Family v Nursery (Keep it in the family?)

Member Name: jopassmore

Product:	Keep it in the family?
Date:	21/08/01 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You know your child is loved, Child is happy

Disadvantages: Cannot lay down law, Lots of family conflict

When I became pregnant with my daughter, who is now nearly 2, I was determined to return to work, at least part-time. I enjoyed my job and I knew I would need some mental stimulation in order to cope with my time at home with the baby. Besides, being the main wage earner in our family made it financially necessary for me to do so. Thankfully, my parents-in-law supported my decision and agreed to look after my daughter while I was at work. Everything seemed fine, or so I thought.....

I went back to work for 2 1/2 days a week. After a few weeks of this child care arrangement, I realised that things were not always going to be smooth running. My in-laws, although a parents of 3 themselves, had completely different ideas about bringing up a child than I had. By the time my maternity leave had finished, I had my daughter in a routine. I would put her in her cot at regular times during the day, when I knew she was tired and she would go to sleep, with the minimum of fuss. This often meant a couple of minutes of crying before she would drop off. My mother-in-law refused to do this because she could not bear to hear Holly crying. Instead they would either swaddle her in a blanket and rock her to sleep, singing or take her for a walk in the pram. Would you believe, both they still do this today and she is approaching 2 years old. Also, they did not want their house ‘cluttered up’ with baby equipment, so a cot, even a travel cot, was out of the question. She was left to sleep in the pram, or on a settee with cushions surrounding it. This led to her routine being interrupted every week and even her night time sleep pattern changing.

The next problem I had was the pram. My pram wasn’t what they was used to. It was a Graco Travel System, which I found to be perfect, due to the combination of car seat and pram rolled into one. Both set of grandparents commented on the fact that the baby should be lying flat and not in a car seat position. The
y also found the pram too draughty (well don’t take her out in high winds then!). And the most frequent criticism was that the baby was facing away from you and not towards you as was the case in "their day". Because of all of this grief, I managed to acquire a second hand more traditional pram. This I thought would solve the problem temporarily until my daughter could sit up, but 2 years later she still uses the old pram and wants me to buy rain covers and other accessories for it.

Third problem, food. I like to give my daughter a healthy diet, but I find my in-laws feeding her cakes and biscuits throughout the day. I supply them with food for all her meals but often return to find it untouched. Milk is my daughters favourite thing of all time and she asks for it in a bottle constantly. She does not eat properly and the health visitor has suggested I should reduce the amount of milk she had and give it to her in a beaker. They do not like this idea and insist on giving her as much milk as she wants in a bottle. The say I should ignore the health visitor.

I could go on about the problems I have faced all day, but I won’t bore you further. I am about to consider sending my daughter to a local nursery for half of my working week once she is two. I think she will benefit from spending time with other children her age. I am grateful for the sacrifice my in-laws have made in spending a lot of their retirement looking after my daughter, because it has been a sacrifice. I can also say that I am never worried about her safety, as I may well have been if she was in another child care environment and that is a big bonus. I know she is loved and well cared for and so does she. She is never unhappy to be left there. I do think though, that too much family intervention can be damaging and could lead to family arguments, particularly if you confront these differences too bluntly. I have learnt over the last 21 months to comment when I fee
l it is absolutely necessary but to ignore minor differences wherever possible. This way, the situation has remained fairly harmonious.

Summary: