Reply to Managing parents expectations about alone time with granddaughter

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here:

[quote=Anonymous]What do you think is the reason they want to be alone with the baby as opposed to just holding and playing with the baby while you both are around?  Do you think they worry they will not get enough cuddle time, or that the baby will cry with mom around and won't let them hold her?[/quote]

I think it's the fact that they haven't seen our daughter that much, due to COVID/being far away, so they understandably want to be able to spend some time with her.

[quote=Anonymous]Two 10 month old left alone with grandparents who seemed to not have had experience with babies in a generation and that the babies are not familiar with. I wouldn't be okay with that and my kids weren't the nervous kind.
The fact that the grandparents think this is a good idea and would be likely to shame OP makes me even more not okay with this setup.

I left my 11 mo old with my parents so my DH and I could go to a movie, and my mom took the opportunity to attempt to "fix" what she deemed to be an unacceptable cowlick in my child's hair. When we arrived home, my DD was screaming, red faced, on the floor. Her hair was wet where my mom had wet it and presumably attempted to comb down the cowlick, and there were several little bows on the ground with hunks of my DD's hair in them where she had torn them out of her head.

Listen, no one died, but I stopped leaving my baby with my mom after that. And it's stuff like this that gives new parents, and moms in particular, anxiety about leaving their kids. Even people who are technically capable of keeping a baby safe are not necessarily suitable caregivers. And grandparents can be among the worst, because as my mom showed, sometimes they are just so fixated on their own needs and expectations that they do not use basic common sense in caring for a baby. My mom was so obsessed with getting a cowlick-free photo of my DD with a bow in her hair that she could show her friends, that she just ignored the fact that the baby was screaming and miserable. Sorry, but that is not what I look for in a caregiver for my child.

Just take the baby with you, and tell the grandparents there will be lots of opportunities later in life for one on one time with their granddaughter. Grandparents get obsessed with babies but most of them figure out that they do better with, and have more fun with, slightly older kids who have a little more agency and don't need quite such intensive care and attention.[/quote]

My wife isn't as much concerned about something like this, but I could 100% see a similar scenario playing out with my Mom, which is why I'm a little anxious about leaving our daughter with them. [/quote]

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