Op seems to have vanished.

Anonymous wrote:How is your dh on these trips? Does he help with packing and the kids or is it all on you?

+1
Agree. Where is your husband in all of this vacation planning with his parents?

15:37 poster again ~ ways it might work
Really think about what you want/don't like about staying with the ILs. Anticipate and know some solutions. You should never have, "oh, but they insist on ____." to factor into anything. If you adopt that approach - your fault. You don't need to.

When we did vacation with ILs, I worked this out. I had time to myself, each morning, from early morning till noon. DH took the kids. I had zero responsibilities till noon. No asking where I'm going or when I'm coming back. I got up when I wanted and left.

Meals were something we had to discuss. It was unimportant to DH and I that we have a sit-down meal. We wanted to be on the beach, especially between 4 - 8pm.

Problem is: when someone else is paying for it, there is a natural tendency to "be their guest" and adapt to what they want. That's why you may need to pay for yourselves. Pay equally to be treated as equals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In laws have a place in Florida close to the beach and DH and in laws really want us visit for a week during the summer. Young DCs would probably really enjoy the trip too.

Am I really selfish for being the sole holdout on this? The alternative is we go on our own vacation, but it would be far more expensive. Money isn’t tight but a consideration. I just don’t want to spend a week with the in-laws on our sole summer vacation. They are nice enough. They just don’t help with the kids, I never feel completely comfortable, the home is not baby proof and it doesn’t feel like our nuclear family creating memories anymore, its more about the grandparents. And we will be there twice during the holidays already.

Since it is a flight away, it doesn’t really make sense to just go for a few days in case, and they probably wouldn’t be thrilled if we split the time between their home and somewhere else anyway. So it’s all or nothing

Are they supposed to?

If they expect their kids and grandkids to travel to them multiple times a year, then yes.

I don’t think grandparents owe anyone a ton of free babysitting, but there is a range of what helpful means and I do think it includes participating in an active grandparent role and engaging children directly when they are brought to visit.

Exactly. I don't expect diaper changing and spills cleaned up. But how about a walk around the block, story read, card game? Not staring at Facebook.

OP, it's reasonable that this is not how you want to spend your vacation. My IL's didn't own a place but would rent one. After a few tries of staying together we, instead, rented our own condo. Sure it didn't make financial sense but it is what worked. So, two condos next to each other. It's the only way I would do it. I didn't care that it cost thousands.