Emily

I don’t have much to add but will chime in as a former Kindergarten teacher and child psychologist (and someone who just went on a 10-day vacation while my kids stayed with my in laws!). I highly recommend holding firm about keeping your son in his routine while you’re gone…it’s not about what he’s learning, it’s about the consistency. This will give him less anxiety about you being gone, it will be less difficult for him to adjust back to routine when you return, and will give him some distraction. It will also keep your in-laws from getting in touch with you all day long with every question/concern…and if he has a hard time being out of his routine while you’re gone then that means extra stress and worry for you all week. Keeping him in school would also indirectly reduce his sugar and tv intake, so win, win! You could even go so far to say that you’ve informed the school and his teacher that he’ll still be in attendance, that way if he’s not there the school can follow up. This way, by picking the most important/impactful thing they may not feel like you’re micromanaging them and may be more willing to accommodate? Like others have said, if your wife can have the conversation with them from the angle that this is really important to you for things to go smoothly while you’re gone and once you return, it may frame it as less of a criticism on their grand parenting style.

This is probably a long shot, but I would also recommend having them stay at your house during the trip to help maintain consistency for your son. This could help reign your in-laws in a bit too because they’d be a little bit out of their domain, you could have control over what food is in the house when they arrive, etc.

I will never tell a new parent “just wait til ____!” This was such a pet peeve for me starting in pregnancy when I had terrible pregnancy insomnia with my first (“Just wait til the baby comes!”) and there’s some version of this at every stage of parenting and it seems like EVERYONE wants to remind you to “just wait, it gets worse!”. Totally de-validates what you’re feeling in that moment. Whenever I’m talking to a seemingly struggling new parent I try to flip that comment on its head…”Yes, this stage IS so hard. Just wait til they start walking and then you won’t have to carry them everywhere!” Etc.

Also, I think we take things to an extreme these days with the “no pressure” parenting approach that it actually has the opposite effect! Everyone telling me “don’t worry about putting your baby on a schedule, just go with the flow!” ironically put *more* pressure on me to feel like I should be more laid back than I was feeling. Once I stopped taking that advice and actually TRIED to put my baby on a schedule for my own sanity, baby and I were so much happier. Now I tell new parents, “do what works best for you and your baby”.