Feeling pressured to babysit sisters kid overnight
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I would not assume babysitting favors will be able to be called in later. In some families that is not how it works. Grandma will be to “old”, sister has other plans, whatever. The sister should be doing nice things for the LW now. All costs to the LW should be covered plus maybe a really nice dinner out. I am betting none of this is happening. LW needs to speak up.
We get it you don’t have kids and you don’t want to watch this one. You have set your life up to not have them around (hence the dog that eats kids for snacks). Yes your selfish, and yes your a bad sister/aunt for not helping out when you are needed but you know that and from your response your ok with that and are kind of proud of being selfish so own it. This isn’t your kid and you can and should say no because it is your choice and that is what you want. Choices have consequences and yours is your sister and Mom are going to be pissed. On another note though no one likes their kid all the time, and she probably doesn’t want to miss work to stay with her toddler. Not because she doesn’t like her kid but because she is an adult who values her job this doesn’t make her a bad mom or a bad person or lazy. Since you haven’t finished your clinicals yet, and have never had her job you don’t know that she can change her day off even weeks out, weekend nights are hard to get covered and you don’t know the dynamic at her job or the consequences of her having someone else work her weekend. Also until you have a toddler on your own dont judge how often you have someone else watch them, most likely you will have a different opinion.
Glad you decided to watch your nephew! When I was 21-23, our nephew (husband’s brother’s son) stayed the night with my husband and I twice a week every week from the time he was 4 weeks old to 2.5 years old, and it really only stopped because I gave birth to our daughter and we moved about an hour away. Sometimes this was tough… I was finishing grad school, we were both working full time, etc, but at the end of the day, our nephew (and by extension his parents, who ended up separating and then divorcing shortly before he turned 1) needed us, and those needs surpassed our own needs for a little R&R.
Do it or don’t but do t expect your family to applaud you for your choices. Jesus, grow a pair.
It’s a one time request and in two years you’ve never been asked to watch him overnight, which tells me that you are probably everyone’s last choice to ask for help, which means they’ve asked all the normal people they have as backups.
You get to decide to be a helpful and kind sister/aunt or not. That’s on you.
I have two kids under the age of four AND I watch my niece overnight as often as I can because I love her, I love her her mother and I know she needs a break. Does it exhaust me? Absolutely. Is it fun? Not really, but it helps her out and I know she needs help.
Your comments about how much she uses childcare are judgemental and just beyond the pale. What does that even have to do with this situation?
Yes, you should have said no from the beginning if it’s such a big deal to you to help her out this ONE time. Instead, you said, I will if no one else can. And here you are. Clearly no one else can help her.
Oh OP – I feel for you. Regardless of what people on here say, you are NOT selfish for declining to do your sister a huge favor. You are totally entitled to say no as you did not choose to have said child, and having a family does not entitle your sister to free childcare (which it sounds like she gets quite a bit). It is a nice thing to do, but it is not your obligation.
And I don’t believe she said her dog eats children, just that her dog doesn’t like them which is okay because the OP does not have a child! A lot of dogs don’t like children, and there are plenty of perfectly legit reasons for a dog to feel that way. It is her dog in her childfree house.
And I don’t know where people are getting that OP agreed on watching the kid and is now going back on it. That is not what she said (until she was practically bullied into agreeing to it on this board). OP – not wanting to spend your Friday night with your sister’s 2 year old (a trying age for anyone) is totally understandable. No one has the right to be mad at you for saying no. And even if you agreed to it, it is your right to change your mind at any time, even on the day of (not advisable or nice, but still your right).
Look, it’s the nice and accommodating thing to do, but it doesn’t make you a horrible person for not providing free childcare. People are so crazy when it comes to children – you do not get special rights or additional favors because you popped a child out! Should people choose to help you, that is very nice of them but you are certainly not entitled to it and it doesn’t make anyone selfish or lacking in compassion should they choose to not help every single time.
Definitely on team “suck it up.”
If she was asking you all the time then it’d be one thing. But she’s at least 2 strings deep, so she’s definitely in a bind. I think most of us would have been a lot more sympathetic if you just said “my sister needs me to babysit but I had plans that night” (although probably still would have told you to suck it up) but it definitely ventured into “the lady doth protest too much” when you enumerated all those reasons.Also, I think you are surprisingly judgmental of your sister using babysitters and it didnt take any word twisting to do. I like my kid also, but she spends all day at daycare because I work fulltime and yes, sometimes, I want to do adult fun things without her also. If that makes me a bad mom in your eyes I guess I’ll need to reevaluate my life choices. Or not.
Of course busy/harried sister is allowed to hire a baby sitter in order to go off and do something pleasantly adult to enjoy herself and de-stress. However, LW is equally busy and equally entitled to enjoy the camping getaway she had scheduled before sister made the request. How does she manage her stress and enjoy life if the expectation is that she has to spend her down-time babysitting for her sister? She is just expected to suck it up and slog through another week or two without downtime.
I agree to do it the one time…not because you are obligated, but because you agreed to be back up and it’s the right thing to do. If asked again make it clear that you have plans and can’t be back up *sorry* and leave it at that.
As far as your weekend goes. Have the kid do something where he can run around non stop for an hour or so and he should sleep well all night and you can get some R&R,watch a movie or whatever. It should be fairly painless. Just don’t agree to anything next time.
