How much time is fair to give to looking after the grandchildren?

Great to hear other grans get exhausted too and not everyone is a supergran.
Anniegran - you were blessed having a family that pulled together. Our parents never helped which made me want to be a hands on grandparent. I carried on working but only part-time and in jobs where hours were flexible so I could usually be around at end of school - even (especially) when they were teenagers. I still had time for 20 odd years of a successful career in my own business - helped by what I learnt as a mum.
Waller 5, it sounds like you have answered your own question. If it is phycially too much, it is too much - and unsafe too.
We help with grandchildren in lots of ways but I quickly realised that physically I had to set boundaries when it came to daycare (&, Waller5, I'm only 65 ) & clearly communicate these to the parents. I only do 1 regular day a week, mainly after the age of c 11 months and at first only one at a time, rarely before 9 or after 5. Daughter couldn't afford childcare so gave up the job, trained as a childminder (does 1 day a week) and manages husband's business from home. Now the grandkids are 2 and 4 it's easier especially now grandpa has realised how much fun we were having and comes on our jaunts too.

I think maxgran has summed it up perfectly 'As much time as you are willing to give and no more'. It should certainly not be expected or taken for granted.

On a personal level I have to agree with Anniegran, as my mum took care of all my children so that I could work first of all full time and then part time. I was not a young mum - 30 when I had my first child, but my husband and I had only just started our careers and needed both salaries to provide an adequate standard of living. My children gained so much from the love and care of their grandmother and she loved them so much. Although I still work full time I feel blessed to be able to do the same for my daughter and I look after my darling grandson most days while she is studying. But I do find it tiring and recognise that I may not always feel able to offer so much support.

As much time as you are willing to give and no more.
I have always had a problem saying 'No' to requests for minding the Grandchildren,.. but I am learning !
At the moment I am having to look after a 5 yr old because his baby brother is very ill and my Son & DiL are at the hospital all the time - so the circumstances are exceptional.
He is a joy to look after - but even so I get worn out as I also have a job. If it goes on for a long time I don't think I can manage the level of help I am giving.

I will never forget the kindness of my mother, my mother in law and my sister in law who looked after my children on a rota basis so I could go to teacher training college.
It was different then, families were closer and pulled together for each other.

i know things have changed dramatically since we were young mums , and also I am probably extremely old fashioned , but I didn"t go to work and wanted to stay at home to look after my children but as I say to my daughter looking after children is a young womans job . We get more tired as we don"t have the stamina we used to have however much we kid ourselves . Young children can be very tiring , I have to say I haven"t found myself in your position but you sometimes have to be brave and say "Be fair " please don"t overburden me, easy for me I know and also they can send one on a guilt trip , !!!!

Could it be a deficiency of some kind?

Well I have had it on and off for about 10 years now so I doubt that it will kill me - it is just such a pain and I would so like to find an answer. Haven't been to the Dr about it as I am sure it is a virus.

whitewave - you do sound run down. Have you seen your GP? It might be a good idea to have a blood test if you haven't already had one. See what jeni says!

I think that our generation has a double whammy really as I have the grandchildren school holidays that their parents can't cover and any emergencies like sickness , inset days etc. I also have a 94 year old mother who although living on her own take a bit of input. I cook some meals or her do her shopping take to Dr's etc. There are times that I get really tired, I think I also have some sort of virus that pops up when I overdo it - I get achy and flu-y and feel as if I have a temperature and ghastly mouth ulcers that lasts for about 10 days - it drives me mad as it does restrict me.

Chris; it's so right what you have said. Now in [I think] my fifth week of not seeing my grandchildren and realising more and more how much pressure I felt under to help with looking after them [as well as working myself]. Am beginning to acknowledge that I was close to breaking point, not just physically but feeling weighed down with the actual responsibility.

Both my DiLs had their children in their 30s as I did. One of them has put her career on hold by working reduced hours; the other managed to organise her working life to do four days instead of five. Both families used nurseries near home. Neither of them has parents or in-laws (me) living anywhere near, so they had to sort things out for themselves as I suspect they would have even if I had been available.

I think we need to remind ourselves that our children are adults and since many are having children at an older age they are 'proper grown ups'. It is not up to us to solve all their problems for them but to support and help within reason.

Seeing grandchildren should be more of a pleasure and less of a duty. That way grandparents can develop a good relationship with their grandchildren without feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilty of childminding. A good grandchild/grandparent relationship benefits everyone including our children. Maybe we should be thinking more about quality and not quantity in terms of looking after grandchildren?

There are alternatives such as nurseries and childminders and perhaps the other set of grandparents as well as the grandchildren's aunts uncles etc.

Our children as adults and parents need to make adult choices as many of our generation did with regards to work and family. Maybe working part-time and putting career on hold til the children are older? These are tough choices our children as adults need to make. A realisation that you can't always 'have it all' not all at the same time at any rate and priorities need to be set.

If Wallers5 you make yourself ill through helping too much, your daughter would no doubt feel bad and who would look after the grandchildren then? In a family surely everyones needs should be considered.

The problem, it seems to me, is that the generation after us is waiting too long to start families. My first grandchild was by courtesy of a couple of young parents and I had all the energy in the world to play and chase him in the park and have a thoroughly good time. He is 22 now and we still have a bond from those happy but energetic times with him and his brother.
Our latest 2 little ones are from a son who is sensible and careful and got a good career and steady lifestyle started before producing. It breaks my heart that I can no longer be the grandmother I once was. If I could actually reach the floor to do Lego or play with trains I could never get up again.
It's good to air the issue of near middle aged new parents and try and get them to understand that the biggest sacrifice they may be making is the help and wisdom of the upper generation.

waller if you are finding the childcare is preventing you doing other things you want to do or making you too tired to do other things you need to let your daughter know or it may develop into a tense situation & when tension snaps often things are said in frustration etc

I thoroughly enjoyed the one day a week looking after my DGS that has now turned into 2 afternoons looking after him and his cousin . DH or I often do the school run as DD2 does not have a car so when really wet we offer but it is not a given!

Totally agree absentgrana - I truly feel that it is just too much to ask a grand-parent 60+ to look after 2 young children on a regular basis. I wouldn't withdraw support suddenly, but I think you need to pluck up the courage to discuss arrangements for after school holidays- and you being there for emergency and occasional cover. Best of luck.

I think you have been amazing Wallers, I rather doubt that I would be able to do the same at 70. I have been looking after 1 2 year old 2 days a week and my dd has announced her second pregnancy. I have told her that when she returns to work after 2nd maternity leave that I cannot cope with 2. She knows I will be fully supportive with tking one or both for outings or meeting from nursery and always there in emergency but no longer 2 days a week and am looking forward to less stress.

Very wise words, crimson. I hope your family come to acknowledge and appreciate what you have done for them and why you have done it.

nanakate; how difficult for you. My partner and I realised that turning 60 hit us both hard...an awareness that we needed to do things now, not next week or next year. Having said that, we couldn't bear the thought of my grandson going to a nursery after school..being picked up in a van and all that. I've still got to work part time, at least for the next 15 months and then probably for longer if I want to have money for holidays and such like. It was watching the Grayson Perry programme today that made me wonder just how much our lives have been shaped by wanting our children to have better lives than our own. And how much of our lives we want to devote to that, as if we don't know when to stop. We sometimes need to stop and look at what our raison d'etre now is, because our lives change and we change. From speaking to friends and aquaintances recently, I've realised that men seem better at seeing when things have gone too far in our willingness to always be at the beck and call of our children or seeing that they, at some point have to take sole responsibilty for their own lives and happiness. We're always saying that, to look after other people we have to look after ourselves first, and we need someone to give us permission to do that sometimes.

OMG! I now know why my DS was painting an outhouse in his garden at the weekend!!

Well, I have that problem too glass

crimson I have just read your post and think I need to go to bed, thought it had said the lack of a ballroom was a slight problem

Crimson, I really feel for you, the family really have taken advantage. I feel enormously lucky because I seem to have had the best of both worlds. I took over childcare of my DGC (2 boys) when her marriage broke up and her ex abandoned her with a 3 year old and a 3 month old baby. As a family we all pulled together to help her, and over the last four years, we have settled into a routine where my husband does the school run in the morning, and I have the boys after 11.45 and after school, for three days a week. She has been really grateful and we are all much closer than we would have been had her husband stuck around. I gave up my career and have just retired completely.

We are only 60 and yet I am beginning to feel it, physically, psychologically and emotionally. I adore my family but I honestly don't know how I could have done it had my husband not been an absolute star and helped me in so many big and small ways. My problem now is that the youngest is starting full-time school in September, my daughter is changing her work patterns, and this is my opportunity to say that I don't want to carry on doing the childcare at the same level. I'm ok at the moment, but do I really want to go on being an unpaid fetcher and carrier, cook and bottlewasher for ever?

Yes, crimson, I fear DD would provide me with a commode....

The more I think about it, the more I feel that 'too much' is when you don't do things that you want to do for yourself because you haven't the time or feel too tired because of looking after the children. It's a difficult one, because it sort of creeps up on you. The night before I had the big bust up with my daughter I nearly didn't go to a concert I'd been looking forward to for months because I'd been at work since 7.45 that day and was childminding till 6 that evening; the following night, having gone to the concert and then gone to work and done the school run I was exhausted. Anagram; I actually lived in a garden shed for a short time in my youth, and it was great. No housework! Although the lack of a bathroom was a slight problem .