Grandparent rivalry

[Floridamum94]

Hello! Looking for advice !

We have an 18 month old daughter. Maternal grandparents live locally but paternal grandparents are a 3 hour drive away.

Last month we had a birthday party and our daughter was more interested in maternal grandparents. Paternal grandmother very upset about this and feeling sad and jealous.

How do we deal with this?

Maternal grandparents visit every few weeks and stay with us and do video calls frequently. They are as involved as possible and always welcome.

The whole thing leaves us feeling sad and deflated.

Urgh yes, we experience the same thing. Both sets of grandparents are local but maternal grandparents have always been more involved (because paternal grandparents rarely reach out to us to make effort and are not available very often). We try and keep paternal grandparents involved as often as possible but paternal grandfather is often sulking when DD chooses others over himself and is unhappy when he hears that DD has had a day with maternal grandparents. It's extremely wearing when the difference in levels of involvement is due to their own choices, not ours.

It sounds like the difference in your situation is that paternal grandparents live further away. It's understandable that they'd be feeling some sadness or jealousy as a result. However, it is frustrating when they have expectations that your DD should be favouring them when they visit. Toddlers don't have have to be 'polite' and accommodate everyone's feelings. They simply say or do as they think/feel. My only advice would be to ignore any of these comments and keep them as involved as you can E. G. Send regular photos of DD and visit them when you can.

There are always threads on Gransnet regarding this!
A lot of grandparents create rivalry, it’s perfectly normal for a child of 18months to gravitate to the faces they know.

I assume you go and stay with the paternal grandparents and visa versa from time to time, this is something the other grandparents won’t experience, I suggest arranging a visit and give time for the grandparents to bond with their granddaughter.

We have a similar set up, but we've worked really hard to make sure that our DDs have close relationships with both. A lot of that is due to how engaged and loving DPs parents are when we do see them though. We prioritise visiting them, or having them to stay, every 6ish weeks, we do video calls every few days, we speak to DD about them a lot, look at photos, tell stories etc, so she feels just as connected to them as she is to my parents, even though she sees them about once a week. It's taken a great deal of deliberate thought, but it is so important to DH that our kids have close relationships with his parents, despite the distance, so we're happy to put the work in.

Yes, I've experienced grandparent jealousy even from the set that see more of their grandchildren!

Talk to paternal grandparents about when / how you can see them more frequently. Don't go on about how local and helpful your parents are - better not to mention them if possible. Can you maybe see them separately and try to avoid joint events so they can't compare?