Reply to First year of baby's life: visiting grandparents?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, you sound like a very kind, thoughtful person, and you certainly don't sound like you're angling for free babysitting or help around the house from your in-laws.

One question here, I think, is what kind of relationship you envision your child having with your in-laws.  I know I had a fantastic relationship with one set of grandparents in particular, and am forever grateful that it was important to my parents to cultivate that (even though they personally did not get along all that well with these grandparents).  The grandparents lived across the country and we saw them as often as we could, and they also came to us.  If your in-laws are not prepared to visit more than 1-2x per year, you need to decide, guilting from them aside, whether that's sufficient for you--or whether you want your DC to see them more often, for his sake.  If you do, you need to make the effort.

And while I know that traveling with a baby or toddler is a pain, I really think 2 hours in the car is not all that bad.  If you visit each set 2x per year that's one day trip, or one overnight, every 3 months.  Maybe this is easy for me to say b/c for us, both sets of grandparents are a (short) plane ride away and it is a HUGE pain and expense to see them, DS is a disastrous sleeper when we go anywhere, and the whole experience is kind of a nightmare.  Still, I confess it's never occurred to me to just say, screw it, you visit us 100% of the time.  We first flew with him when he was four months old and at age 2, he has been on about 15 plane trips, most of them to visit various family members.  We suck it up because otherwise we wouldn't see these people as often, or at all; and because it gives us the opportunity to celebrate some holidays with extended families.

Obviously it depends on how much you care for these in-laws and want them in your child's life.  It sounds like, while their behavior is aggravating you--understandably, to some degree--you do care for them.  Six months is still young but not a newborn, and I'd start thinking about planning a day trip or weekend trip and seeing how it goes.  [/quote]

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