Visual Summary / DVFZ Books
Be the grandparent they keep inviting back
Real influence without the authority: what a first-time grandparent offers, what they hold back, and where the parents' say begins.
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01 The position
You are the grandparent, and that is a different job
The book settles this on its first pages. You have raised a child and come out the other side, and none of that experience makes you the parent of this one. Your child is a parent now, and the final say is theirs.
Pulins also moves the start date. You become a grandparent during the pregnancy, not on the day the baby arrives. That turns nine months of waiting into nine months of preparing: reading up on what has changed, taking a refresher class, deciding honestly what kind of grandparent you can be.
What you get in return is real. The joy of a new baby without the whole load, and the chance to meet your own child as a whole new person.
You've done this before; you've been through the trenches of child-rearing and come out on the other side. I commend you! Now, it's your child's turn to raise their child.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 1
Pick the one parenting choice of theirs you understand least. Ask them about it instead of correcting it. The book's instruction is to give them the chance to bring you onto the same page.
02 The announcement
Their news is theirs to tell, four times over
A pregnancy, a gender, a birth and a name are four separate pieces of news, and the book treats every one of them as the parents' to release. Announcing any of them first is one of the fastest ways to sour the relationship you are trying to build.
Pulins gives a rule of thumb: do not put it on your social media until they have put it on theirs. If your own accounts matter to you, that is a conversation to have with them, and you have to be ready for a no. Her example of the couple who go online and find a parent has announced for them ends in angry phone calls, and it is one of the situations she says happens regularly.
The same restraint works offline. Ask who they would rather you did not tell. If they have not said you can share, check first, or say nothing.
I would say, as a rule of thumb, don't put it on your social media until they put it on their own.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 1
Before you tell anyone, ask the parents one question: who is on your list, and who is not? Then keep to it, including the baby's name if you have been trusted with it early.
03 Access
The parents are the door to your grandchild
This is the claim everything else in the book rests on. While the baby is small, your time with them is arranged entirely by the two people you are most tempted to correct. A child also picks up who their parents are uneasy around, and will not bond with them.
Pulins describes the consequence as a ladder, and when a boundary is crossed it only moves one way. Unsupervised time becomes supervised visits. Supervised visits become no contact. She uses the same phrasing for the grandparent who ignores a nut allergy, the one who slips a bottle to a breastfed baby, and the one who turns up uninvited.
The ladder runs upward too. Keep to what they asked for, keep showing up in the ways they wanted, and alone time follows. Alone time is what actually builds the bond, because that is when the baby learns to trust you on your own.
If she doesn't want to be around you, you won't get to be around the baby.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 2
Do not argue the line. Name what you did, apologise, then show the changed behaviour. Pulins puts those three in that order, and says a repeated mistake carries a harder consequence because by then you knew better.
04 Support
Only offer the help you will actually deliver
Grandparents overpromise out of love, and the book is direct about what it costs. New parents build their plans on what you said you would do, right down to whether one of them goes back to work, so a promise that quietly fails is not a small thing.
The forms of support Pulins lists are concrete and separable: money towards college, a house, a car or the monthly bills; weekly babysitting or just date nights; lifts to appointments; a nanny or a postnatal doula paid for as a gift. Any one of them counts. None of them is owed, and she is equally clear that you are allowed to offer none of them.
If you made a big promise before there was even a pregnancy, her instruction is to say so now and apologise for being misleading, rather than let it come apart later.
I cannot stress enough how much resentment it can breed as the child grows if you initially offer help you don't end up being able or willing to provide.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 1
Before the next conversation about your role, write down only what you could do every week without minding. Offer that. The book's test is whether you can give it comfortably and happily, not whether you could manage it once.
05 What you say
The same worry, said two ways, gets two answers
Chapter 5 is mostly a list of sentences. On one side are the things grandparents say when they are anxious about how it is going. On the other are sentences that carry the same concern without a verdict attached to it.
The difference is closer to grammar than to feeling. A statement about their competence ends the conversation. A question about what they need opens it, and leaves the decision where it already sits. Pulins adds that criticism lands better as a suggestion than as a fact, and that a new mother is hypersensitive to comments on her mothering while she is still working it out.
She flags possessive language in particular. "Where's my baby?" and "Let me feed my baby" read as ownership, and they make everyone in the room uncomfortable.
Would you like me to help, or would you like me to listen?Vernice Pulins, Chapter 5
Keep one sentence ready for the next visit: what is the most urgent thing I can do for you? It is the book's own phrasing, and it hands them the answer.
06 The parents
You may be the only one still watching the mother
Once the baby arrives, attention moves off the parents almost completely. Pulins asks grandparents to keep theirs there, because a grandparent is often the only person around often enough to notice a change, and she says not to wait for the mother to raise it herself.
She gives markers rather than a diagnosis. Baby blues should last about two weeks; frequent crying, lost interest in things she used to love, trouble making decisions, constant worry with no good moments in between, and sleep that is not just disrupted but drastically changed all sit past that line. Suicidal thoughts she names as something to ask about directly.
The book reports an estimated 10 percent of new mothers experience postpartum depression, citing Bruce, 2003, and adds that the real figure is likely higher because not every woman is diagnosed. It puts postpartum anxiety higher again at 20 to 25 percent, citing Pietrangelo, 2012, and says it can begin at any point in the first year. It also notes that 8 to 10 percent of new fathers experience paternal postnatal depression within the first year, citing Brenner, 2021. Its listed treatments are medication and therapy, both through a doctor.
When it comes to postpartum issues, it's important to keep an eye on the mother and not wait for her to say something.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 8
Ask one direct question on your next visit, away from the baby: how are you, not how is the baby. If what you hear worries you, the book's step is to encourage them gently towards professional help rather than to manage it yourself.
07 Boundaries
Boundaries run in both directions, and so does the damage
Boundaries are the spine of the book. The parents will set them around feeding, screen time, visits, gifts, who is allowed to meet the baby and what gets posted online. Your job is to hear them, including the quiet ones, because a boundary often arrives sounding like a mild preference. If they keep repeating it, it is not a preference.
The half most grandparents skip is their own. Pulins is clear that you are entitled to a set amount of notice, to be released on time when you were asked for two hours, to limits on what you give financially, and to a no that comes with no explanation attached.
She also gives a test you can run in the moment, and it takes three questions. It is the closest thing in the book to a definition of overstepping.
A "no" needs no explanation from anyone.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 9
Agree two numbers out loud: how much notice you need before a babysitting request, and how many hours you are free for. The book treats both as ordinary courtesy, not a favour you are withholding.
08 Non-negotiables
What you did before does not override what they do now
Chapter 10 closes on safety, and Pulins calls it the most important thing to be mindful of when you are with the baby. Her framing is not that you weigh your own experience against current guidance. It is that you set your own experience aside.
The list, as the book gives it. No solids before 4 to 6 months, and nothing at all fed to the baby without the parents' approval. Babies sleep on their backs, in a crib that is not loaded with blankets and pillows, because those are a suffocation risk. A car seat every time, never a lap, rear facing until the baby is at least 2 years old, safest in the middle of the back seat, with both the seat and the baby securely strapped in, and the same care with any stroller or swing.
Then the house. No drop-side cribs, which are illegal in some places and deemed a hazard everywhere. Childproof the rooms. No baby walkers. Never leave the baby alone with a pet, and never leave the baby unattended in the bath, including in a bath seat or ring. Learn CPR and basic first aid.
On sleep position the book explains itself. It says scientists have found a link between babies sleeping on their stomachs and SIDS, which it defines as the sudden, unexpected death of a seemingly healthy infant under a year old, usually in their sleep and with the cause still unknown, and it names back sleeping as one of the biggest measures for reducing that risk.
It doesn't matter if you gave your own children solids before this age or if you yourself ate solids before this age.Vernice Pulins, Chapter 10
Book a CPR and basic first aid refresher. It is the tenth item on the book's safety list, and Pulins puts it as a vital skill for anyone who will be in the care of a baby.
09 The whole book
Ten chapters, one supporting role
Pulins ends by pulling the guide back to a handful of habits. Almost none of them are about the baby.
Communicate
Be clear, be honest, be kind, and ask before you correct. Most of the book's disasters start as something nobody said out loud.
Boundaries and respect
Honour theirs, set your own, and treat a no as finished on both sides. Crossing one costs you access, and the ladder only moves one way.
Remember the parents
Attention goes to the baby by default. Someone has to keep asking the two adults how they are, and you may be the only one close enough to see the answer.
You will get some of it wrong. The book's repair is three steps in order: take accountability, apologise, then show the changed behaviour. Do that and the door stays open.
Adapted from First-Time Grandparents: Kickstarting Your (Grand) Parenting Journey and Loving It
Vernice Pulins · © 2023 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services, a PQ Unleashed book · 91 cited sources in the source edition