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My parents live very close, walking distance close. They are never around, and I don't get along with my mom well enough to visit often. Plus I would never trust her to watch my kids.

My in-law's live 25 minutes away, but we see them weekly. My FIL loves having the kids come for a sleepover, and he is always more than happy to watch them for a day while we go out. His family room is just full of toys, and he spoils them so much. The only downside is that his work schedule varies so it's usually last minute when we get together. Also my MIL is MIA. She is weird.

Yep, my parents are in town, they are before/aftercare for my son. In fact, my son's with them today, while my husband and I are both at work.

We've always paid for care, though. When I went back to work, my son began daycare, but he went very part time. He's now in preschool about 4 hours a day.

They're retired.

Ha! Nope. My inlaws live 10 minutes away and have flat out said no thanks to watching the 3 year for one day a week. We don't care about the $ portion. It's about her spending more time with her grandparents. Minus my FIL doing daycare pickup for us 2x a week, they only see the girls when we invite everyone over for dinner. Which happens about 2x a month.

They are both retired and minus MIL's routine appointments, literally have no other pressing engagements. It baffles our mind.

They never offer to babysit. But the one plus is in a emergency situation my FIL will always come through.

My parents live very close but both still work full-time, so we don't do grand parent care. They love having E over for to babysit though and he even has a room set-up in their house. If they don't see him in 2 weeks I start getting calls and texts about trying to plan a visit.

We lived close to my MIL when E was a baby and she offered to watch him for us, but we declined. We suspected there would be issues with her following our wishes and wanted to avoid those arguments.

That's a bit rude of your SIL to assume that! It kind of bugs me when people just automatically expect their parents to want to basically provide FT childcare. I know people who have gotten mad when they didn't, which is crazy to me. If we lived near our parents, I would never assume that -- they raised their children Of course it's a different story if grandparent really wants to take care of them regularly. That would be nice but I wouldn't expect it.

Yes! My parents are local, and we pay my mom to "nanny." She spends Monday night at our house, goes home Tuesday night, and then spends wed-thurs or just wed depending on whether I work Friday. So, we haven't really used her for "babysitting" yet, as LO is only 7 months, however she does always offer to keep her for the weekend or a few hours if we want a date night. We plan to start having date nights/day once a month in the new year!

Yup...my parents live close and regularly babysit. DH's parents have passed but he does have two sisters that are also avail to watch the kiddos. My dad is the most involved since he's nearly retired watching the girls at least once a week to give DH a break and is avail should we have something going on. My mom works so she likes to come by on the weekends to spend time with them. Between my parents/family, there is always someone avail. My mom pretty much has said that if we need someone for the girls, between her and my dad, they'll make it work. It isn't something we expect or take advantage of, however. Also, they genuinely want to spend time with the girls, whether it's watching them or hanging out with them while me and DH are also home. My dad said a while back that one of his regrets is that our family didn't grow up closer to our grandparents (we were states away and only saq them a couple times a year) so he wants to spend as much time with his grandkids as he's able and be in their lives on a regular basis.

My parents are local but both still work full-time. My mom babysits for us around once a month or two. I also use a teacher from LO's daycare because I don't like asking my mom every time.

My in-laws live 2 miles from us, and my MIL babysits frequently. She will babysit during date nights, which we will do maybe 2-3 times a month, and she will take my oldest son who is 2.5 one morning a week, so I can have some free time to get stuff done. I'm a SAHM, but having a toddler around 24/7 can make it hard to accomplish things I need to do around the house. I keep my baby with me, since he's only 4 months old.

My dad lives 25 min away but still works full time. He takes LO for a few hours maybe 1-2 per month, but we still hire a babysitter for date nights usually since I feel bad making him stay here late and then have to drive home.

MIL lives 45 min away and comes over to babysit maybe once every couple months. She is retiring soon though and has offered to help out a bit more at that point, which will be nice.

MIL will be our full time caregiver starting in July, and but she and FIL have explicitly said they don't want to babysit for us at any other time, haha. They draw the line at 40 hours a week, which I understand.

Yes, DD1 is regularly at her grandparents (my ILs) without us so we can work on our house or take care of errands. DD2 is 8 weeks and I am still on maternity leave so she usually comes with us.

DH is a SAHD so he spends a lot of time over there just to hang out with them and our kids.

Yes we have four super involved grandparents and two aunts who help out too. As an aunt, I try to see my two nephews as much as possible and help with them. I realize we're very lucky but it seems so natural to us it's hard to imagine it any other way.

That's pretty presumptuous to just assume that your parents would provide allcare! All of our parents are still working, so even if they lived right down the street, they would not be providing care. My mil and her husband are about 45 minutes away, and they babysit once a month. They would like to do more, but I have my limits (whole other story). My parents are going to start coming down, from 2 hours away, to babysit and visit, probably once every 2 or 3 months. They already visit, just haven't babysat yet.

For what it's worth, my mom says that if she eventually does have grand kids near her, she will open a preschool out of her house and watch her own grand kids however much is needed. She was a preschool teacher for years, and still works in the early education field, so it makes sense.

my parents live super close and are now both retired. When LO was a baby they would visit several times a week and would stay through a nap so I could get out and run errands. They also have stayed with her when we have gone on solo trips without her - the big one was leaving her to go to New York and Europe. They stay at our place and basically keep her routine of going to school and visiting lots of play areas. When I was in the hospital and recovering at home they also took over care for LO 3-4 times a week for about 2 months. My inlaws really stepped up during those 2 months (also both retired) and alternated care for LO with my parents. Bc of that time they became super close to LO and have a great relationship with her now. I'm so thankful for that. It is one of the many gifts we say that Ava gave to our family. Both sets of grandparents don't do regular childcare but they are always willing to watch LO if needed. We also have a sitter we call for date night bc we know we can't always ask our parents to babysit

Sort of. We've relied on my mother in law for stretches and she has been very helpful. But then she'll go months barely seeing us at all and then just show up one day. It's sporadic!