"Grandparent Syndrome"

I want to bring to peoples’ attention a pattern that has been crossing my radar increasingly over the last few months. I am nicknaming it “Grandparent Syndrome”. It simply consists of a patient coming into the clinic and saying something to the affect of: “I babysat my grandchild/children over the weekend, and boy, I hurt.” I am not saying this is a new thing by any means, but my guess is that many grandparents took a hiatus from babysitting over the Covid years. Now many grandparents are jumping back into the swing of things and they are doing things that are certainly out of their normal activities of daily living.

I want to highlight a few of the likely stressors that the average grandparent is going to face when babysitting. One is simply that when you take care of children, your attention is mainly focused on them; this can make it more difficult to notice when you are getting tired, or are holding a muscular strain beyond the comfort point. If you can regularly take a moment to direct your attention toward your body, you may be able to spot muscular tension before it gets to a high pitch.

The second thing is to be aware of positioning. For example, you are holding a 5 month old child. You unconsciously prefer holding on the right side of you body. You then might spend 2 hours with your right shoulder medially rotated and your head tilted right and downward as you look at the infant. A better solution is to hold the baby on both sides. This will still be a strain, but it will be divided between the two sides, and you will avoid a one sided holding pattern. This may seem like a silly addendum, but if you like to lay down with an infant, take a little time to have a comfortable pillow. Remember, you might be in that position for a while!

The last thing is for grandparents with grandchildren in 2-4 year age range. Grandparents are expected to be a soft touch as far as doing what the grandchildren want. (I remember this very well from my young days). What you should keep in mind is whether or not you can pick up and hold an older grandchild comfortably. Maybe for some grandparents, they can comfortably hold an older child for a little while. Others may not be able to pick up a child without aggravating a shoulder, hip, arm, etc. My recommendation for those who cannot hold a child with comfort is to harden their hearts, and modify their response to the child’s wish. Maybe you can sit with them on a couch or come down to their level. Or hold them only for the amount of time it is comfortable.

The overall takeaway is to bring some awareness to your babysitting, so that you can enjoy your grandchildren without causing undo Grandparent Syndrome.