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I really think it depends on the grandparents. My parents and my FIL (DH's parents are divorced) plan times to see the kids and they see them/us often...a couple of times a week. MIL and her husband always talk about wanting to see the kids but never do the inviting. It's frustrating. Our solution was picking one day a week and having dinner over there on that day every single week.

We live about 5-10 minutes away from my parents so we see them all of the time. Usually we ask them to babysit or have them come over for dinner on the weekends. However, my FIL lives about 2.5 hrs away and we don't see him very often. Maybe once a quarter?

I know for my mom, she would never just drop by. We could live next door to her and she'd never bother us b/c she doesn't want to impose. We joke with her b/c she never calls us (or my brothers) and waits for us to call her. As she says, what if we were busy when she called? Um, leave a message and we'll get back to you? My point is that it could be in their nature that they don't want o impose on you and are looking for you to include them. But I don't know them so it could be completely different.

We don't make efforts too often because none of their grandparents make an effort to see them. We live 8 minutes exactly away from both my dad and dh's mom and we still see them maybe once every few months. My mom lives 800+ miles away or she would be seeing them every day that she could.

We don't live near grandparents, but I know how it would go if we did based on life now. My parents make a huge effort to see us, and I'm proactive about planning trips to see them. That would be the same no matter where we live. My ILs make very minimal effort to see us. If we lived in the same city, they may come over every week or two, but I imagine we'd have to go to them more. If we lived an hour+ away we would be making all of the same effort we have to now. I would make an effort to take our kids to see them on my own, though.

I think it really depends on the situation - and in your situation I think that it's BS that they're frequently in your area and continue to complain about never seeing the kids. Is it your parents or DH's? Just wondering since the answer would affect how I'd handle it. But is it possible they're just not comfortable inviting themself over? If you called and invited them, would they come?

My parents have a 'rule' that they see my son at least once a week. Okay, it's not really a rule because if it doesn't work out and we're too busy to see them or having solo family time when they're free, they're understanding about it. But I'd say that my mom sees him about twice a week and my dad once a week - my mom usually ends up seeing him a bit more because she's more likely to come over than my dad. I don't know why, whenever he's here (eve if it's with her) after like a half hour he acts like he's imposing and needs to leave. It's weird, I've tried talking to him about it but it doesn't really take. I think he's still just adjusting to me having my own family/house/life. DH's parents see LO and myself once a week because their house is right by his swimming lessons, so we go over afterwards and have lunch with them. But before we started doing that I'd say once every few weeks was pretty average.

Well, we live with one set of grandparents so it takes very little effort for her to see them

There's one set (my dad & his wife) that live very far away & we went out of our way to go visit them recently. I imagine we'll do that 1-2x a year.

DH's parents live about 6 hours away by car, and we have taken LO up there 2x in 6 months, and they have come here several times. They are always welcome but the impetus is definitely more on them.

If I were in your situation, I'd try to make it 50/50. It sounds like both of you are expecting the other to make more of the effort.

My MIL is 15 minutes away and comes to see M at least once a week. Same amount for my parents and they're about an hour away. Both sides also babysit her a lot - mainly her sleeping over their homes. We'll also go to my parents house to hang out maybe every 6 weeks or so and around the same amount for my MIL.

We invite the ILs all the time and offer to pay travel costs but they never come, so we go there once a year. It sucks, I know they want to see LO more but that's the current situation and I just find comfort in the fact that we do the best we can, as it sounds like you do as well. I think grandparents forget how hard it is to travel with LOs.

My side... I don't talk to my dad much, he's seen LO three times. My mom has an open invite but we only see her maybe once a month. I just do the best I can and that's all I can do.

We put in little to no effort, haha.

My parents live an hour away and they see Xander about once a month. THEY put in the effort to see him and will come over after work or on the weekends to see him. My ILs live further away (1.5 - 2 hours). They put in no effort to see him, so they don't see him very often - just for family get-togethers.

Growing up, I lived 3 hours away from my grandparents so we didn't see them very often. I still love my grandparents and feel like I had plenty of opportunity to bond with them, so I'm not overly concerned with how often Xander sees his grandparents.

Both sets of grandparents live within 25 minutes of us, they see LO usually once a week or once every 2 weeks. Neither set like to go 2 weeks without seeing her.

My mom and MIL provide childcare for me, so I technically don't "have" to coordinate any additional visits, but I do. I will often stop by while running errands on weekends, or the other night we went over to IL's after dinner to play outside for an hour. It was a win-win - I was tired, it killed the hour for me, and made IL's and DS happy too.

Like @looch: I'm a little different like this, in that I feel it's partially my responsibility to schedule visits. Telling someone that they have an open invitation to your house isn't all that inviting, in my opinion. If you really do want to open the door to them and they're in your area, why not say "how about swinging by at xx time on xx day?"

I don't because MIL lives 30 min away and my parents live 5 hours away (and they are retired). I don't have time to shuttle my LO around to see everyone on weekends when that's the time that I run errands, put the house together, etc, since i work. MIL is really good about being proactive about seeing her, and Dh is, too. He will take her over there and drop her off and then do stuff with his friends. My mom wants me to drive 5 hours down there, drop her off, and then come pick her up a week later. No.