I know grandparents (or other family members) are meant to spoil children. LO stays with my mom and stepdad a lot and there is no disciplining going on whatsoever. LO comes home and is bossy and demanding. It literally takes days to retrain.
Where do you draw the line?
squash / 13764 posts
If they're watching her regularly, I would try to set some boundaries. But I"m guessing they're watching her for free, and they're family...so that makes it more complicated 
pomegranate / 3759 posts
@hilsy85: yeah it is complicated LO loves being there and has so much fun. DH tells me to just suck it up basically, it doesnt hurt anything. But my mom goes behind my back after I tell her not to do something such as giving LO cookies instead of her lunch.
coconut / 8861 posts
My parents watch my nephews and niece quite a bit. They still discipline them and set boundaries at grandma's house. It seems to be effective for them. I would maybe have a conversation with them about expected behavior and discipline. It'll help everyone in the long run.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
My parents watch my son for us on a regular basis and they follow the same rules as we do. Right now, we're all working on being cooperative and following the directions.
It's not been easy, but there have been moments where I've had to be explicit...we're working on not spitting, we're having issues with xyz.
grapefruit / 4278 posts
In this case, I would probably let it slide as long as they weren't allowing LO to do anything dangerous. It's a problem with a time limit, as Lo gets older he'll learn that there are a things he can get away with with just grandma and grandpa and not try to do those things at home. It's basically the reason my Mom loves being a grandma 
honeydew / 7504 posts
IMO, it's one thing to be a little bit lax on discipline - that's what grandparents are for. But for me, I'd be really annoyed/pissed that they were blatantly ignoring something like not giving LO cookies. That I would have to address. But that's just me. I'm super anal about what D eats.
GOLD / pineapple / 12662 posts
@Lindsay05: If they're intentionally undermining you (like with the cookies), I would absolutely put my foot down. They need to respect you as a parent, and consistently doing things/allowing your LO to do things that they know you would not want is so not okay in my book. I get that they're grandparents, but they're still adults!
ETA: *Spoiling* means an occasional treat or (occasional) indulgence . . . ice cream even though you didn't eat your dinner, and staying up a little later for a special movie. It does NOT, however, mean complete and total rule-less-ness!!! *augh* Again, being grandparents should not be mutually exclusive of acting like an adult!
cantaloupe / 6164 posts
My husband and I differ on this so much. Dan wants our parents to adhere strictly to his parenting/discipline style & do exactly as he would do. I feel like grandparents are meant for spoiling. Who knows how long they'll have with them. They'd never put her in any sort of real harm, so I just let them do what they want.
pomegranate / 3383 posts
Grandparents do play a special role and their ultimate goal is to not let their grandkids shed a single tear.
I would probably pick one or two things that you feel strongly about (e.g. manners, cookies, whatever) and put your foot down about those. Then just try and let the rest slide.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
@MsLipGloss: Agree!!
there is a difference between the loving type of spoiling that a grandparent does and complete disrespect of your parenting. You should broach the subject gently and state that it is important your parents support you and your choices.
Thankfully, my mom is actually better about discipline than I am. When J bit my sister last week, she immediately had him in a timeout.
pomelo / 5678 posts
@Lindsay05: see, if lo is being told to / allowed to go behind your back as you say, that is not okay imho. If you say something, like blah blah means blah blah, that has to be respected by grandma/ grampa.
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
I feel like my mom will discipline my kids better than me lol. I'm in agreement with others that say spoiling and being lax is ok, but not if they're doing things you asked them not to on purpose!
pomegranate / 3759 posts
All great advice. Thanks! Yeah I can actually hear my mom say "shh don't let your mom know I gave you this" Or I will specifically tell my child and my mom "no snacks until you eat some of your lunch" And then I see LO walking around with a BOX of cereal and my mom just laughs about it.
I think the biggest thing is I need a backbone. I am trying my hardest to just look the other way and tell myself these things are such small issues in the grand scheme of things, but yet they just eat away at me and I find myself on the verge of just yelling at them!
Yes, they should still be adults. But if you walked into that house you wouldn't know which one was the adult. It's kind of embarrassing!
GOLD / pomelo / 5737 posts
I haven't put my foot down much but it's occasional visits (like a bunch of days at once.) My parents actually sometimes get mad/annoyed when I argue with them about LO. I need to figure something out. I think I will wait til this visit is up then start being stricter about some things, particularly what they let LO eat.
clementine / 990 posts
@Lindsay05: I recently cut my mom off overnight visits with my LO. There were a lot of small things that I was trying to let slide, like letting my 2YO drink DIET PEPSI. It came up one day, and I said, yeah, and I let that go, and she said it didn't matter what I thought, she was going to spoil my LO no matter what I said. I thought that was really disrespectful, and it crossed a line.
My LO was coming home from Gramma's house and she wAs impossible to deal with. Meltdowns and tantrums like we never saw otherwise. So I told my mom that my LO will not be staying overnight anymore. Come to think of it, we haven't spoken since...
clementine / 990 posts
@googly-eyes: I would say figure out what is not acceptable, and why you think it's unacceptable, and try to talk to them about that. For me, I could get over a lot, but mymom'scomment that she didn't care what I thought was too much.
pomelo / 5621 posts
@MsLipGloss: Exactly this.
There still needs to be rules and they shouldn't be going behind our backs but the rules at the grandparents can be a little more relaxed.
For example DS usually gets fruit for a snack but when my mom watched him I was fine with a baby cookie. I even told her to give it to him, that it would be a special grandma treat.
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