any vet bills that occur in that time, and pay for its food/lead etc.

Sounds as though you would need to be sure it was fitted properly anyway so best your the one to do it.

As for calling your dad a cock - assuming the only reason is the car seat situation - then shame on you.