Insensitive or reasonable bahavior by sister in law

[Anonymous]

So why don't you hire a babysitter instead of having your mom help you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family is gathering this week for Easter. I've been here for a week with DS who is ten weeks. My SIL is coming into town and my mom will be watching her 2.5 year old from 12 to 8 every day while SIL works (working remotely on west coast hours). My SIL took the red eye in from the west coast this am. I got up w baby at 4.30 am and then picked up her and her 2.5 year old son this am at 6. My mom also got up early to feed and change baby when I left for the airport. When we got back from the airport my mom made smoothies and breakfast for everyone. My SIL then went to bed, leaving my mom to watch the 2.5 year old. She's still sleeping. My mom is exhausted and still has 8.5 more hours to go with the 2.5 year old. I can't believe my SIL. I get that she's wiped after flying the red eye with a toddler (who had a meltdown and didn't sleep on the flight) but I feel it's wrong of her to just dump her DS on my elderly mom like this. If I was in her shoes I'd take a one hour nap and a shower, not a 4 hour nap! What say you DCUM?

Why did you make your mom get up early? You should have let her sleep in. You were getting up anyway and the baby could just come along in the car to the airport with you.

Bc I can't feed, burp, and change the baby while driving the car. Come on now. Oh, and she just went back upstairs to take a nap. She's "working" while my mom babysits-she just said "the computer dings when I get an email so I'll hear it."

Why didn't you feed, burp and change the baby before you left?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family is gathering this week for Easter. I've been here for a week with DS who is ten weeks. My SIL is coming into town and my mom will be watching her 2.5 year old from 12 to 8 every day while SIL works (working remotely on west coast hours). My SIL took the red eye in from the west coast this am. I got up w baby at 4.30 am and then picked up her and her 2.5 year old son this am at 6. My mom also got up early to feed and change baby when I left for the airport. When we got back from the airport my mom made smoothies and breakfast for everyone. My SIL then went to bed, leaving my mom to watch the 2.5 year old. She's still sleeping. My mom is exhausted and still has 8.5 more hours to go with the 2.5 year old. I can't believe my SIL. I get that she's wiped after flying the red eye with a toddler (who had a meltdown and didn't sleep on the flight) but I feel it's wrong of her to just dump her DS on my elderly mom like this. If I was in her shoes I'd take a one hour nap and a shower, not a 4 hour nap! What say you DCUM?

Why did you make your mom get up early? You should have let her sleep in. You were getting up anyway and the baby could just come along in the car to the airport with you.

Bc I can't feed, burp, and change the baby while driving the car. Come on now. Oh, and she just went back upstairs to take a nap. She's "working" while my mom babysits-she just said "the computer dings when I get an email so I'll hear it."

Why didn't you feed, burp and change the baby before you left?

Stop interrogating her, she explained it already.

[Anonymous]

Your SIL probably doesn't want to be there at all. They asked your mom to come to them and she didn't - probably bc she was there helping you, and then pressure rose for everyone to be together for Easter at MIL's house. SIL could easily have hired a babysitter at her home for less than the cost of the plane tickets. She is the trooper for making this ill-planned trip at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are being a prima donna, OP. You knew that your mother had agreed to watch your nephew all day and you still woke your mother up at 4:30am. There are these new-fangled devices called cell phones. You call your SIL's cell, leave her a message that it's taking you longer than expected to get out of the house and you'll be there 30 minutes after you originally agreed. You'll call her when you enter the airport drive so she can come out to the curb to meet her. Then you sit down, feed your child, burp the child, change the child and put the child in the car seat, then go to the airport.

You are the one responsible for exhausting your mother, not your SIL. Grow up and be a responsible family member. SIL could not change her plans, stay up later, or just be coherent on a 1 hour nap instead of sleeping. You, on the other hand could have been more considerate and mature about the entire thing.

Op here. Bc I can't imagine doing this to someone at 6 am. Maybe a better option would have been to pay for a car service. My parents are from another country though and my dad wouldn't have permitted that-he would have gone himself in order to prevent that (and he's quite old and in poor health).

[Anonymous]

Sounds like it is going to be a rough week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Your SIL probably doesn't want to be there at all. They asked your mom to come to them and she didn't - probably bc she was there helping you, and then pressure rose for everyone to be together for Easter at MIL's house. SIL could easily have hired a babysitter at her home for less than the cost of the plane tickets. She is the trooper for making this ill-planned trip at all.

No, my mom couldn't come bc she flies overseas several times per year to see HER elderly mom and she has to shut down her business when she travels. She cannot afford to totally shut down. Also she's freaking exhausted and didn't want to fly cross country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are being a prima donna, OP. You knew that your mother had agreed to watch your nephew all day and you still woke your mother up at 4:30am. There are these new-fangled devices called cell phones. You call your SIL's cell, leave her a message that it's taking you longer than expected to get out of the house and you'll be there 30 minutes after you originally agreed. You'll call her when you enter the airport drive so she can come out to the curb to meet her. Then you sit down, feed your child, burp the child, change the child and put the child in the car seat, then go to the airport.

You are the one responsible for exhausting your mother, not your SIL. Grow up and be a responsible family member. SIL could not change her plans, stay up later, or just be coherent on a 1 hour nap instead of sleeping. You, on the other hand could have been more considerate and mature about the entire thing.

Op here. Bc I can't imagine doing this to someone at 6 am. Maybe a better option would have been to pay for a car service. My parents are from another country though and my dad wouldn't have permitted that-he would have gone himself in order to prevent that (and he's quite old and in poor health).

OP, my family is like this too, and I know where you are coming from. You are probably a typical "child of immigrants", who tries to protect her vulnerable parents (and the parents likely don't speak much English, don't quite get the social norms, try to please everyone and being constantly taken advantage of) in the new country. There is not much you can do in this situation without hurting MIL-DIL relationship, so try to help your mom as much as possible and let her rest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like it is going to be a rough week.

Haha, yes. I bet the tension when OP and her SIL are together is oppressive!

[Anonymous]

No, my mom couldn't come bc she flies overseas several times per year to see HER elderly mom and she has to shut down her business when she travels. She cannot afford to totally shut down. Also she's freaking exhausted and didn't want to fly cross country.

^^ Then she never should have agreed to watch a toddler for 8 hours a day. But now that she has, what is the SIL supposed to do? She's there, she's supposed to work, she can't work on one hour of sleep.

[Anonymous]

We actually get along really really well and I feel like a shitty human being for complaining about her while she's in my home. I'm going to try and improve my attitude and just be as helpful to my mom as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your SIL probably doesn't want to be there at all. They asked your mom to come to them and she didn't - probably bc she was there helping you, and then pressure rose for everyone to be together for Easter at MIL's house. SIL could easily have hired a babysitter at her home for less than the cost of the plane tickets. She is the trooper for making this ill-planned trip at all.

No, my mom couldn't come bc she flies overseas several times per year to see HER elderly mom and she has to shut down her business when she travels. She cannot afford to totally shut down. Also she's freaking exhausted and didn't want to fly cross country.

exhausted -- From watching YOUR baby!!!! smh

[Anonymous]

OP, you sound tired, which is reasonable for a FTM of an infant. Go on care.com and hire a babysitter to watch both your infant and your nephew and all of you should go to bed for a while. Your SIL isn't being unreasonable and has made an effort to come to your MILs house, which is a really big trek with a toddler - something you can't quite understand yet because you don't have a toddler. You were nice to pick them up at the airport and your mom was nice to watch your baby so you could do this. Nobody is in the wrong here, it just sounds like you are all stretched too thin caring for kids and working.

This is a situation where you need to throw money at it and buy yourselves some time to sleep and catch up on work. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

What is smh?
I noticed above that I wrote "my" home. That's telling huh? Guess the pp's were right about only daughter syndrome.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you are ALL tired and overworked -your mom, you AND your brother/sil. So try and think charitably.

That said it may also be that, being around more, you are more aware of your mother's increasing limitations than your brother is. In that case you should have an honest, non-judgemental talk with your brother/sil about the changes you are seeing in your Mom / the need to cut back on what you ask of her. Sometimes it's really hard to mentally adjust to the aging limitations of your parents - I know I had this issue and my brother (who lives near my folks) had this conversation with me abut asking less of my Mom. Since my Mom *wants* to help and I was only up for short visits I wasn't seeing the big picture. So no when I visit I am much more cognizant of the type of help I ask my parents for - 'watching' the kids while I run into town on an errand, no problem. Full days of childcare - not OK, if I need more than maybe a morning a couple hours here or there they go to camp or we have a sitter.