Feeling hurt that in laws help other sibling when our baby arrives

[RealRosePoet]

I’m currently pregnant with our fourth and last child. We’re trying to plan childcare for when the time comes, if we need support during non nursery / school hours.

My parents are older, and have health issues from cancer so can’t help. We have friends that can support us but our main hope was my in laws. They live in Manchester but have a place nearby us in Scotland too.

We’ve got friends who have kindly offered to help us out but I wanted to get some thoughts on why we couldn’t have my in laws help, to see if we are overreacting by being a bit hurt.

Basically, my sister in law lives in Australia and has a son at school. My other sister in law lives there too (they are neighbours) and is a teacher so gets school holidays. The holidays in Australia are when our baby is due - to be exact our due date is the second last week of their holidays. When we asked if our in laws could help, they said no because my sister in law can’t afford holiday clubs and has asked them to go out there for the full 6 weeks to look after their son. We asked if there was any possibility if they could come back early - because we thought perhaps my SIL and BIL could manage some of it themselves but my MIL has said it’s a firm no, they’ve got to be fair and that my SIL needs them more.

However, my MIL has said the moment she’s back she’s coming to meet the baby and wasn’t happy when we said she would need to wait a week or so because we’d rather she not see the baby straight after a long haul flight.

My DH is v upset about it all because his parents always put his eldest sister first in many situations over the years. Are we overreacting by feeling a bit hurt?

It’s not randomly asking an Australian to come over, it’s asking people who visit for 4
monthis a year to fly back a week earlier than they’d planned, this is not a big request even if it weren’t centred around supporting someone having a baby.

I wouldn’t expect my MIL or own Mum to do this, we are both from bigish families and from my view they have both spent years looking after kids, if they want to have them to do something, great but I never ask.

If you need to be in hospital 2-3 days before (I did with one of my pregnancy’s) my husband was at home with the kids.

Like you say you have local cover for when you are actually in labour and with #4 hopefully you will be out quickly!

You are not being unreasonable to expect help and support from family who are supposed to be there in this sort of situation where you really need them! I think it sound like they are not going to be that helpful and you might have to call in your friend to support. It’s sad that they are willing to let you down and not be there for your family when you are vulnerable and really need them, I think you can keep them at arms length for a while and make it clear why. There is nothing more stressful than being in labour and worrying about your other children. Also just to say I think this website is a bit crazy and people are very unsympathetic on here. We presume it’s other mums answering these posts but I put could actually be anyone and I sometimes think some of these responses come from completely clueless people. Lots of love to your family and I hope it all works out for you xx

Did you look after your younger child/children while giving birth? Do you know any woman who has? I really hope you and all your good friends did as otherwise the hypocrisy would be off the scale. The op is allowed to ask for in law help on the specific occasion of giving birth. 4 kids is not a crime. I have multiple friends with 4 kids and their lovely, talented and loved kids will add to society. Your judgmental attitude and zero grasp of logic however… if you aren’t just here to make women feel miserable but genuinely feel no one should have kids they aren’t looking after on their own (including while giving birth), then his sister in law might have less kids but gets actual months of help a year. Why wasn’t your comment that the sil clearly shouldn’t have kids since she can’t look after them? For entire portions of the year not just while in labour?

YANBU, I’m genuinely shocked at the replies here. Would it be possible for your DH to stay home and one of your Parents go to hospital with you? I would go low/no contact and be stopping all help if it were me - the golden child can sort care out as they age.

I haven't read all of the replies but the few I have, I'm shocked at the hard time you're getting. It's the birth of a grandchild and they go every year for a long time. I'm surprised there isn't at least a conversation about being there with you. I can really understand why you're feeling a bit low about it.

Long haul flights are a hotbed of illness. My own parents came from Australia to meet my newborn eldest, and after arriving they waited an extra day and a half to see him, they felt a bit scratchy from the plane and didn’t want to come anywhere near a newborn like that.

My mother was overseas when I gave birth and said she wouldn't come back if the baby was early. Fair enough.

It's up to your ILs how they spend their time. They have already got a commitment to their DD. It puts them in a position where they have to pick and choose who they let down, so they've chosen to go with the existing commitment. Fair enough, since they'd already promised. You said you have friends that can help, so they are probably aware you have other options. They're trying to divide their time and do their best. They can't really win here. Someone is going to be upset. You'll have to respect that this is their choice and commitment that clashed with your due date, so they were forced into a difficult position. They have judged this to be the best way forward.

I don't think you're unreasonable to ask them not to visit for a week after a long haul flight though. It's so easy to get a bug on those flights and that's the last thing you need. They'll have to accept that.

It doesn't matter how many children you have despite what other posters say, I understand it would've been really nice to have them around to help - and actually really nice for your husband too to share this moment with his parents, it's their grandchild after all..

Unfortunately they do clearly prefer going to Australia. There's little you can do about that and that's the bottom line even though it must sting a little. If you want to take a back step in how you guys care for them, do it. Sometimes we need to protect ourselves from being hurt.

I hope can rope a friend into being on standby when you go into Labour and I hope it all goes smoothly this time for you and you get to go home sooner than expected - nobody wants hospital food for 3 days!

OP's parents are going through some major health issues at the mo.

It doesnt make sense for them to come back 2 weeks early as dc4 will likely come before your Due date and you'd still want them to quarantine. It's a bit selfish to ask them to come back 6 weeks early when sil needs the childcare.

It's #4 you dont need DH there, my DH wasnt there for DC2 and it was totally fine.

YANBU and the responses here are wild

Just give them the same energy back that they give you.

I have tons of family in Australia, for grandparents who miss their daughters and their kids going there and maintaining bonds is important, and it's such a long way 6 weeks solid time spent caring for a grandchild is important.

If she came back early and needed that one week buffer between flight and seeing baby then thats a very short visit for a long haul.

Finally, they asked first. She's between a rock and a hard place, I feel for her.

I appreciate it’s not ideal, but I think you might be overthinking it a little. It’s your fourth child, so chances are you’ll be out of hospital pretty quickly, and you already know very well what to do once you’re home.
Could you ask any of your friends to help with school pick-ups or the kids while you’re in hospital? We have no family in London, and when I had my third, I asked the parents of my eldest son’s friends to help with them, which they were more than happy to do. Once I was done with labour, my partner went and picked everyone up.
I actually went home the same night, but because of some unrelated health complications, I ended up being admitted to hospital for a week. My partner looked after all three kids on his own from week one and he was absolutely fine. Was it hard? Of course! But he managed, and everyone was okay.

FFS - It's not for babysitting or general childcare, the OP is meaning about someone to look after the other 3 when she goes into labour.

Just remember this when they're old and frail and need YOUR help.

Just stop having kids. It’s not only that being in Australia and valued in Australia would be better than staying here. There’s no way I’d be having 3/4 children and complaining about the lack of childcare especially if they only have the one child to look after while being on a nice holiday

I'm sure you're long gone, @RealRosePoet . But basically your SIL needs them for six weeks. You need them to come back to help you for two days. And then you won't let them see the baby. It's not exactly a great offer.

She literally says in the OP that friends have offered to help. She doesn’t actually need her in laws. I don’t understand why she can’t let it go when she can take friends, who are probably nearby anyway, up on their kind offer.

I seem to recall you have had other issues with PIL favouring your SIL over your DH and yes personally I think I would prioritise a new baby over babysitting but given it is Australia I can see why they want to maximise their time over there. One piece of advice I would give is that you cannot change peoples behaviour just how you react to it. Make a plan that does not involve them and maybe don't help them out as much over the next few years and just focus on your family. If you have health issues and 4 children you will have your hands full so PIL will have to manage without your DH helping them. Find a helpful friend to sit with your children while you have the 4th baby.

It is fine to say you won't be entertaining visitors soon after the baby is born.

I have read your posts, OP but not the entire thread. If it hasn't been suggested yet then I recommend you hire a postpartum doula and have her start a couple weeks before baby is due to cover your bases. Let them know you'll need care overnight during the birth and hospital stay (the one I hired provides care for other children too). You'll probably need to have friends or other babysitters help during the day too for full coverage. If you plan now then you can have care sorted for the birth.

If your husband has paternity leave you should be OK.

Wow

in case you didn’t have time to read the thread, the pil are going for the usual 4 months they go every year and have added on 6 weeks extra this year so they won’t be back when baby is born. If I work through the maths, 4 months plus 6 weeks is 5.5 months and a year is 12, so just about half a year. God forbid she leave a couple of weeks early to support her son. There is clearly only one child the mil cares about, and I’m still waiting for the ‘you shouldn’t have kids if you can’t care for them’ to come back and apologise ti the op as clearly in their book the sil should not have had so much as one child.

op, in your shoes it would be sometime before we helped mil out again. The stock response would be mum we have 4 dc now and no help, so it’s a bit busy, we just don’t have any downtime ourselves much less spare time. you’ll have to find someone else.