What to consider before offering to look after grandchilld

oddoneout that sounds like a long journey for a night's childcare. What constitutes a night (several hours? overnight?)? If it is a late finish and you've got to then travel two hours back, I think it would soon take its toll on you. Trouble is, it's hard to say no. We look after our GS in the holidays two days a week as well as picking him up from school in term time. He is nine and the older we get, the more difficult we are finding it to keep up with him and the outdoor activity that he thrives on. When we took him home on Tuesday, SiL said he'd never seen us looking so tired. But at least we have another five days to get over it! He's no trouble at all really, and great fun, but he is like the Duracell bunny and he doesn't grasp the concept of the ageing process yet! He still thinks his grandad is Superman.

When I look after my DGC I go the night before because it is at least a two hour drive in the mornings because of traffic and I would not be sure of getting there before my DD leaves for work. I have only done it about once a month because my DD understands it is too far on a weekly basis.

I've got two DGS next week for five days. I'm actually dreading it and can't tell anyone. Dd is working and I said I would help but I've just looked after two other GC for a fortnight and I'm only just feeling normal again. I wish I could see them for an hour or two and then go home. These children are six and eight and we've already taken them away this year. I know the parents need help but I never asked for help yet people wanted to look after my two daughters. I am pretending to want to and feel so ashamed of myself. DH has a short fuse and was never really around when our children were small so he expects perfection. Their parents do indulge them,never say no to cakes comics or ice creams and it makes an ordinary food shop a nightmare of avoidance.

My daughter wants me to look after my GS one night a week. Only problem is they live in London and we don't and it takes nearly 2 hours by car on a good day to get there. How far is it reasonable to be asked to travel to do regular child care?

I had my little one for 10 hours recently and next day I was so tired, I had only a couple of hours to work and as soon as I got home I fell asleep on the sofa.

DD 1 had DGS when I was 65. DH 67. We have always done standby,fill-in, pick up from school when necessary, and babysitting. When DD went back to work, DGS was 8 months. She was lucky enough to find the most amazing child-minder with 2 children, whose child-rearing philosophy was completely compatible with hers. DGS was very happy with this extra family, especially as he is an only child. until he went to school. They still all meet up frequently. We would have looked after him if needed. but I think this arrangement was best for all, with lots of young, energetic company.Sadly not everyone can find a carer so ideally suited.

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annodomini says "Some young parents don't know they're born!" regarding having relatives close-by for childcare. Personally I didn't want ANYONE looking after my babies other than my husband and I, irrespective of how much they loved them.

However, like annodomini, I breastfed my babies and then my own daughter's children were also breastfed which means we have not been expected to childmind for her hardly at all. This does create a totally different dynamic in the wider family as it means that the baby/infant simply can't just be left with someone else anyway. Our son's baby was bottlefed and has been looked after by his partner's family almost from birth.

I THOUGHT I would go back to work (before baby no.1 was born) but in the end was totally desperate to find other ways to make ends meet so that I could be at home with my baby (and eventually babies/infants/children) that it just never happened till much much later. You never can be sure if this won't happen in your sister's family. As others have said - please encourage her to wait till she sees the lie of the land after the birth!

Hellomonty your relationship with your MiL sounds very like mine with DH’s mother and I totally identify with the pulling back because of her sense of entitlement to your child. Possibly I am just over-thinking the whole situation because of my own past issues, but like you, everything was OK with Mil until DS1 came along.

Thanks again, everyone for your very helpful replies and I hope I can work some of the points you have made into our general chat. Hopefully, once her initial euphoria at being a grandma calms down, sis will realise that she might find caring for the baby full time very tiring and just want to help her DS and DiL to make the right decision for them. Elysium, I particularly like your advice to be fun, flexible and loving – you can’t really go wrong with that.

I'd caution your sister to take the excellent advice from previous posters and check with her family before making any life changing decisions. My mil, who I'd always previously gotten along with, in her excitement at the upcoming birth of her grandchild, informed me when I was pregnant that she would be looking after my still to be born child two days a week and what two days these would be. She also informed me of all the other help she would be providing me with and what form that help would take.

Intellectually I knew that she was excited but emotionally her sense of entitlement to my child who I'd not even met yet caused a reflexive pulling back from me I never really managed to get over. Of course I encouraged and enabled a lovely relationship between my children and their granny but I always felt the need to ensure that strong boundaries were maintained as I knew we had very different expectations from the outset of what her role would be.

This keenness on her part would also manifest itself in asking questions or making requests over and over again if she didn't get the response she wanted (for example offering to help with catering for a birthday - the kind of task I find much easier and less stressful if left to get on with myself) and although not ever meant that way, this behaviour began to feel hectoring and bullying resulting in me wanting to pull back still further.

I managed to keep things in perspective and she has a wonderful relationship with her grandchildren but I can't help thinking she'd have gotten more of what she wanted if she'd not been quite so forceful in her excitement.

Sorry for the long post but from your description of your sister I thought my experience might be of help.

You've raised some important points here....I've had the privilege to look after my DD children even with 9 years age gap and thoroughly enjoyed every minute, despite it being exhausting. I always go by the parents rules and if in doubt, use common sense. The only problem I encountered was the fact that I'm still one of the band of women awaiting their pension at 65, and have therefore carried on working part time, around the needs of the children whom I looked after for 5 days a week. The second child is due to go to school in September, I know I will miss him dreadfully, but now I will have to find full time work which I know may not be easy. I have never been paid for looking after them but have cherished time spent! All I would say is if she is a strong character, hold back and fall in line to what's required and be fun, flexible and loving.

In my experience i get pages of detailed notes for babysitting which I try to follow to the letter. Yes ideas have changed and if I dont agree with them i keep quiet (with difficulty sometimes) so as not to rock the boat. The main thing is to keep a good relationship andkeep seeing gc regularly!

Some young parents don't know they're born! In our case, one lot of ILs lived in Kent and the others in Yorkshire while we were in the Midlands. Childcare was our job and only ours. Same goes for my DSs and their families. Distance can be a blessing, a curse or an excuse! I and both my DiLs breastfed our babies and it would not have been possible to leave a DC with the GPs. Why have babies if you aren't prepared to commit to them full time?

madamecholet may be worth mentioning that other infants/children/toddlers teach things we as adults cannot always do. There is something to be said for a combination of 1:1 with grandparents plus some nursery placement too. That way you and grandchildren get the best of both worlds. Just a thought ......

I have 10 Gc. We made it clear to all our Dc that whilst we would happily babysit whenever we could and encouraged Dc to take 4 or 5 day breaks away, however we wouldn't do any regular childcare. The arrangement has worked fine in the 19 yrs we've had dgc. Having lots of holidays with them with quality time.I would be v careful to take on regular childcare 1 Dgc can easily turn into 10

We are about to embark on looking after GD for three days and nights per week at the start of summer hols, also in half term and xmas hols. I dont think i could have coped if all of the summer holidays as i have other things that i like to do but just the first week is fine. I have made plans to entertain her, swimming, the library, cooking which she adores, kite flying if the weather is suitable, the park which she loves and we have borrowed a pop up tent for the garden so she can play in there as a camp. We also have a supply of dvds for when the weather is bad. I am sure i will be exhausted after wards as when i have her for a weekend i just collapse when she has gone. How other grans do it full time i dont know. I know she enjoys staying with us as she never wants to go home and my son says she loves coming to stay. I think it is because she gets our sole attention and is kept busy doing things which as both parents work full time they dont often get time for, plus with two older children who are teenagers they are dealing with both ends of the spectrum which at times can be hard

I have done it from the time my daughter returned to work and my grandson is now 5. It was 2 days at first then 4 days when the other grannie dropped out. It changed back to 2 days again when he qualified for 15 hrs free nursery. I now collect him from school - trouble is although my daughter says book holidays and go on filming jobs etc , I feel guilty when I have to ask her to make other arrangements, as a result I cancel my activities. We didn't make any holiday plans this year, his first school hols year as we didn't know what would happen, she has now told us she has made arrangements so we are free. We have booked three hols and one in November ( not sure how that will work out- collecting is a bit difficult- whole days are easier)Anyway, we will see how it all turns out.

Part time, say 2 or 3 days per week is great but full time would be knackering.

My mother was never there for me or her 2 grandchildren, she lived 100 miles away and saw no reason to move closer when my Dad died (he had wanted to move closer to be with his DGC but fate intervened), I don't want to be like her! I currently have the youngest 1 morning a week to give my DD some free time whilst the oldest is at nursery and love every minute

I'd like to add to my earlier post that, as your sister, I retired (well almost just 1 half day a week now) from my own business in order to spend more time with my granddaughter - retrospectively I shouldn't have done it until I knew for certain my time would be wanted. As it turned out it wasn't, and I sometimes wish I was still working - although now the summer is here I'm quite enjoying the freedom!

My advice still stands - she should wait and see, not plan it all out in advance.

Like your sister I was over the moon when I heard I was to be a GP, got very excited, and imagined myself helping out with childcare, as Son and DiL lived with us when baby born and then moved to their own house 10 mins up the road. Thought this would mean I would grow close to my grand daughter. Whilst I got on well with DiL before pregnancy and baby, since the birth it all changed. We couldn't do anything right and we're constantly told so - clearly we had very different ideas on childcare. Any offers I made to help out were declined. I used to be very sad about this, but gradually I'm coming round to the idea that actually it may be for the best. Grandchild 2 now on the way and waiting to see if anything changes once they have a 2year old and a new baby to cope with.

My advice to your sister would be to wait and see how things go in the first few months after baby is born before committing herself - life doesn't always turn out as you imagine it will. Whatever happens I wish her happy Granny times.

Thank for all your replies. It’s early days yet, and sister has only just found out about the baby. A couple of weeks ago, she was telling me about their plans for exotic holidays once she and her DH retire, but now she has decided to retire early to look after her GC. I should mention that she hasn’t actually been asked to do it and doesn’t know what her DS and DiL’s plans are, but, in her opinion, a nursery will not be able to give the child enough individual attention. Sis is very involved in her children’s day-to-day lives and can’t believe that I am happy being a long-distance GP (although I am lucky enough to see my GC several times a year) and she has told me in the past that she would want to be a big influence in her grandchildren’s lives. She is quite bossy, and does tend to think she knows what is best for everyone, but she has a good relationship with her children and their spouses, who are all fairly laid back, and I think that if she offers the childcare, her offer will be accepted. However, my MiL was a very similar character to my sister and, before we had children, I just found her interference a bit irritating, but once DS1 was born, I was like a lioness defending her cub and our relationship never really recovered! I’m probably just projecting my own past MiL issues on to this situation, but sis does seem to think it is up to her to take charge and organise everyone as usual.

I am also worried about what she is taking on. My friend has looked after two of her GC and the second will start school next year. Friend arrived at my house a couple of weeks ago, clearly at the end of her tether. I made her a cup of tea, told her to put her feet up and took her GD out to the park for an hour. When I got back, she told me she is absolutely exhausted. Her DH helped quite a bit with the first GC, but seems to have had enough of it now and care of GC2 is falling mainly to her and, now her other daughter is pregnant, she sees no end to it. However, friend is my age (early 70s) and my sister is much younger, so will probably cope much better with full-time child care.

It’s my sister’s business and I would never try to interfere, but, I am hoping that when she is here, I can just tactfully get her to think it through a bit more carefully before she jumps in with both feet! She is a lovely lady, who adores her children and always has their best interests at heart, but I can’t help feeling it might be time for her to step back a bit now.

This is so true, gramma late. I taught children with special needs for years and built up a degree of immunity to the kind if illnesses that the children were susceptible to, but now that I no longer teach, I seem to pick up everything.
I'm definitely having the flu jab this year, I used to have it when I was working but now I think I should go for it again. The little ones are always poorly with something, bless them.

I am now 70 and look after gs one day every other week, they would have liked me to do every week, but found a ten hour day exhausting, so we compromised.

Although I love having him (he's nearly one), I don't want to feel ill and tired .
Also, as others have said, you pick up all sorts of bugs from them.
Continually nose wiping etc.

Personally, I think your sister is taking on too much. But maybe they can compromise on the situation.

Ask your sister what she would like to do before she gets too old to achieve it. (Climb a high mountain, play the piano ... Endless list) If she has aspirations that demand training beforehand then ask how this fits in with GC minding duties. Essentially get to consider what she might be giving up to make way for full time commitment. It may not be actually full time childminding but it is still full time commitment. I'm not sure if your sister has taken onboard the wishes of DiL. Careful does it all round - that's my thoughts

It is a big responsibility and there is a lot to consider. Definitely consider "offering" for 1/2 days a week so that you have some life of your own. We looked after GS1 for one day a week for three years then GS2 came along and DiL has now returned to work and we are doing 2 days a week with TWO of them until Sept when oldest is going to school but it is HARD WORK when both of us are very fit but in late sixties. Also, my husband and I are current struggling with a really heavy cold caught from the little one last week when we had to continually wipe his nose - you tend to get everything they pick up from Nursery if they also go there!