02 Mar
Today Emma is writing about Baby daily
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My mom and dad live overseas and can rarely visit (not even once a year). Last time my mother saw her grandchild he was 3 months old (he is 16 months now), and my dad has never met him at all. Finally they have arrived to spend some time with us and help out with my son.
Free babysitters, a dream come true, right? OK, reality check – I have known them all my life, but they are total strangers to my son. To him they are no different than a nanny at the moment. Every time I leave them with him and walk out of a room, he gets tense and starts yelling for mommy. I know that given time he will get used to them, but in the meanwhile it has been several days and he doesn’t let them pick him up, change him or carry him.
They have tons of patience, really eager to help and have a genuine interest in promoting his development. They want to do as much for him as possible during the month they will be staying, so every minute spent with the boy they are trying to teach him new words and gestures, trying to make him laugh and like them.
Another good thing is that they understand the situation. No smothering him with kisses, no grabbing him, kicking and screaming, they show a lot of respect to his feelings and his right to come to them – instead of them coming to him. And it works, he starts making funny faces to get their attention, shows off his skills like dancing or throwing a ball “really far”.
A friend of mine told me a completely different story. She took her 15 months old daughter to visit the grandparents overseas and it was a complete disaster. The whole family of “strangers” jumped the poor child, hugging and kissing her, and the girl freaked out. She didn’t let anyone near her for a week, beside her own mother. I was afraid of the same happening here and asked my parents to “behave themselves”; luckily they took my advice and everything went much better between them and my son.
Taking care of Eric is such a learning curve for them. They need to learn his likes and dislikes, his little words, his favorite foods, his routine. They need to learn how to lock and unlock the tray of his high chair, how to buckle him up in the car, how to change him – when they had me, there were no diapers :).
I need to learn a lot of things too – for example to stop assuming they know how to do stuff and show them everything. Things that are obvious to me are not obvious to them. Every time before leaving the house I need to think what they might have to do with Eric and imagine it in all the details, so that I could fill them in. He only drinks water or milk, so don’t offer him juice, he’s not allowed to eat candy or sweets, put sunblock on him when going outside because we have a high UV index, he shouldn’t wear shorts outside because he falls and scratches his knees, the list goes on.
This is a very interesting experience for all of us and maybe for those of you in a similar situation. I will report in a couple of weeks what kind of progress we are making. Meanwhile, can you share your distant grandparents’ stories? How quickly did your kids adjust and how did the grandparents cope with the initial rejection?
6 Responses
LaToya
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
1I think it’s great that your family respects your son enough to back off a bit. My family is the complete opposite. They function on the theory of I’m just going to grab you and you can just cry because I’m family and you need to get to know me. It’s annoying, and I have stopped taking my children around some people for this reason.
My children’s grandparents live close (10 min away) which is great. My oldest LOVES my parents but it took him 18 months before he warmed up to the other set of grandparents. They were like your family and just let him take his time to warm up to them and now he LOVES them too.
Emma
March 4th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
2LaToya, I would totally do the same! I mean some people have no respect for the feelings of the little ones. This is the way my other set of grandparents are, they would wrap him around them like a scarf if I let them. Seriously, I’m worried about their future visit, they could really stress the kid out and there is nowhere to run because they will be living in our house.
John
March 19th, 2009 at 11:40 pm
3Thank you for submitting your post to my blog carnival. I liked it so much, I chose it as my top pick of the carnival! Thanks again.
Parents Helping Parents Carnival X | Parenting Advice and Tips: Modern Parent
March 19th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
4[…] presents Grandparents: blood relatives, yet strangers to my baby posted at Baby-Log, saying, “Helping a child start a relationship with distant […]
Lucy
April 26th, 2009 at 6:55 am
5Hey Emma,
I am a first time mum and when my baby was only a few months old my mother in law was spending nearly each day she was off over at my place. I loved having her over but the time she spent meant I was unable to bond in the way I felt I needed to with my child. I’m not and never have suffered from any depression luckily, however, I had to insist that she spends time only on the weekend. Especially since I was and still am b/feeding. It has always been a private affair to me and each time she would ring on the door bell it would interupt my baby’s feeding routine. She was offended when I told her it was best that she came on the weekend to visit this way she could come and spend time with all of us including her son (my husband) not just as it had been when I’m home by myself. She said to me that she didn’t think it was enough to only visit say once a week and that she feared my baby would see them as nothing more than strangers! She does over exagerate at the best of times. And I feel this is to make me feel guilty. She is always getting in the way of my raising my daughter I feel that she doesn’t stick to her role as a ‘grandparent’ rather she takes over as a mother to my child. What I mean is for instance when she’s here she’ll start rocking my baby to sleep meanwhile I tell her it’s not the baby’s time to sleep she needs to have her lunch first. Another time she will buy things that I had every intention of getting first like when my baby got the first tooth. This milestone I wanted to mark by buying my baby the first toothbrush set …. but she bought one before I could even look for one myself. It made me really mad that she has to be so competitive ..it’s almost as if she seems so insecure about my baby’s affection towards her that she needs to somehow bribe me or the baby with gifts because it’s not just this she would also get things I don’t need or even things I choose not to use and then she would ask if I had started using it, she even bought my baby a training cup…I’d never asked her for these things it’s just her rushing into buying them. My partner and I have mentioned how our baby has everything and if we need something we can let her know but she just doesn’t get it. It is really putting a strain on my relationship with her because I beginning to choose to keep my distance from her all the more. It’s not a joy like it was in the beginning because now it’s almost like a demand for attention. She doesn’t have a hobby and doesn’t do much on her days off either so since we live in separate homes she feels like she wants to help so much but there isn’t really anything she can do to help. I’m not the sort of person to rely on others, I’ve always kept my independence so it’s almost like she wants people to depend on her. She asserts her points of view quite strongly as it is her personality I feel I have nothing in common with her.
Emma
April 27th, 2009 at 3:05 am
6Hey Lucy, I can SO relate to what you’re saying. My MIL, who lives thousands miles away from us, when she came over managed to screw things up for us pretty badly. When Eric was only starting to try solids, she forced food on him, she’d use anything including deception to get a spoon of apple puree in his mouth. After that it took me 2 months of rehab to get Eric, a normal child, to eat any solids at all, he wouldn’t open his mouth for anything!
And yes, that kind of an attitude makes you feel “Stay away from me, you disrupt my life”. Very annoying!
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