Is nan “not bothering” with her granddaughter because she’s upset with me?

[justhereokay]

I made posts a while ago about changing DD contact with dad and grandma to my home instead of overnight and grandmas.

I spoke to her dad, he was on board, fine with it, he told his mum and he said she was fine with it - “she’s her mum she knows best, I understand”.

Its been over 2 weeks since she was aware. Since then her dad has come over at the weekend to have the time with her, no issue.

His mum hasn’t once seen her, asked how she is, video called her or anything.

She may simply be asking her dad how she is rather than me, which is fine. And she has had weekends away (I’m pretty sure these were planned before contact change)

But she has not spoken to me or her dad to arrange the next time she will see her. I explicitly said I am not stopping her spending time with granddaughter, she is absolutely welcome to come here when suits with a little notice.

she has given bags of clothes to her dad, to give to me. Assuming clothes she had at her house, plus some new bits with tags on.

There may be some bitter or upset feelings on her part which she isn’t showing to me - but for over 2 weeks, with no near future plans to see granddaughter?

She was having consistent time with her every week, sometimes up to 2 nights a week but now nothing? My parents wouldn’t dream of that, even if we “fell out”

she did similar about something else when she was a new born, didn’t ask about her, see her for nearly 2 months. But she gave a sincere apology and admitted fault - was consistent since.

or maybe it’s just too soon to read into it?

This

Well you don’t want to tell us why you changed the arrangements so how can we give our opinions?

I wouldn’t want to have to go to my child’s ex partners house to see my Grandchild or even have to deal with them rather than my own child. It’s weird and seems unfair. But then, her own child should have pushed back and she should see the child in his time.

Completely depends on why the overnights stopped. I think it is weird to expect her to come to yours given DD is clearly not a tiny baby. Strongly suspect she thinks that too.

You haven’t said why overnights stopped?
personally, I think it’s on dad to communicate for his mother and visits that way and not anything to do with you.
her not being in touch with you doesn’t mean she isn’t asking dad how his daughter is and probably how it should be.

2 weeks isn’t that long especially if she’s asking son how child is and seeing pics etc. you’re parents are different as they have a closer relationship with you. It’s not good to compare

Why have the arrangements changed? She is probably disappointed but a couple of weeks isn’t ’not bothering’. You are jumping to conclusions.

Just tell us the backstory. Why have you stopped your DD going to her nan's? I can't imagine many MIL's being comfortable sitting for hours at their son's ex's home. And going to the park for hours at this time of year isn't great either. A lot more context is needed.

If you are that bothered get on the phone and ring her up and invite her over . I am not going to be bothered to look up your old posts , but from what I am reading here you have told her son she can’t have any more overnights with her grandchild. Of course she is going to be hurt by that. You should have told her yourself. So now it is up to you to contact her if you want a relationship to go forward.

As a grandparent i would be well annoyed. It has been fine for your child to stay at her nans when it has suited you but now you have said it is no longer allowed and visits have to be in your home. Either there is a huge safeguarding issue and if there is fair enough or you just want to be in control. Well you have put down the ground rules now you need to deal with the fall out. This is all on you.

OP, you haven’t mentioned the reason why you’ve changed the arrangement, which is, of course, your prerogative.
But this is Mumsnet, and if you want to vent, moan, share,chat or discuss anything, we all need a bit more background as we’re just reading half of the situation and can’t discuss or advise.

Found the previous post - salient points missing to give context are:
-father has MS so is unable to care for the child alone;
-daughter is 20 months old, and she was injured and/or not properly cleaned after nappy changes, several times, whilst in the grandmother’s care.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5580342-would-i-be-unreasonable-to-stop-toddler-overnights-with-dad-and-nan?page=1

I think the points made by previous posters are still valid - the OP is entitled to reduce or limit unsupervised contact, however the grandmother may not feel comfortable spending time with her granddaughter under supervision, or may just prefer to remove herself from the situation entirely since the father will now have assistance from the OP, as he will be at her house.

A good mum wouldn't suddenly decide to control everything from her house when there was no problems before. It would have to be a major safeguarding issue to stop mine wanting to go to grandparents every week. Other than that wouldn't happen in a million years, the kids and grandparents relationship is not one for me to interfere in, as is the ex and don't get why suddenly decide you want him at your house, it's unfair, uncomfortable,etc

Well yeah, OP has stopped the visits at Grandma's because she thinks grandma doesn't look after the child well enough.

No wonder grandma doesn't want to go round OPs. She's effectively told her she's incapable of looking after the child. Which may well be the case, but it's a bit faux naive to pretend do that, then sat you can't possibly think why grandma is fucked off and not rushing round to visit.

Yes, I get if the gran has done something like give her alcohol (people used to get kids to sleep that way!) or say let her online and she found something worrying, you wouldn't feel safe leaving her there OP, but I do think you should have explained that face to face, ideally with you ex there, as this is important for everyone to know. I would say it's up to the ex to sort out "his time" but it's sad to think of the kid as a thing to be shuffled between you, and you should really try to agree things together, especially if the gran used to see the kid in "your" time, either because he works more, or whatever the reason is.
But it sounds like the gran is being polite and hasn't actually done anything wrong here?

@justhereokay

From your prior thread it's obvious that you feel her Nan was not watching her as closely as you'd like and she and your ex's care for her wasn't all that you'd wish. That's not a criticism of you, it's just a statement of fact and I would be concerned too as some of the things you mentioned.

But if you've explained to her Nan why you've changed the arrangements I'm sure she's upset about the reason why. Again, not saying you aren't justified. But it is a little naive to think that she'd simply accept that you've said (in kinder words I'm sure) that she isn't capable of keeping your DD safe and seeing to her needs. And ingenuous to think that it wouldn't have an effect on her wanting to see DD in your house in what I'm sure she'll feel is 'under your supervision'. She also may be embarrassed that you think she isn't capable of caring for DD. Again, I'm not criticizing you.

You've changed the arrangements out of your concern, but Nan doesn't have to like it or feel you were 'right' to do so. All you can do is give Nan time to adjust. She either will or she won't, there's nothing you can do about it.

What did Grandma say when you invited her around to yours to see her grandchild?

Exactly!

You need to explain why you stopped your daughter going over there

I see you missed out a lot of very important information in your post. Why was that ?

Maybe just ask her why she is no longer bothering.

Why did you stop the overnights? She might be afraid of becoming too attached to her dgd in case you stop contact altogether so she fine it first to do it on her terms.

Maybe just let the dust settle for a while.

I understand that you might not want to tell her the reasons (not keeping dc clean etc) as that might make it worse. But she'll still be hurt for a while. Hopefully she'll be ok after that.

Side note, why are people finding it weird that a grandparent sees their grandchild at the child's mum's house? In a lot of couples, the mum organises seeing the grandparents on both sides. When I got divorced, ex MIL and I still saw each other just as much - she knew she'd hardly see the dc otherwise! Plus we'd been family for over 20 years. It's not that odd.

Edit: in fact I think it's a good thing that these links between women of different generations and the dc all stay in place and don't fall apart on the whim of a man who happens to fall out of love with his wife/swap her for a new model. Or even if the woman chose to end the relationship.

These are the pillars of our life and it's good if they can be maintained, as long as no one is being upset by it.

I appreciate you might not have this relationship but it sounds like you are fairly close, nobody on the Internet is going to know - you'll have to ask her!? Maybe she's just busy and needs to find a day she's free, maybe she is narky, maybe she feels awkward that you've banned her overnights and doesn't know what to say or what's now ok, maybe she is just sad and needs a bit of time out before seeing you, maybe she genuinely cant be arsed to come to you. We don't really know do we. I'd send a light text "dd would love to see you, happy to meet at park etc if coming here is too far. Just let me know when you have a date in mind, and I will make sure you can see her"

Sorry, am I reading this wrong or has it only been 2 weeks?

If so, you are being really dramatic to claim that she's not bothering with her grandchild.

It makes complete sense that she would talk to her own son about how she's getting on, not go directly to you, and it's not unusual in the slightest for a grandmother to go more than 2 weeks between seeing their grandchild.

Ngl my mum would be really sad if her weekly overnight in her own home became spending the evening at her Ex DIL. Very different experience