Advice needed family childcare nightmare

[RedDragon26]

I really need some advice on our current childcare arrangement as it's beginning to cause my partner and I a huge amount of stress. This is a really sensitive topic so please no judgement.

I'm a FTM with a beautiful 19 month old DS. I am also 3 months pregnant with our second (and really feeling the first trimester fatigue big time). I took 12 months of maternity leave and alongside annual leave, I did the full-time care of my son until he was 15 months old. I appreciate that this makes me incredibly lucky and I cherished the time with him. Even though this was a massive financial hit for us we worked out that paying for childcare would have been more expensive and so to make ends meet I worked privately on the evenings and weekends whilst my partner worked full-time during the day. It was tough, but we survived....just!

When I had to go back to work part-time a few months ago we made an agreement that my son would go to one of his grandmas every other week. So my mum and my MIL are effectively doing 1 day each every 2 weeks. (My partner and I both work condensed hours to cover the other days). My mother lives 5 hours away from us, and my MIL lives a 10 mins drive away. I was worried that it was a lot of effort for my mother to take on but both grandmas were happy with the arrangement and keen to be involved so we're trying to make it work. We arranged to reimburse my mother for her train travel. My son loves both of his grandmas and they're great with him. We've worked really hard to build positive relationships with the family which is why this situation is so hard.

Here comes the difficult part, in the past 4 months I've had to ask my mother to cover my MIL's day with my son 4 TIMES!!!! Roughly, once a month, even though she's only supposed to have him twice a month. This isn't because of any family emergency or sudden change in schedule, but because she has been on holiday abroad.... 4 times in 4 months. She has just informed us that she has another 2 booked before Christmas as well as weddings abroad that will need covering. I'm really struggling to not feel resentful about this, and please believe me when I say I don't begrudge her the breaks or her social life at all. This is her decision and she is entitled to enjoy herself, however, I feel extremely protective of my mother. My mother is a widow who's travelling extremely long distances in her late 60s and is also a full-time carer for my sibling with special needs. I can't help but feel like she's being taken advantage of. When we've spoken to my MIL about this, she expresses how much she loves looking after my son, doesn't want my mother having to do more than her share, and wants the arrangement to continue however I'm feeling sceptical about how motivated she really is given the holidays always seem to fall on weeks she's agreed to look after my son. It's left me in a really awkward position as I have to work but I have no one else I can ask to help apart from my mother who lives so far away. I've even started staying down with my mum for a week (when I can work from home) with my son so that I can ease the travelling my mother has to do. My partner is feeling increasingly frustrated with his family and it's starting to effect their relationship which is so upsetting. It's also effecting ours because we've got no choice but to spend so much time apart. The best case scenario would be that we could get my son into childcare and not have to rely on family but unfortunately, we can't afford childcare in our area and I can't afford to give up my job, especially now that I'm pregnant again and need the maternity pay.

We're now considering moving closer to my mother (which is a significantly cheaper area) and putting my son into nursery there before the new baby comes. However, my partner is worried that his mother will see this as us being ungrateful (which we're certainly not) and choosing one grandma over another even though the point of the move would be so be don't have to rely on either on them for childcare. I'm really concerned that we need to resolve something before our second comes along. Has anyone been in a similar situation and it worked out? Im struggling to think of what other options we have at this point.

The point is, as I said on another thread, some of us never had the option of having parents caring for their grandchildren. Yes, it is bloody expensive, yes I was delighted when we didn't need to pay anymore. We just had to suck it up. Both of us worked in local government. We both did demanding jobs. I'm not expecting a pat on the back, but we got no perks for doing our jobs. No salary sacrifice schemes, nothing. In the meantime our friends got all sorts of perks. The only 'perk' I have is my pension. I'm sorry you are having a hard time, but really this was/is the situation for lots of people. Huge childcare costs and worry.

I would say that you should consider your family's needs first and pay for childcare. Your brother needs a reassessment of his means as it's infeasible to carry on with this arrangement. Maybe the state will step in or a different placement will need to be found but you can't prop up your brother at the expense of your children indefinitely.

A few points:

*You haven't answered the question about does your MIL swap weeks with your mother when she's away? If not, why not?

*The MIL is of course entitled to spend her life how she chooses, including going on holiday. But she agreed to fortnightly childcare, so is behaving badly in not sticking to the arrangement. She can't have it both ways! Unless of course she is not happy with the arrangement, and instead of using her words is being deliberately unreliable?

I agree that it is the OP that is taking advantage *of her mother, her and her partner should be taking the day as annual leave OR the MIL should be swapping weeks which would solve the problem.

*I do think the OP is putting too much on her mother, even if she's saying she's happy to do it. I also agree with pp that the train fare must be comparable with the cost of a day at nursery.

*I think moving to a cheaper area is a very good idea and you should do that ASAP. I wouldn't worry about upsetting your MIL, facts are facts, and they are that your current childcare arrangements aren't working and that in order to access reliable childcare you need to move.

*Finally, to all those saying why is OP having another child when she can't afford childcare currently, assuming she plans on taking 15 months off again, by the time she returns to work the eldest child will get the 30 hours funding.

My worries were purely about the childcare agreement not being equally distributed and how to have that conversation with both grandparents.

It is clearly too much of a commitment for both your MIL and your mum so you need to look at alternatives and "distribute" the responsibility of the care of your children back to yourselves.

a childcare system which is seriously flawed for working parents

How is it "flawed"? Childcare is expensive it always has been, that is why clued up parents take responsibility and save up and/or plan their families or careers around what they can afford.

You think childcare is expensive? Wait until you see the cost of the university years with two dc so close in age. Starting planning for that now!!!

it's an arrangement that works for our family...I recognise that this isn't a sustainable situation

In a sense, it doesn't matter why your arrangements are as they are, they just aren't working and have to change. Your siblings' needs can't change. So what can change? It's lovely your mum & MIL want to be so hands on but it is not working. Compress your hours/go part time, or make household budget cuts to pay for childcare.

I am 40 years old and work in a professional NHS role which requires a masters degree

And yet you still lack basic common sense and self awareness! 🤔

There just isn’t any obligation for the childcare to remain equally distributed between the grandmothers. That may have been the original plan, but it isn’t working in practice. The solution to that remains to accept that your MIL has no obligations to subsidize you with her free labor and stop placing the blame where it doesn’t belong.

You may well be highly educated and in a very important job BUT for goodness sake, where is your common sense and compassion for others?

How on earth can you begrudge your mother-in-law holidays and weddings abroad? Why should she structure her life around your childcare needs?

Your own mother may be happy with the arrangement, but you are really taking advantage of her good nature.

You have to rethink your childcare, especially with a second child on the way.

So you are a professional in the NHS with an MA, but can't afford to pay for a day childcare every other week???

How on earth can you begrudge your mother-in-law holidays and weddings abroad? Why should she structure her life around your childcare needs?

She offered!!

Actually, she’s insisting the arrangement continue!

Are you the OP?

You say it is causing your family alot of pain so you need to think of solutions and pick the best one and the best one seems obvious.. pay for childcare. You say you can't afford it so then you need to re-arrange finances and it seems obvious that the first thing to go is paying for your brothers care. You say your mum can't afford his care but yet she's spending how much on train fares to babysit your child?

The obvious answer is .. sorry Grandma's this isn't working. I need reliable childcare on a weekly basis so as I can work and earn money. We have decided to put Baby into nursery. Of course yous can still see baby/visit whenever yous want. .then .. sorry mum.. I can't afford to pay for brothers care, use your 2 weekly train fares to pay for his care. (Obviously not written like this but you get the jist)

This to me just all seems the obvious solution here.

No 😁I do agree that the OP needs to find paid childcare and that the situation is not sustainable

But I don’t think it’s fair to attack her for being annoyed that her MIL isn’t sticking to the commitment she willingly made (and is saying wants to continue).

@RedDragon26 It’s a bit unfair to call us all judgmental when some of us posted before your update which contained quite significant additional info (aka a drip feed).

I don’t think you’re entitled or taking advantage but I do think your current situation is not sustainable, no matter how much all parties want it to work.

Don't post on Mumsnet if you don't want people to judge you.

If you work in a senior professional role and have waited until 40 to have your children, you CAN afford childcare one pay a week, you just don't want to spend money on it. Responders would respect you more if you owned up to this.

I think when you choose to have children their care is up to you, I don't get this 'the childcare system is flawed' - I don't expect the government to pay for my children's care, its just really odd to me..
I do feel for your difficult situation but your Mom has to accept it isn't working either...

I do agree that the childcare system is flawed and our culture is punitive for working mothers in particular, BUT it is what it is and we have to live, work and have kids in the world as it is, not how we'd like it to be. Change is important and necessary, but for now we have to work with what we've got. When our DC were tiny babies they had 4 fully functioning grandparents who gladly spilt the whole 5 day working week. In the space of 18 months they were down to one able grandparent who could help on one weekend afternoon. I cried buckets putting the DC in full time childcare at first, but it was a great setting and worth the financial sacrifices (including delaying a house purchase for 3 years). It can be done. It has to be done.

I am 40 years old and work in a professional NHS role which requires a masters degree

If that’s the case, I still can’t fathom how you can’t stretch for nursery for the days your Mum does. And your DH works. I get it’s expensive, but we all kinda know that before embarking on parenting.

I think you need to accept your MIL wants to live her life and will only look after your child around her and rightly so .
So you need to ask your DM to do every week or look for paid childcare. This might mean moving to a cheaper area . I presume your brother who you care for would also move with you .
The only reliable child care is to look after your own child or pay .
I would also be thinking longer term for when children start school as it does sound like the school day won't fit around your long hours and care responsibilities to your DB .

I've seen this situation so many times over the years and it's always down to a difference of expectations.

You need regular, reliable childcare. You have arranged for your mother and MIL to provide it.
Your MIL does not see herself as regular, committed childcare. She sees herself as a grandmother helping out her son and DIL when she can. If she gets the chance of going on holiday instead, she'll take it and she doesn't see it as letting you down. She probably can't understand why you're not grateful for the days she's giving you.

In the long term, of course your current arrangement cannot work and it will cause even more resentment on both sides.
It sounds as though you've arrived at a solution already: move to a cheaper area and use paid childcare that you can afford.

Have you really looked at all the childcare options or just nursery? Have you included any discounts such as the 20% of tax free childcare? Are you going to need childcare while your on maternity leave?

Pay for childcare. Stop being selfish. Especially with a second on the way. And your Mum is a FT carer too. Utterly unfair.

Unfortunately, you will have to pay for childcare. As much as your mum wants to be involved, I don't think it's fair to expect her to get on a train for 10 hours as well as having to care for your brother.

You could move nearer to your mum which presumably would be cheaper but I still think you need to put regular professional childcare in place for at least one day a week to alleviate the strain on your current arrangement.

Agree that your MIL does not really want to do the childcare anymore if she's booking holidays for the time she is meant to be providing childcare.