In these days of frequent relocations and small extended families, having grandparents who are an active part of your baby's life can be a godsend. Whether they offer parenting advice and financial support or simply spend time with the new baby, grandparents can be an important part of your baby's life.

Grandparents can have widely different roles, from being the primary caregivers for their grandchildren or baby-sitting each day to just visiting during holidays and special occasions. Their role also is likely to depend on how healthy they are, what kind of relationship you have with them now, and whether or not they are retired or working full-time. Ideally, your baby's grandparents will be able to have an active role in helping to raise your baby.

Whatever their role, grandparents shouldn't be viewed as a built-in day-care or baby-sitting service, where you just drop off your kids with a list of instructions. By accepting their help, you have some responsibility to also support their need to be a part of your baby's life.

Even when your baby's grandparents want to have a close relationship with her, it is not always possible. They may live too far away to visit very often. Or maybe they are sick or in a nursing home and are unable to spend much time with her. Whatever the reason for the separation, there are many ways for the grandparents to stay in touch with your baby's life, especially with the widespread use of the Internet.

Unwanted Advice

Grandparents can be a source of invaluable advice and support. In addition to raising their own kids, they had years of experience dealing with all the things that help a family run smoothly. Ideally, that would mean that if you have a problem, you could ask one of your baby's grandparents and get some useful advice.

Unfortunately, not every family is in such an ideal situation. Instead of getting helpful advice, you and your partner might be criticized for the way that you are doing things. Or you may get advice that goes against the way that you have chosen to raise your children, leading to hard feelings when you decide not to follow it. Understanding why this happens and trying to avoid miscommunications can help to support a healthy relationship between your own family and all of the grandparents.

Encouraging a Good Relationship

Because grandparents can have such a positive role in the life of your baby, it is important to try to maintain a healthy relationship with them. That can sometimes be hard, though, especially with all of the added stress and anxiety that having a new baby can bring to a family. It can be even harder if you didn't have a good relationship with the grandparents before the baby was born.

How do you balance your need for help with the grandparents' need to be helpful? One way is to clearly define what you think their role should be and try to understand what role they would like to have. Balancing those two things can help to avoid many misunderstandings. You also should be specific about what your needs are.

Giving Too Much?

Grandparents who are always spoiling their grandchildren aren't appreciated by most parents. It might be okay if the grandparents don't see the kids on a regular basis, and they just lavish them with treats and gifts a few times a year when they are together. But on a regular basis, these constant handouts can interfere with your own parenting and lead to spoiled kids.

Instead of spoiling the children with candy and toys, a better role would be for the grandparents to “spoil” them with affection, love, and time. You might consider asking your parents to set limits on how much they can spend on incidental gifts. If that doesn't work, you could have your children keep the gifts at their grandparents' house and just play with them when they go there.