Grandparents Watching baby full time

[Anonymous]

Does anyone have good experiences to share?

My parents (active, late 50's) sold their house and moved cross country to my neighborhood when we got pregnant. They're adamant that they want to care for our baby after my maternity leave ends and until the baby goes to preschool. I knew they wanted to be involved, but I was kind of blown away by this. Mom is retired, but spent her life around small children and dad teleworks full time.

We have an excellent relationship, but I just wonder how much control I lose over the baby? It also puts them on a very unequal ground with DH's parents (who both work and don't live nearby). Mom's first reaction when we said we were pregnant was how excited she was that now we won't travel to my inlaws for Christmas every other year and we'll stay home and she can see us every Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

My parents watch my DD 2-3 days a week. She's in an in-home daycare the other days. (In case that's an option for you, I think the balance has been good because she gets the 1:1 attention as well as the peer interaction over the course of a week.)

I haven't found that I've lost any control over the baby with my parents being her caregivers. I also have a good relationship with both of them and they've both been very respectful about my preferences. I'm pretty laid back, so don't have a ton of rules, but made sure that I clearly communicated the ones I felt strongly about from the beginning and as she develops, I continue to tell my parents what is important to me (mostly regarding food and screen time). Other than that, I trust them to make their own decisions about how she spends her time with them.

DD is approaching 18 months and as we get deeper into setting limits, I imagine that we'll need to talk about expectations for behavior and consequences, etc., but it hasn't come up much, yet.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

FWIW, my in-laws are also out of town and we haven't found that the imbalanced time with baby has been an issue but my MIL is very independent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi there,

My parents watch my DD 2-3 days a week. She's in an in-home daycare the other days. (In case that's an option for you, I think the balance has been good because she gets the 1:1 attention as well as the peer interaction over the course of a week.)

I haven't found that I've lost any control over the baby with my parents being her caregivers. I also have a good relationship with both of them and they've both been very respectful about my preferences. I'm pretty laid back, so don't have a ton of rules, but made sure that I clearly communicated the ones I felt strongly about from the beginning and as she develops, I continue to tell my parents what is important to me (mostly regarding food and screen time). Other than that, I trust them to make their own decisions about how she spends her time with them.

DD is approaching 18 months and as we get deeper into setting limits, I imagine that we'll need to talk about expectations for behavior and consequences, etc., but it hasn't come up much, yet.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

FWIW, my in-laws are also out of town and we haven't found that the imbalanced time with baby has been an issue but my MIL is very independent

Thanks for responding! Did you do the in-home daycare when she was an infant? We were going to start this at 12 weeks. I do think that's a good solution for when the baby gets older though.

[Anonymous]

If you agree with how your mom parents then DO it. You are so fortunate! I probably wouldn't have her do it at the pre-k age but as an infant, not a problem. She can go to storytimes at the library or other events if you want your baby to be around other babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you agree with how your mom parents then DO it. You are so fortunate! I probably wouldn't have her do it at the pre-k age but as an infant, not a problem. She can go to storytimes at the library or other events if you want your baby to be around other babies.

OP here. Yes I think I do agree with how they parent. Especially with a newborn (maybe less with a teenager!). I don't want to sound ungrateful because this is a huge help that will save us about 20k a year and would give us more flexibility.

Wish we had known before we got pregnant. We've been married a long time and we waited until we had the resources to pay for maternity leave + daycare.

[Anonymous]

My mom moved in with us and watched my son from 5 months to about a year when I first returned to work. She is not particularly maternal or good with babies but it still worked out very well. I was confident my son was getting better care than he would have in day care.

Didn't make any waves with the ILs because this isn't something they every would have been able to do given work and other commitments.

Consider yourself lucky OP! Especially with the price of childcare in DC, this is a wonderful thing you have going. Tell them yes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi there,

My parents watch my DD 2-3 days a week. She's in an in-home daycare the other days. (In case that's an option for you, I think the balance has been good because she gets the 1:1 attention as well as the peer interaction over the course of a week.)

I haven't found that I've lost any control over the baby with my parents being her caregivers. I also have a good relationship with both of them and they've both been very respectful about my preferences. I'm pretty laid back, so don't have a ton of rules, but made sure that I clearly communicated the ones I felt strongly about from the beginning and as she develops, I continue to tell my parents what is important to me (mostly regarding food and screen time). Other than that, I trust them to make their own decisions about how she spends her time with them.

DD is approaching 18 months and as we get deeper into setting limits, I imagine that we'll need to talk about expectations for behavior and consequences, etc., but it hasn't come up much, yet.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

FWIW, my in-laws are also out of town and we haven't found that the imbalanced time with baby has been an issue but my MIL is very independent

Thanks for responding! Did you do the in-home daycare when she was an infant? We were going to start this at 12 weeks. I do think that's a good solution for when the baby gets older though.

DD started with both my parents and in-home daycare at 5.5 months (I took an extended leave).

[Anonymous]

Your parents do seem a little over the top (you will never travel for Christmas?).

Do your due diligence to get on daycare wait lists and that sort of thing as you have conversations with your parents. The trick will be that your mom will want to do things "her" way and may not realize the true weight of the time commitment. (Calculate how many hours you need daycare a day plus how many weeks because you only have so much vacation time.) Grandma may be better as gap daycare or backup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have good experiences to share?

My parents (active, late 50's) sold their house and moved cross country to my neighborhood when we got pregnant. They're adamant that they want to care for our baby after my maternity leave ends and until the baby goes to preschool. I knew they wanted to be involved, but I was kind of blown away by this. Mom is retired, but spent her life around small children and dad teleworks full time.

We have an excellent relationship, but I just wonder how much control I lose over the baby? It also puts them on a very unequal ground with DH's parents (who both work and don't live nearby). Mom's first reaction when we said we were pregnant was how excited she was that now we won't travel to my inlaws for Christmas every other year and we'll stay home and she can see us every Christmas.

OP, almost all of how this will work for you depends on you and your parents, but the line bolded above raises an important caveat. If your dad teleworks full time from home, having a baby/small child in the house full time is very unlikely to work out in the long term. It's really hard to work with a baby at home, and even if your mom is doing the bulk of the care while your dad works there are going to be disruptions to his workday.

[Anonymous]

OP, my parents watch my kids full time. When they started, DD was 2, mom worked FT and my dad was retired. DD started preschool at 2.5 and started going full time when I went back to work after DS was born.

Overall it's worked out beautifully. Now, both mom and dad are retired. DD is in half-day kindergarten. One thing that is different is that it takes a bit more tip toeing to get around differences in opinion. Generally my parents are very deferential to my opinions. They occasionally grumble that 19 month DS is still rear facing, which a nanny wouldn't do, but they won't FF without my consent. They only feed him what I've given them the OK to feed him (he has food allergies). I think sometimes they are too lax with kindergarten DD, but I don't expect to get my way every time.

DD was in excellent day care before this arrangement started. It's different now because my parents have a hand in raising her - it's not just child care.

[Anonymous]

The Xmas thing needs to be nipped in the bud now unless that is your plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have good experiences to share?

My parents (active, late 50's) sold their house and moved cross country to my neighborhood when we got pregnant. They're adamant that they want to care for our baby after my maternity leave ends and until the baby goes to preschool. I knew they wanted to be involved, but I was kind of blown away by this. Mom is retired, but spent her life around small children and dad teleworks full time.

We have an excellent relationship, but I just wonder how much control I lose over the baby? It also puts them on a very unequal ground with DH's parents (who both work and don't live nearby). Mom's first reaction when we said we were pregnant was how excited she was that now we won't travel to my inlaws for Christmas every other year and we'll stay home and she can see us every Christmas.

Anyone who says "we're pregnant" is a control freak. You will have horrendous problems.

[Anonymous]

My mom watches my kids a lot, including while I work PT. While I don't always agree with her style, I feel so much better leaving babies with her than I did leaving my oldest at a daycare center. I would stipulate that once baby is old enough, they get out of the house once a day (playground, storytime, etc) and when they are 2 or 3 they can go to preschool a couple mornings a week for socialization. Fwiw, my in-laws also don't live nearby. We see them 3-4x a year and my 3 kids still manage to feel close to them.

[Anonymous]

You are so incredibly lucky OP. My parents live on the West Coast and see my kids twice a year. I have begged them to come visit more often or go on vacation with us and they refuse. I SAH full-time because my DH works long and crazy hours. Even if I went back to work we'd need a nanny anyways. If my parents were to move here (which they never would) then I could go back to work. You are incredibly lucky to have such interested and involved parents.

[Anonymous]

My father retired first and was DS's primary caregiver during the day 5 days a week. It was great. To this day they have a special bond. DS is 7 and will skype with my dad for 6 hours at a time on Sundays.

The important thing to remember and is something you must be OK with is that your parents will not parent DC they way they parented you. They are older plus they are not the actually the parents. They have been waiting years to be the grandparent, While I didn't agree with everything my father did, nothing was harmful to DS. It was a great cost saver for the first 3 years and as I mentioned the bond they formed is amazing.

Go for it. You can always change to daycare if it doesn't work out.