Totally exhausted from babysitting GC

EHM - you must be straight with them. You might need to brace yourself. I had to do this a few years ago, when my youngest son’s little boy was roughly 2 years old. I was asked to help out because d.I.l. wanted to go back to work. Bearing in mind, I was working part-time, sharing school runs for my daughter’s children, I had no qualms about declining. I said I would do occasional baby-sitting if they wanted to go out for an evening etc but I drew the line at that. I felt no guilt, because my son is a high earning professional and could have well afforded to paid babysitter or Nanny, if it came to that. It was an awkward conversation, but no harm was done as far as our relationship was concerned. I still do a bit of babysitting now and then.
So just be straight and everything will work out.

Hi Maureen ,
Much as you love your children and grandchildren -
you are being taken advantage of .
Time to say , I can't do all this babysitting and childcare .
I'm tired and I need a life of my own .

You’re feeling bitter now and taken for granted. Now is the time to be open about how you feel. Otherwise you‘ll fall out with your daughter, and if that happens, you might not see your grandchildren. Little ones are exhausting, you should enjoy them, but not expect to care for them during the week and at weekends. Once babies arrive, social lives are a luxury — they should accept that.

I feel it's important to not find excuses (sore ankle, menopause etc) that can be explained away or "treated".
Be straight and say "I feel this is too much and I'm exhausted".

Don't forget, even more babies may come along!

Tell them you "feel" too exhausted and that you want to give them time to find alternatives- but from Christmas you won't be doing this anymore.

Stick to your guns. As others have said, you are loved and they will understand and adapt. They can do it. They are adults now.
Do not put it off
The longer you leave it the less time they have to arrange an alternative.

Hope it is soon resolved.

I feel for you EHM. It can be very difficult not to help but equally to feel you have some life of your own.
My DD2 is a single parent. She works 4 days a week. DGS2 is 5 and just started school. We take and pick him up 1 day a week - feed him, do homework then home, and take him the next day so she can start early and finish early to collect him as we collect his cousins in a different town that day - take DGD to swimming and DGS1 to football.
DGS2 goes to breakfast club and after school club on the other days but the bus DD2 relies on to get home is useless - often late, delays with heavy traffic and now a single decker so I now collect DGS2 on 2 other days a week, take him home, start his tea and do homework. Every 2nd week we collect DGS1 and DGD at lunchtime on a Friday, give them lunch then supervise (often one or 2 friends as well as they are in and out each others houses) till DD1 gets home from work.
It's not as hard as when they were babies but takes up such a lot of time. I wouldn't have it any other way but retirement is not relaxing. We are 67 and 68 and DH has had a stroke. It feels like this is all we do. I know eventually they will not require as much supervision but sometimes I wish we could do other things together.

I have mentioned this before on here. There was no chance of any help from my immediate family. I chose not to have children because I thought my life would be over. My husband persuaded me to change my mind aged 37.. Best decision ever. My son enhanced my life and continues to do so in his thirties. I ran a business from home and employed au pairs and a junior nanny. Why don’t AC do that these days?

Why don’t adult children think they need to look after their own children and arrange their lives round them? Why does ‘babysitting’ these days seem to mean an overnighted until lunchtime the following day? What’s happened to evening only babysitting in the parent’s home? Lots of questions.

We have a large family and lots of grand and great grand children and I’ve done plenty of baby sitting over the years, including when I was working full time. But I realised that I had to start drawing lines in the sand when I was being expected to regularly overnight a newish baby and an 18 month old toddler from teatime to late afternoon the following day. I did it a few times but then said No, no more overnights but I’d gladly come and babysit in the parent’s house while they went out for the evening up until midnight. They clearly didn’t like it because I was never taken up on my offer. Which suited me really as I still had calls on my time from 4 other families.

When I retired I decided I had to make it absolutely clear that I wasn’t going to spend my retirement doing regular, scheduled childminding but I was more than happy to be there for emergencies. And the families coped.

We raised five children with no family nearby to help out with anything on one salary for quite a few years and we had no option but to cut our lifestyle to match our income. I feel strongly that too many parents these days put looking after their children in second place to maintaining a pre child lifestyle. Sometimes, things just have to wait.

So put yourself first and say No whenever you feel you are being taken advantage of. Oh, and don’t put your own relationship at risk because of other people’s childcare needs and rules.

Apologies if that sounds harsh.

You've been given a lot of very good advice here, so I won't repeat it all, but I do totally understand how you must feel. I'm 61 and have two GC, aged 5 & 2, who I look after occasionally, and do the school run one day a week. I'm always on my knees with exhaustion by the time they go home! I've had them here overnight on rare occasions, but they are not great sleepers, and both always wake ridiculously early with the birds. I've never been an early riser, so it absolutely kills me!
The overnighters actually all came about when my DiLs mother decided her DD was exhausted from looking after 2 young children, so suggested that we sometimes helped out by having the kids overnight on a Fri/Sat, so they could have a rest/go out for the evening and have a lie-in! Fool that I am, I agreed to it! She's the type of person who's in bed by 9pm and rises at 5.30am, so I guess she can handle it better than me ... she's welcome to it! I'm afraid that overnighters are not for me ... maybe when they are older.
DS & DiL do have a habit of asking me to babysit whilst they go to do some shopping, or something they need to do, but they have been known to be gone for most of the day, enjoying lunch out, etc., whilst I'm running around like a headless chicken!
They know that I'm always available should they need me in an emergency, and when there are teacher training days, and no school. But, as much as I love and cherish my GC, and the time I spend with them, I've got to the point in life now where I feel it's '*my time*'. I'll always do whatever I can to help my AC out with my GC, but not to the detriment of my own well-being and social life.
Taking care of children is definitely a young persons game, and it's a lot harder in your 50s/60s than it is in your 20s/30s. You need to make your DD aware of this, and tell her how exhausting you're finding it all. As well as the fact that you have very little time to yourself, or indeed for your own social life with your partner, which you absolutely deserve.

Just say I am tired and exhausted and can only do whatever hours you want to do. You are not a doormat so don’t act like one. I would not give up my social life because in a few years however many hours you give now you will become redundant.

Don't make up excuses EHM just be honest.

As several posters upthread have pointed out people will treat you as you teach them to treat you. This applies to relatives as well as randoms.

I can never understand how it is that individuals who are getting older/sicker/or have less energy feel that they cannot be frank with their relatives about having to step back from some of their responsibilities. Things have to change as you get older and less able to do things for others and there is no need to feel selfish or guilty.

Why do folk allow themselves to be walked over? Just say no!

ElaineI, why don't you prioritise your husband and his needs, and yours for time with him, quality, relaxed, just the two of you leisure time.
don't be left with regrets.
time is precious.
they could pay someone else to do that work of child-minding.
your husband is unique and priceless.
cherish him.

The problem with people who make door mats of themselves is that they train those going in and out to always wipe their feet on the mat, so the it never occurs to the foot wipers that they should look at the mat now and again and notice that it is worn out.

so the it never occurs to the foot wipers that they should look at the mat now and again and notice that it is worn out.

So true M0nica - and sometimes it's as simple as children not realising that parents are not as young and strong/healthy as they used to be, especially when the parents do everything they can to keep up appearances. Add to that the children thinking parents are happy to spend time with their grand children (which they usually are, but maybe not as much time as they get) and you very quickly get a doormat situation.

Maye it's time to speak to all the children about the amount of babysitting time you do, and sort out how you can cut it down but still give your ACs some time off (if you want to).

The last time you posted about your adult children, Maureen, you said you would cut out all incidental babysitting and just do the day care. So why did you agree to spoil your weekend for your uber-critical and ungrateful daughter and her partner? You should have returned the (hopefully still screaming) baby and told them their baby was unsettled because of the lifestyle they were imposing on her and that she is their priority, not nights out, cleaning houses and having lazy lie-ins at your expense.
Don't give up your nice partner for these ingrates.

You need to be honest and just say that you have bitten off more than you can chew with all this child-care.

Make up your mind what you can offer to do and stick to it.

There is a very good reason why nature decided that women of 50+ don't have babies - we just don't have the strength to cope with them, however much we love them.

Be polite, but firm, otherwise you will wear yourself out carrying on with far too much childcare.

You should definitely say no more overnights because of all the daytime care you are giving. These overnights become overlongs going into the next day. As others have ssid what happened to the GPs babysitting for a couple of hours at the DS or DDs house ? I also know exactly what you mean about an occasional bunch of flowers . My DH had our DGS two or sometimes three afternoons per week picking him up from a morning at nursery , I was still teaching at the time. When it was the first Christmas I thought O I bet they get DH a nice pressie since he's been doing all this free childcare . Nothing was forthcoming ! DH didn't really notice but I thought for heavens sake people tip the binmen more round here ! A little appreciation goes a long way .

Why are there so many people on gransnet and mumsnet afraid to set boundaries or to come out and speak what they say on the threads they begin? Yes its easy to get into a situations where someone (usually a relative or a neighbour) abuses your good nature. Eventually you have to come out and say "Look Im not getting any younger and all this is becoming too much for me. So Im giving you XX weeks notice that I will be stepping back from babysitting/overnight childcare and you will have to put your own arrangements in place going foreard. Doing it in a text or email is probably easiest.

If you do an overnight in future, tell them at drop off that you'll be bringing child back at 9am as you have a busy day.

biglouis, I agree that many GPs are afraid to say how they really feel to their ACs about childcare/babysitting, usually for fear of offending them. It really shouldn't be like this. However, whilst I think most loving, reasonable ACs would understand how their older parents feel, there are some who would be very miffed about the situation and possibly have a falling out. In this scenario everyone loses out, as the GPs possibly wouldn't see much of their GC, the parents would lose their babysitters, and the GCs would miss out on having loving GPs in their lives.

It's sad that it comes to this, but sometimes it does. Which is probably why some GPs don't say anything, and carry on exhausted, eventually becoming resentful, feeling unappreciated and undervalued.

Many young parents these days seem very active in 'setting boundaries' for the GPs, yet some get very offended if the GPs do the same. Sometimes, you just can't win either way. It's a shame we can't all be more considerate to each others wants, needs and capabilities.

Perhaps GPs should be more truthful and honest to themselves and their ACs before offering up their precious time as they're getting older, then regretting it when they realise it's all too much for them. And perhaps more young parents should be more considerate about not asking too much of their older parents, and to be less reliant on them when they decide to have children.

This is the nub:
Perhaps GPs should be more truthful and honest to themselves and their ACs before offering up their precious time

- unfortunately, it's always easier to see what we should have done afterwards.

I am so grateful that we said "no" straight off to regular childcare. It wasn't a thought-through decision, it was an immediate shock response 😯 - but we were still working and it frankly came as a surprise to be asked! It had never occurred to us that it was even a thing people do when there are no special circumstances or "extra" problems in the family.

We love our grandchildren and do help out but the regular thing is making some of my friends quite fed up.

Hello everyone

Sorry not taking ages to come back, Ive been quite ill since DGC left on Sunday and only just recovering.

They came at 2.30 to pick the baby up and had the audacity to be annoyed that she had napped at midday - apparently this buggers up her routine. What about my routine!

I did say to them them she was so so unsettled and next time I’d rather I babysat at their so when they come home they can deal with her when she wakes up. I pretty sure they would hate that so hopefully I won’t be asked anytime soon.

My OH has kindly booked us a winter sun holiday in 2 weeks time - I can’t wait. The AC of course huffed because they’re snookered for childcare that weekS

I need to do something about this I know.

Now you have at least started on a better plan, hooray!

Don't procrastinate over telling them it all needs to change - or you will still be doing the same childcare next year! 🥺

Enjoy your holiday EHM and use some of the time to get clear in your mind what you feel comfortable doing for your family in future. Christmas would be a good cut off point, after that make it clear you will only be able to offer limited help due to health concerns and wanting to spend time with your partner.