Parenting
slartybartfast
member
TTMA - Family visitors
slartybartfast
member
in Parenting
Hey I posted this on my BMB but am really curious to get a wide range of responses:
I'm wondering how you all work with family visiting and staying in your home. So tell me-
1) What kind of accommodations are you able to provide? (like rooms/beds)
2) Food. Do you provide breakfasts? Lunches? Dinners? How do you work that out? What do you provide for people? Do they help themselves to your pantry and fridge? If they do that, do you mind or is it just part of being a host? Do your guests grocery shop for themselves? How do you communicate about that without it being awkward?
3) Activities - do you have things planned? Do your guests generally rent a car? If not, do you let them drive yours? What do you generally do when you are hanging out at home?
4) Cleaning - do your guests clean up after themselves? If not, do you mind that or is it just part of hosting?
5) How often do you generally have family staying with you (# visits per year, average # of days per visit)
ETA 6) If someone has shown themselves to be "bad" guests - how do you adjust for that in the future? Do you ask them to stay elsewhere? Have a conversation about expectations? Suck it up because, well, it's family and it's just how it goes sometimes?
I'm wondering how you all work with family visiting and staying in your home. So tell me-
1) What kind of accommodations are you able to provide? (like rooms/beds)
2) Food. Do you provide breakfasts? Lunches? Dinners? How do you work that out? What do you provide for people? Do they help themselves to your pantry and fridge? If they do that, do you mind or is it just part of being a host? Do your guests grocery shop for themselves? How do you communicate about that without it being awkward?
3) Activities - do you have things planned? Do your guests generally rent a car? If not, do you let them drive yours? What do you generally do when you are hanging out at home?
4) Cleaning - do your guests clean up after themselves? If not, do you mind that or is it just part of hosting?
5) How often do you generally have family staying with you (# visits per year, average # of days per visit)
ETA 6) If someone has shown themselves to be "bad" guests - how do you adjust for that in the future? Do you ask them to stay elsewhere? Have a conversation about expectations? Suck it up because, well, it's family and it's just how it goes sometimes?
Mother of an April '15 baby
Due December 16
Re: TTMA - Family visitors
2) If staying with us, we plan to provide all meals while in the home. If we're out doing an activity and someone gets hungry, obviously its on them to purchase a snack/ meal. But we do try and pay for dinners when we go out during the visit.
3) It depends on the nature of the visit and duration. If it's a week-long visit, I may plan activities for a few days and then plan to stick around the house on others. If our guests express an interest in doing XYZ, we typically accommodate their wishes. We do not let them drive our vehicles.
4) I mean, I'm not running after people with a vacuum cleaner and my hopes are that they pick up after themselves for the most part. I'd say the majority of the time, I clean up after them since the mess is usually just extra food crumbs, socks, and random things like that.
5) Max amount for a visit for anyone is one week. I do not have the time or patience to host longer than that, nor the space.
6) As for bad guests, it depends on the severity. A drainer? I'll suck it up. Someone who blatantly shows no respect for my home? Hotel, non-negotiable.
Big Bro 7/14/13
Little Bro 2/6/17
1) We have an in-law suite in the basement with a king bed and its own bathroom and kitchen. We also have a guest room on the second floor with a queen, but that has a shared bath with DD's room so we put people in the suite first. We also have a camping cot and an empty room in the loft, a couch in the living room, and I'm working on setting up my art studio that will have a daybed in it. We can accommodate a lot of overnight guests in this house! (ETA: this make it sound like our house is huge. Its not, its just... weird.)
2) I try to make sure some basic stuff is available (coffee, sandwich stuff, snacks). If guests will be here for a meal time, we usually grab a pizza or donuts. When our moms stayed for baby help, they cooked dinners, but that was out of the norm for guests.
3) Not sure how to answer this one since whenever we've had guests they're here for a particular activity.
4) I generally assume that guests can figure out where my trash cans are, and won't leave their dirty laundry all over the place, but I'll clean up any spills and take care of actual cleaning-cleaning. People usually make the guest bed after sleeping in it, but I don't ask them to.
5) Overnight visits are maybe 6 per year? 2-3 friend visits, 2-3 are my mom staying for a few nights at a time. My dad and in-laws live close enough that most of the time they just make day trips. Its been more this year b/c both our moms stayed here one or 2 times each to help with the baby.
6) I've yet to have a truly bad guest. One who is on the messy side, but we've seen his house and he's always like that so we expected it, NBD. I suppose if that person wanted to stay for a long time (week or more), I might try to subtly curb it by putting an extra trash can out or something? But I'm not sure I'd confront someone about it unless it was really heinous.
2. We generally provide anything consumed in our home. Unless we go out to dinner, we generally cook for our guests. We're not really breakfast people (outside of coffee & cereal), and usually if we have guests we go our for lunch. Anyone staying at our house is someone we're extremely close with, and they are welcome to help themselves to anything and they're all comfortable enough to do so. Some of them might shop for a few things they like (specifically my SIL who is super crunchy and eats all sorts of weird healthy shit).
3. We don't plan things. Again, our guests are all people who are very familiar in the area we live. Some of them lived here before, while others are in the area for work. We live on the coast and boating is a huge part of our life, so we will usually plan boat/beach days but other than that not really. Our guest basically always have their own car.
4. I'm really picky about how dishes are done, so after dinner I tend to prefer to clean up and load the dishwasher myself. Almost all of our house guests pick up after themselves and contain their junk to the guest room. My SIL/BIL are terrible house guests, but we love them an deal with it.
5. My family is local. DH's family lives 7.5 hours away and rarely ever come. It's seriously like pulling teeth to get them to come to us - we always have to go to them. SIL/BIL do come at least once a year to stay, sometimes more. Mostly we have a lot of friends and people in DH's profession that stay when in town for work. We have A LOT of house guests, I basically couldn't keep count.
6. Honestly SIL/BIL are really our only "bad guests". Mostly in terms of being a mess, and leaving their crap everywhere. Our guest room basically always looks like a bomb went off when they're here. They're also terrible about wanting to plan things (aka : lunch at 12pm at a certain restaurant) and then change their minds at the last minute. DH and I don't drink, and generally go to bed pretty early - so it's not uncommon for them to go out and meet up with friends but they are not that quiet when they come home. Pretty much DH and I make our plans and if they're around and want to join, great, but if not that's fine too. We love them, and so we just deal with it.