Grandmother wants the morning oil bath, our nanny swears by a bath before bed

gentle_chai_259213 Oct 2026

Our son is 3 months old. His grandmother and our paid caregiver share the day, and I coordinate the handover around my office days. They both care about him a great deal, which is part of the problem. His grandmother wants the oil massage and bath mid-morning, the way she did it with her children. The caregiver prefers a warm bath in the evening because she says it settles him for the night. Each of them has started quietly redoing the other's routine. On days when both happen, he's overtired and nobody is happy. I'm not looking for which one is correct, I don't think either is wrong. I'm looking for how other families decided who sets the rhythm without making it a contest between the two people helping them.

2 comments

dusk_chai_872213 Oct 2026
This was a long time ago for me, my daughter is 19 now, but we had a similar split between my mother-in-law and a nanny. What eventually worked was giving each of them one thing that was clearly theirs. My mother-in-law did the morning massage, the nanny did bedtime, and the bath happened at whichever point we chose and nobody moved it. It helped that each had something they owned, rather than both sharing everything.
- gentle_chai_259216 Oct 2026
  This is close to what we've tried since Wednesday. Massage stays in the morning with his grandmother, then a quick wash. The proper bath is in the evening with the caregiver, before his last feed. Three days in, he's sleeping a little better and there has been no redoing. I'm cautious about calling it solved this early.
mango_marigold_323913 Oct 2026
Decide it yourself and say clearly that it's your decision. If you leave it to them to sort out, you'll be the referee every day until he's in school. Neither of them will love it, but they'll respect it more than a compromise they each think the other one won.
- gentle_chai_259217 Oct 2026
  I took your advice and said, plainly, that it was my call and why. The caregiver accepted it straight away. His grandmother was quiet for a day and then asked if she could still do the massage on weekends, which I was happy to agree to. Not perfect, but much calmer than last week.