While it's understandable that grandparents are drawn straight to the new baby, they really should sit down with the older grandchildren first.
Both scientific surveys and anecdotal evidence show that typically maternal grandparents are closer to grandchildren than paternal grandparents. 1 The usual ranking goes like this, from closest to least close: maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather.
It could be they feel a deeper connection to their first grandchild or find a certain one more affectionate than the others. Surprisingly, it seems pensioners prefer humor, with 58 percent of grandparents admitting their preferred a child that made them laugh the most.
According to her research, grandparents who live at a long distance tend to travel less often to visit and they stay longer, but the average number of visits that long-distance grandparents make each year is two to four times for trips lasting 5 to 10 days each.
Parents should try to limit the number of visitors their babies come in close contact with overall. Consider having extended family and friends wait two to three months until your baby's immune system is stronger to plan their visits.
The lip-restraining guidance is most pertinent to people outside an infant's household, experts told me, which can include extended family. Ideally, even grandparents “should not be kissing on the baby for at least the first few months,” Tan told me.
When is it okay to leave my baby with grandparents overnight? It's ultimately up to you. If your baby is able to eat well without you there and grandparents are able to take good care of your baby, it's okay to let your baby sleep over if that's something you want.
While many grandparents are more willing to lend a helping hand to their kids and grandkids, it's important for parents to remember they aren't entitled to that help. No one should expect their family members to come over every day and watch their children for free. And grandparents have their own lives.
By the end of the 20-year study, those who helped with childcare had mortality rates 37 percent lower than grandparents who did not. These rates suggest that seniors who take on childcare duties like babysitting their grandchildren live longer.
The average age of becoming a grandparent is 50 years for women and a couple of years older for men. Today's grandparents may range in age from 30 to 110, and grandchildren range from newborns to retirees. Most grandparents have multiple (5 to 6 on average) grandchildren.
The arrival of the first grandchild marks the beginning of a new generation. There is a sense of magic as the baby represents the family projecting far into the future. The new birth means that family life will never be the same because of all the new possibilities that having a baby in the family brings.
The study also found that a healthy grandparent-grandkid relationship helps prevent social isolation, which can lead to depression and sometimes even an earlier death. So by spending more time with grandma or grandpa, you're actually helping to keep them sharp, healthy, happy, and maybe even extending their life.
Generally, at around age 10 into their teen years, some kids start drifting away from their grandparents. While some of these factors are beyond our control, others are not.
Multiple Roles of Grandparents
Grandparents can have an impact on their grandchildren's lives in many different ways. They can act as the family historian, mentor, playmate, nurturer, role model, confidante, advocate, advisor, and surrogate parent.
Distance between where family members live has been shown by research to be the strongest predictor of grandparent-grandchild contact.
The maternal grandmother is biologically related to both her daughter and her grandchildren and hence also interested in her daughter's health, whereas the mother-in-law's reproductive interest is to invest in further grandchildren, however, not in her genetically unrelated daughters-in-law.
42 percent of grandparents see their grandchildren weekly; 22 percent see them daily. 48 percent of grandparents say they wish they could spend more time with their grandchildren; 46 percent say they spend the perfect amount of time together; and 6 percent say they'd like to see the grandkids a little less often.
Specifically, grandparents often raise their grandchildren due to a combination of parental substance abuse, abuse and neglect, unemployment, incarceration, HIV/AIDS, mental or physical illness, teenage pregnancy, child disability, divorce, military deployment, abandonment, and death.
80% of them say their sacrifice is worth it, and more than half (51%) say they're happier now they spend time with their grandchildren. They also found that 51% of grandparents regularly look after their grandchildren all year round, and a further 10% say they help out during school holidays.
The phenomenon is called "sexually antagonistic grandparental care," and it has been known for some time that a grandmother will naturally prefer her son's daughters (with whom she shares 31 percent of her genes) to her son's sons (with whom she shares only 23 percent, suggesting she will most nurture the grandchild ...
Additional Child Care Subsidy (ACCS) grandparent gives grandparents on income support, who are the primary carer of their grandchild, extra help with the cost of child care.
A close relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is mutually beneficial when it comes to the health and well-being of both. Grandparents provide acceptance, patience, love, stability, wisdom, fun and support to their grandchildren. This, in turn, has positive effects on a child's well-being.
Infants from 0–48 months have been shown to do better with some overnight visits, coupled with daytime visits away from the primary caregiver. In fact, studies have dispelled the traditional notion that infants should not spend time away from the primary caregiver.
Room sharing reduces the risk of SIDS. The baby should not sleep in an adult bed, on a couch, or on a chair alone, with you, or with anyone else, including siblings or pets. Having a separate safe sleep surface for the baby reduces the risk of SIDS and the chance of suffocation, strangulation, and entrapment.
If your child sees their grandparents once a week, they'll probably recognize them by the time they're 6 to 9 month old. But if they see them daily, it may happen sooner. You'll know whose faces are familiar to your baby because they'll smile and coo when they see people they recognize.