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September 2018 Moms
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Date Nights

tristynrtristynr member
in September 2018 Moms

I'm going to go ahead and say sorry for the long post, but I'm having a really hard time. Starting with the backstory: I'm 22 and my son just turned 4 months old. I didn't tell my mom that I was pregnant until I was 6 months along, and she flipped out, just like I knew she would. She seemed to come around after a month or so. Before I had him, she offered to watch the baby once I went back to work, and also to watch him every once in a while so that the boyfriend and I could have a date night to try to keep our sanity. But now, she and I get into screaming matches every time we want to go on a date, and all of a sudden she has a problem watching him when I have to work. We are fighting to make ends meet already so we don't have any extra money to shell out for a babysitter, but I'm at my wit's end and don't know what to do. My boyfriend's friend and his girlfriend wanted to go on a double date last week but I ended up having to tell him to go without me because my mom lost her shit when I asked if she could watch him for a couple of hours. We've had to miss out on several date nights because she doesn't want to watch him anymore. She keeps saying that she has a problem with keeping him for date nights because we don't give her any advance notice, but we have a hard time planning a date night in advance because we both work night shift jobs with irregular hours. I'm exhausted all the time and I don't think one or two date nights a month is too much to ask for, but she seems to think so. There is so much more I could type about the kind of things she says to me but I'll leave that stuff for the comments section if anyone wants to know.

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Re: Date Nights

  • stothistothi member
    tristynr said:

    I'm going to go ahead and say sorry for the long post, but I'm having a really hard time. Starting with the backstory: I'm 22 and my son just turned 4 months old. I didn't tell my mom that I was pregnant until I was 6 months along, and she flipped out, just like I knew she would. She seemed to come around after a month or so. Before I had him, she offered to watch the baby once I went back to work, and also to watch him every once in a while so that the boyfriend and I could have a date night to try to keep our sanity. But now, she and I get into screaming matches every time we want to go on a date, and all of a sudden she has a problem watching him when I have to work. We are fighting to make ends meet already so we don't have any extra money to shell out for a babysitter, but I'm at my wit's end and don't know what to do. My boyfriend's friend and his girlfriend wanted to go on a double date last week but I ended up having to tell him to go without me because my mom lost her shit when I asked if she could watch him for a couple of hours. We've had to miss out on several date nights because she doesn't want to watch him anymore. She keeps saying that she has a problem with keeping him for date nights because we don't give her any advance notice, but we have a hard time planning a date night in advance because we both work night shift jobs with irregular hours. I'm exhausted all the time and I don't think one or two date nights a month is too much to ask for, but she seems to think so. There is so much more I could type about the kind of things she says to me but I'll leave that stuff for the comments section if anyone wants to know.

    I'm 40 years old and can't afford babysitters for as often as I want to go out either 🤷
    Childcare is expensive no matter how old you are. When we ask our family to do us a favor and watch our kids for free we ask weeks in advance and we take what we can get. It's your baby, not your mom's. She doesn't have to watch him if she doesn't want to. And your work schedule being hard to plan around isn't her problem either. She's not on call for you. She's allowed to require advanced notice.
    Yes, it sucks to not get some time to yourself or time with your significant other, but welcome to the club. 
    As far as what kind of things she says to you, I believe you if you say they are horrible but that doesn't change the fact that she still doesn't have to babysit for you. I also know you said she offered to help previously, but again, join the broken promises/changed minds club. Taking care of an infant, as you know, is a lot of work and if she doesn't want to to do it anymore than you can't expect her to.
    I would honestly suggest that you look elsewhere for babysitting. Your best bet might be to find another mom that you can trade babysitting with. 
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  • nackienackie member
    If your mom is watching the baby while you work, that’s a big deal. Asking for extra babysitting in top of that may just be more than she can handle. My mom is watching our son until March so he can avoid cold/flu season in a daycare. She’s exhausted by the end of the week and there’s no way I would ask her to babysit on top of that so I could go out for a date night, especially at the last minute. DH and I have had one date since the baby came and we asked her about babysitting 6 weeks in advance. We don’t plan on anymore until he’s in daycare. 
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