Childcare / Family Relations Dilemma

Scarlett1

Elle83 wrote: »

THE DILEMMA

Do I risk my wonderful job opportunity by still allowing the grandparents to have my son two days in the week and only book a childminder for three days?

no, find childcare arrangements for 5 days as relying on your ex and his family will not work out, you have seen this first hand

Elle00

Thanks everyone who's posted. I'm not happy about how they will react but I guess it's tough really if they can't be consistently reliable. The grandparents have helped me a lot in the past on and off but I need absolute commitment and reliability and can't rely on that from them. God my ex-MIL is going to make this sooo difficult. I kept getting my son home with the worst nappy rash I'd ever seen in recent weeks and no-one would talk to me about it so after pushing and pushing I eventually confronted ex-MIL last week about how much fresh OJ they're giving him as I thought it looked like more of a stool contact allergy than regular nappy rash (which he doesn't get unless teething). Half OJ half water she's been giving my 20m old as opposed to the recommended 1:8. No flipping wonder. But despite my tactful laugh-it-off-as-a-silly-oversight attitude she still looked at me like a puppy that had just been kicked and pouted like she was biting her tongue. If I hear the word "chocolate" from them one more time I'll scream too - I only give it once or twice a week, not every flipping day!

God this is so hard. I want my son to have his family around as much as possible and especially his Daddy but I can't keep doing things at the expense of everything else! I keep getting told I want everything to revolve around me by my ex but just can't seem to get it through his thick head that it is OUR son that OUR lives are supposed to revolve around. I'm so fed up with being that t***'s unpaid childcare. Oh I'm so angry I best stop typing now.

Janepig

If you get any old pony off your mil when you break the news, tell her this:-

Our son has two parents and needs to be raised by both; I do not go in for this old fashioned nonsense of women's places being at home with the kids considering it is now socially acceptable to punch said women and abandon them to live off benefits. I need to work too and with that I should also be able to enjoy an element of a social life. With both of us working full time, I still offered to have our son five nights to his two and fail to see how I am unreasonable in this. If he is able to attend the dentist or go out with friends without our son being around then I too should get the opportunities to do so.

..... which is what you put in your original post and tell her the rest of it too if you want, but you can't put it better than the quote above
which is all that needs to be said.

Jxx

Jet

Book the childminder. You can always ask the family to help out at weekends or if the childminder is ill or on holiday. If you need to, explain to the family that you didn't want to have to ask them for that level of committment as you didn't think it was fair on them etc. etc.

I think if you ask them to do it, they will be forever telling you what a big favour they are doing you.

With tax credits you should find that a lot of the childcare costs are covered anyway. I've had friends offering to have my child in the school holidays which is nice but it ends up costing me more than registered childcare by the time I've given them a little gift to say thank you.

lindsaygalaxy

The other problem i have learnt from personal experience ( i do hal grandparents half nursery) is the child gets away with everything with the grandparents and they stay grandparents and not the childmider you need ( who will be more disaplined with them than grandparents!) In my opionion but your son into the full time childminder, change to the nursery if a plce comes up if its easier, and just tell the grandparents you feel they would lose the special grandparent time with him if he spnt all that time with them and you feel he needs to be around other children to develop, how can they argue with that!

Jo6673

....AND if your not relying on family for childcare during the week it'll be easier to ask for babysitting at weekends if you need a night out cos they cant comment that they've had your child ALL week "and now she wants to go OUT??!!!"

amandada

I'm another one for taking the CM route! My parents looked after dd for a bit when she was little and I worked. It was only a couple of days a week, and for the most part it worked, but there were a couple of fraught times.
With ds, we've had a childminder for the last 4 years, and there has NEVER been an issue. We both know exactly where we are with each other, and more to the point there's mutual adoration between her and ds!!!
Good luck-I love your attitude!

Elle00

You will not BELIEVE this. :mad: I am SO SO SO SO SO ANGRY!!! :mad:

ex-FIL rang Home Start on Sunday night before swanning off on his holiday and left an message on their answer machine to say that I, yes I, had backed out of "the agreements" and that they were concerned for son's welfare as I had said to ex I had had enough of waiting for him on Saturday when he is supposed to turn up every week and was going back to bed.

I REALLY WISH I COULD SWEAR HERE

Yes I bloody well wanted to go back to bed; I had been ignored and abandoned by the lot of them for TEN DAYS to struggle to care for my active toddler whilst running on an average of three of four hours sleep a day due to the socket of an extracted tooth becoming hideously infected. I spent most of last week crying and clutching my mouth in pain, head throbbing, tears streaming down my face. THREE TIMES I begged them to help and THREE TIMES I was told they were all too busy even though my ex had taken the entire week off work and yet ex-FIL had had the audacity to suggest they simply could not assist on one single occasion and that I was expecting the whole world to revolve around me yet again.

Our child, as in mine AND my ex's, is apparantly MY sole responsibility and problem despite the ex sitting at that meeting the other week saying he has been asking for more contact but always denied it!!! THE TWO FACED LYING ARROGANT SELF-SERVING !£"()*&" I begged him to have joint custody over and over again and when he refused I insisted he saw his son at least twice a week to avoid damaging his self-esteem long term and in the end - he only agreed to see his only flipping child ONCE a week because he feels he is "too busy working unlike me"! He has had ample opportunity to speak to our son's GP or Health Visitor but never once in 20m done so. He didn't even bother to read the NHS birth to five book despite being asked to at least ten times. Er sorry but how is that showing an interest and wanting to be involved with his son's upbringing?

I am just SO angry about this. How dare he?! And then I got the Home Start worker banging on at me that I should stick to the agreement about the grandparents having my son two days in the week and give them a chance to see if they do it. Well what a !£(&*$£) good idea that is. My new job is in accounts admin for a VERY prestigious company and I fought off at least one hundred, if not two hundred to get it. I worked my a**e off over the years to obtain all my further educations around being a single Mum and working and I damn well deserve this break. There will not be another opportunity to start a career like this; they even offer flexi-time, a top notch pension scheme and free training for accounting qualifications including paid time off to sit exams. Why the hell would I throw away the first shred of hope and dignity I've glimpsed in the last two years just to keep a domineering old man and his compliant little woman along with their selfish and arrogant little boy happy? My ex is 34yrs old to my 23 for crying out loud; how has morality and responsibility managed to evade him all this time?

Oh and at least a childminder can look after my son without repeatedly sending him home bruised from unexplained accidents and covered in rashes from feeding him inappropriate foods.

How dare these people continually try to rule my life whilst in the same breath insist I am the one expecting everyone to revolve around me? Over and over I point out that if my life revolves around my son's then why shouldn't his but noooo, I am just a woman and a Mum and it is "my place" in life to change pooey nappies and mop up sick while he is out at work and down the pub (oh and of course visiting the dentist without interruption at his convenience). And the punchline? I didn't want this baby - he begged me to have it. I'm a good Mum because I work hard at it but in my heart, this isn't what I wanted and I'm just trying to make the best of things. Bloody hard to do when everyone seems hell bent on playing with your head by making all these promises only to constantly let you down then remind you you're not entitled to anything in life because you're just a worthless scummy single Mum on benefits.

Please don't misunderstand me because I do love my son dearly; I just hate this situation and feel I've had the role of both parents dumped in my lap against my will with no way out. I'm sick to death of doing it all by myself when he has a perfectly able Father down the pub or slumped in front of his parents' telly eating Mum's home cooked roasts.

Jo6673

Good lass- sound off to us:T
did you get to say all this to the Home start woman?

Elle00

Oh yes, tears and raised voice included.

Do you know I really do feel ten times better for that!

I'm going to sit and do a little crafting and get an early night now. I finally became pain free late last night (though still only slept 2hrs for some reason!) so finally, I am looking forward to shutting off from all this stress and having a good old fashioned night's sleep!!!