How do you manage family?

[TuffStuff]

It’s not really an issue at the moment but I’m worried about how the future will play out.

We used to only see DSD one day a week and that was spent at DH parents so they could see her (that set a precedent). After a court battle, we now have DSD 4 days a fortnight...before lockdown, we would visit one afternoon with DSD and our children, DH would then take DSD for a couple of hours on the way back to her mums house.

I’m worried about what will happen when DSD starts school and we only see her every other weekend. I don’t want to spend the every weekend at his parents house.

I feel like they’re really intense with DSD because of the situation and it really irritates me. I know grandparents that only really see their grandchildren in the school holidays because they’re busy on weekends - I thought that was normal?

How do you all manage weekends and family relationships?

Thank you!

You just need to be firm, direct and non apologetic. Don't go in with the precedent that you need to explain why you're not seeing them on any given weekend, just say "we're doing X".

I'm the same as you and only grew up seeing my grandparents every few months, so I really don't see why they can't wait a few weeks to see them, but sadly for us this has lead to them having a higher level of involvement with DPs ex (in order to see more of DSS), including on occasions where DP has begged them not to due to the confusion and upset it has caused (such as Christmas Day). That might be something to look out for!

We have DSD every other weekend and because of various circumstances that used to be spent mostly at my in laws. Once things changed where we could have DSD at ours we stepped it back to once a month; sometimes it’s a bit more than that depending on what we’re doing but we wanted to make sure that we had weekends just us with our DC and DSD. If we were to see them every time we had DSD then we’d never have time to see anyone else or do anything

I feel for you OP, it's hard dividing time isn't it!
We're lucky atm to live within 5 mins drive of both MIL and DSS's mum. DMIL currently has DSS most Thursday afternoons after nursery (every week), and will occasionally have him on alternate Fridays (our DSS weekend) when DH and I are both working.
I'm a bit nervous about what will happen when he starts school, as I know she will want to see him frequently on the weekends (every other) that we have him, and like you say it will begin to eat up most of our weekend time with him!

I would recommend booking in time a month in advance or so, as DSC will have time to spend with your family (if that's something that is likely), playing with friends, family time at home, so on. Maybe alternate, so one month you all spend the day at PILs, and the next month it's a day out, so you can all enjoy it? Or dinner at yours etc.

It will begin to fizzle out as time goes on - your DSD will be much less enthusiastic about spending every "Dad" weekend at her grandparents when she gets to be old enough to go into town, birthday parties, cinema with friends etc on the weekends.