I'm trying to get an idea of what the norm might be. There are probably a lot of factors which influence this, particularly if MIL does some caring while you work. But it would be helpful if you could tell me about your situation. Thanks!
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My MIL lives just under 30 minutes away from us, and we have dinner together once a week (usually Wednesday nights). We also see her almost every weekend as well for a chunk of one day. Same with my parents.
My MIL and I have a great relationship, which definitely impacts how often we see her.
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My ILs live 45 minutes away, and we go down there for most of a weekend day around once a month (sometimes twice). They sometimes randomly see him other times (D works second shift, and might take him down on a Friday morning, for instance). And they usually watch him when he's too sick to go to daycare.
I really love my ILs, and they are crazy about E, but they are both retired and travel a ton, and that's why we don't see them more.
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My parents live close and we have dinner every night. My MIL lives about three hours away and we try to see them at least once a month if not more.
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MIL and I have a good relationship and she lives about 45-60 min away from me in the next big city. She's been seeing her more often because we needed someone to watch DD while we got the house ready to sell, but she usually sees her about once or twice a month. Honestly, I wish it was more! DD sees my family about the same (they live the same distance, but opposite direction from MIL), or maybe less because they put less effort into coming down to us.
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My parents live an hour away - they see the kids about once a month. Half of my in-laws live a little over an hour away - they see the kids every other month. And then MIL lives two hours away - she sees them maybe 4-5 times a year.
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My ILs live about 10-15m away. They see our girls 1-2x a week. They typically take dd1 for a few hours every Wednesday. It used to be every Wednesday and Friday but I think it was too much for them and they asked to take it down to only Wednesdays. Then we almost always host a family dinner on the weekend.
ETA: they're retired...
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My ILs are 45 minutes away and we usually see them once a week. For the first couple months after my kids (twins) were born, MIL asked to come over a lot. She was over 5 days a week from 9am-6pm. It put a huge strain on our relationship. She thought she was being helpful (she believed I wasn't able to do basic things like go to the bathroom or drink water without her here to hold the babies) but I felt totally suffocated. Around 4 months I finally started suggesting days/times that worked for me (like the weekend, or after their afternoon nap) and that has helped immensely. She just finished up tax season and asked if I needed her help throughout the week. I think she'd like to be here every day! I'm trying to be very clear about my wishes where the ILs are concerned so I said no, we have our own weekday routine, but thanks.
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My FIL is in town, we see him twice a month. He's 90 so we go see him.
MIL is 1.5 hours away. We see her maybe 6 times a year. DD2 is four months old and they've met once. -
MIL and FIL pick our girls up from daycare every Monday and take them to swimming lessons. They also take them for the day every other Friday instead of us sending them to daycare. We probably get together for dinner or a visit once every 2-3 weeks.
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MIL lives 15mins away she comes to see DD about 1x a week sometimes two, she works a lot so I know it would be more if she could
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MIL and FIL live about an hour away from us and we try to see each other at least every other weekend. We use to make the trip to see them every weekend but now that we moved they have started to make the trip to see us.
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My in laws live about an hour away. We drive to see them at least every third weekend when DH is off. He sometimes takes the boys without me on other days too. We always make the effort - his mom is a homebody and unfortunately they pretty much are raising two of their grandchildren so they don't come to see us really. But we don't mind the drive. They have also babysit for us if we are doing something there.
Eta: My MIL has been going through cancer treatments pretty much since DS1 was born. So that also limits the visits sometimes.
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Usually once a week or once every two weeks. They babysit a handful of times a year. Mil just retired so I'm sure they'll be over more during the week when we're at work.
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MIL lives 10 minutes drive away and we see her once every 2 weeks roughly, maybe a little less. She does shift work, inc. weekends, so it's often tough to schedule something.
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My ILs live about 30 min away and I see MIL once a week (she watches LO for a few hours), and both MIL and FIL another time during the week usually, and often DH and I will go out while they babysit.
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My parents live under 10 min away and the kids and I see them everyday (DH works an off shift). My mom also babysits.
My IL's live about 20 min and we see them maybe once a month or every other. Niether of them drive and they smoke so we don't spend much time there when we do go. They would also never be able to watch our kids (FIL is blind and MIL doesn't understand enough English to follow directions like diet restrictions or medical emergencies).
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My inlaws are currently on a different continent than us, but when we lived in the same country, we lived a 50 minute drive or a 1.5 hour train ride away.
We would see them twice a month. Usually, since I was staying at home, I'd take the train out there with my son on Thursday and stay there the weekend, my husband would drive out Friday after work and we'd come home on Sunday.
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Once a week.
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MIL lives 30 min away but she doesn't drive. Right now we drive DD to her twice a week for her to watch in the morning. Once in a long while we may ask her to help on a Sat. Sometime DH works from home so she sees her a lil less. So standard is 2, can go up to 3 or go down to 1 depending. She doesn't drive so she can't just come over whenever.
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She lives about 15 minutes from us and sees the kids every couple of weeks. We usually go to their house for a family dinner.
We're not close at all so that's fine by me.
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My in-laws live 20 minutes away. They watch my DD 2 days a week, and we probably see them other than that like every other week. Same with my parents, who are also local.
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Thanks everyone. I currently see MIL once a week by myself/with LO and so I see her more often than my husband does, which has been a big adjustment for me especially because my mum is a 3 hr plane ride away and I feel her absence so much.
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My MIL lives within walking distance and she only sees the girls when I arrange to come over to visit. I usually bring the girls over once a week. She never, ever comes over to visit the girls in our own home. She doesn't even try to arrange plans with us, so if I didn't make the effort to visit, she wouldn't see the kids very often at all.
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5 minute drive down the road, she babysits once a fortnight + any emergency/errand runs, and sometimes sends me an sms to pop past for a coffee which I really appreciate.
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When DD1 was a baby we rarely saw my inlaws - maybe once every few months. They live about 20 minutes away. When we went through everything with DD2 my inlaws really stepped up and helped us so much and came to babysit DD1 several times a week so I could go to my various appointments. now they are happy to come see DD1 every few weeks and are happy to babysit when I ask. They're retired and travel quite a bit and also help out a ton with their other grandkid
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Mil and FIL live 5 minutes away, we see them usually every other weekend, sometimes more. They both work full time - but they do all the instigating of seeing each other! I'm sure they'd like it to be more but I like to have regular time with just DH, LO and I.
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Well, we haven't had this experience yet but the ILs are moving back to England in a few weeks and have a house about 15 minutes up the road from us. It will be the first time we've ever lived in the same country as either one of our sets of parents (since having children) and we are super excited!
I have a great relationship with my ILs and I imagine we will see them at least once during the week, if not more, and then on the weekends when DH is not working and can spend time with them. Shortly before we got married, we were living about an hour away from my ILs and would go down there maybe three weekends a month to spend the weekend with them, so I can only imagine it will increase now that there are children involved and that they are a much closer distance.
The ILs are retired and I'm a SAHM so we will have loads of flexibility in terms of when we see each other and how often.
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About once a week or so. My ILs are about 20 mins away. However my mil drives by our neighborhood each day driving to and from work.
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My husband's parents are divorced so there are two sets of ils to see. At least once month for each parent, including mine. Sometimes twice (mine is usually twice, we see his a bit less frequently since they're a 45min drive, and mine are a 15 min drive. )
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My ILs live less than 5 minutes away and they see LO maybe once a month. The truth of the matter is I often feel smothered by my MIL so I'm not at all interested in visiting. I totally get that having a new baby is exciting but I would like the opportunity to mother before she comes swooping in and trying to take the baby away.
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My MIL lives 10 minutes away and sees LO maybe once a month but usually once every 2 months. My parents live 3 hours away and see the kids almost every month, we switch off and they come every other month and then we go to them on the ones in between. The in laws make absolutely no effort to see the kids, we have to plan everything for them to see them and we always have to go to them or go where they want to meet up.
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My MIL lives about 45 minutes away and we only see her about 6-10 times a year, mostly just holidays and birthdays. She is retired but has only babysat for us once but she called my SIL over so she has only watched my son for about an hour by herself. She's said repeatedly she doesn't like babies or children so we are fine with the number of times we see her.
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We are MIL at least twice a month and she lives 20mins away.
I love her and she's great but I need my husband to be around when we are visiting because I always run out of things to say, neither of us are big talkers, and then I feel awkward.
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she lives next door! unless we run into her outside or something, she only calls to visit a couple times a month, really. my kids are in bed early and she works most days til 5.
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Once every couple of months and it's still too often lol
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30 min away and probably 2x/month? Sometimes more when there are family functions
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They live about 10 miles away (as do my parents). We see MIL at least one day a week, and my parents 3x (but they watch LO).
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She's 15 min away and comes
Over once a week so I can go out and do errands. She'll also take M to sleepover maybe once a month or so. -
30 min away and probably every 2-3 months. We aren't close at all.
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40 comments