Hi all,
I'm looking for some advice. I'm a first time parent and my parents first grandchild. It's quite a long story so I'll try make it brief!
I have a LG who is 6months, my husband doesn't have any family and neither of us have friends tht have children or experience with children, I'm not really close to any other family members to ask them to babysit so our only option for babysitting duties is my mom and dad.
There's been a few issues since the birth of my daughter with my husband booking tickets for things without first checking if my parents were ok having our LG, he seems to think that as it's there first and only grandchild they should always be free for her, where as I think out of respect he should ask beforehand rather then booking things and not really giving them a choice.
He also seems to think that they should have her at 1/2 weekends a month to spend time with her and give us a break. Again I think this is abit too much and should only be something that happens once every so often, especially when he also wants me to ask my mom to look after our daughter when I go back to work full time. Surely this would mean my parents would have her more then us yet she's our child and we chose to have her so we should have to make small sacrifices to our social lives.
He seems to interpret this as my parents not wanting to spend time with her and not showing an interest in our daughter.
This weekend we had a slight turning point and my mom offered to have our LG for the weekend, great I thought, this will show my husband that they do want to spend time with there grandchild and his just been abit selfish with his requests.
Since the birth they have had our LG a couple of times but only for a few hours, however she hasn't stopped over yet or stayed with them for a long period of time..until last night.
My mom offered to have her over night to give us a break and let us go out with friends, however an hour after leaving her my dad called to say she had been screaming and crying to the extent she was gagging and grabbing her face. We agreed to give it a few more hours and see if she settled, however 5 hours later she was still going, my parents had tried everything, but she just wasn't stopping, she wouldn't even stop for a few minutes it was just constant.
Well there was no way I could enjoy my night knowing she was in that state and also knowing my mom and dad were getting stressed because they just could not calm her down, however my husband was adamant we should leave her overnight and not ruin the plans we'd made.
In the end I said no we can't do this so I said I would go and get her, and very reluctantly he agreed to come with me.
When we got to my parents my husband didn't speak to my mom and dad when we got to the house, and for the rest of the night blamed them for not been able to settle her and ruining our night. In his opinon she should have stayed because she eventually would have had to have stopped crying, he see's it as the first sign of trouble they don't want to know and just want to pass her back.
However, I know what it's like to have her so upset tht you cannot settle her but my husband has never had this experience so I can imagine how helpless and stressed my parents felt.
My mom and dad are both 60 and my dad was involved in a serious Road accident not so long ago and suffers with his legs and hips so walking up and down with her all night was starting to cause him some pain.
I no they felt terrible for having to call us and my dad kept apologising for ruining our night. He even suggested that we come up with a way of her getting used to them so it doesn't happen again.
My husband is now saying from now on were never asking them to have her and is totally blaming my parents for last night's fiasco, he seems to think last night has proved his point of them not wanting to spend time with her.
I can just see things now getting really awkward and I'm going to be stuck in the middle.
What do you guys think, any advice would be much appreciated!