Cancelling visits with in laws

Also - your baby has 2 parents, so when your DH is around, you let him look after the baby and you go take that shower and if your baby cries, he attends to baby, not you. He has to step up here and up to now, you've been doing over and above what you need to, and he has let you do this.

Now the situation changes.

You hand baby over to DH and he looks after baby while you shower/go for a hair do/take a walk, solo/brush your teeth/whatever.

You have to make a conscious decision that this is what is going to happen now. Your velcro baby is going to attach to someone else for a while. They have to learn what to do.

In fairness to the MIL, it sounds like she's pretty seriously physically disabled and has depression too - cancelling on her probably is devastating because there's probably not much else in her week. That doesn't mean you shouldn't cancel when you mean to, but I think her upset is understandable. She's clearly not in a position to provide support of any kind unfortunately.

Your DH really does sound awful though OP. As you know, that's the problem to fix.

She is being ridiculous. I was envisaging she’s left the house, bought tickets, travelling then you cancel.
Your husband needs to arrange the visits and ensure he is there.

I would text my MIL or DM and take baby to them for a few hours, would that be an option? My DM is also disabled, but could cope. I know you say you have a Velcro baby but baby WILL cope without you. My DD was the same with me, then I had to go to hospital and stay there for 5 nights. Perhaps you need to consider nursery a couple of mornings or afternoons per day.

You need rest.

@Gazelda nailed it.
OP you need to see someone because you are drowning here and thinking everything is your fault.
It is not all your fault. None of it is your fault. You are doing a great job and trying your very best. Everyone else is letting you down.
Get to the GP and have a chat with them. Make use of your employer benefits if they have employee assistance programmes or similar. And start being very much more demanding of your DP and do not listen to the moans of him or any of his family. He is a parent just as much as you but he does not appear to be doing anything much

Just realised I didn't mention the MiL once in my reply earlier, but that's because she isn't relevant really. You have bigger issues here.

Whenever I see the term Velcro baby I always find it interesting psychologically, because it's often used to insinuate that the baby needs to be physically tethered to the parent but in reality Velcro has two sides and both need to be in place to make it adhere. And in many cases as you read more and more about the parent you see that they too are a Velcro parent. And I don't say this to bash, or make parents, especially women, feel horrific about having what could be perceived as a high needs child or employing attachment parenting methods. I just find it interesting that the baby is the one perceived as needy when actually the parent also plays a role.

What I think is probably going on here OP is that you seem to have absolutely no support in the home (big big DH problem, but focus on you first) and nobody to ask advice or talk through parenting issues, and your baby has no other adults to form attachments with, so naturally looks to you. You feel like you can't brush your teeth because if you do your baby will protest and cry, because you've never just put them down and done it. So yes, the first few times they will cry because they'll be thinking 'wtf, she's never done this before' but they're very adaptable and will get used to it incredibly quickly.

The issue is, I think, that you cannot stand the sound of your baby crying and find it triggering. And you have nobody to talk to about that either. But that's all your child has for communication right now, so they're going to use it. In a few years they will be able to use words to tell you what's up, but right now they know that loud crying gets them seen to asap. It really really doesn't hurt a baby to cry/whinge for a minute or two while you brush your teeth or take a dump.

Your child doesn't need to be on your body 24/7. Your child needs a healthy, happy mother who is there for them when they need it but also has boundaries in place. Letting your teeth literally rot in your mouth because you feel like you can't leave your baby to attend to them twice a day is dysfunctional and the opposite of what your baby actually needs.

A functional parent recognises issues, which you have done here, so you e already made the first step to getting things a bit more sorted. The next step I'd suggest would be a GP visit, as you sound incredibly depressed and are probably in need of antidepressants and counselling.

Read and understand before you rant. op isn't complaining about mil not helping she's saying they are bad mouthing her at a time she is struggling. The back info was just to give you a heads-up on how ops life has been.

Ask your husband to go and live with his mother so you have time to think and tell him he can facilitate contact while he’s there so his mum doesn’t have anything to be upset about. You won’t be any worse off as he does nothing now anyway. Also book a gp appointment in your working hours to talk about how you’ve been feeling, and self refer yourself to iapt. Tell your friends and family exactly what has been happening so you have as much support as possible.

Dont put yourself down op. You sound like a great mum except you dont have support. First thing you need to change is babys dads help in all this. General household tasks for a start. Stop cooking for him/washing his clothes etc. if all else fails, get rid. He can run back to mummy!

i had a clingy second child and it drove me insane. It does get better though.

mil well, id stop communicating with her and let partner do it including all visits. Dont feel guilty. What does it matter if shes slagging you off? If shes that sort of person, she will find anything to slag you off to other people so let it wash over you. All that matters is you and baby atm

The issue here isn’t your In laws it’s your husband. Your post sounds like a struggling single mother yet you’re married. Your husband isn’t stepping up as an equal parent and isn’t being a good partner to you.

Oh you poor thing. Fuck the lot of them. No planning to see mil, fuck her. It does not matter what bullshit anyone says, you are doing everything for your baby, and you and baby are the only people in the universe who count here.
as for your husband, fuck his hobbies, fuck his sleepins, fuck him the fucking fuck off. When he walks in the door you should hand him baby, a list of things to do with baby, and leave. Park in the car and nap for an hour if that’s all you’re up for. As you go out say if this doesn’t work and you won’t even look after her for an hour or two I want the fastest fucking divorce on the planet and you can just fuck off out of our lives, you are barely in our lives anyway.

things will get better op. None of those people matter. Your husband is shit, not you.

@Hedgehogdetective so really, your husband is a lazy bastard and does nothing in the house or help with the baby??? you dont have time to brush your teeth? where is your family? he and his family are all obviously a waste of space!!

Well, true, @exomoon, but I think OP should be focusing on her relationship with her husband. She married him, not her MIL. It's his baby, not MIL's.

It's not an either/or situation. Both the DH and his mother sound like cunts. OP is perfectly entitled to tell MIL she won't be organising, facilitaing or hosting visits anymore.

You have a husband problem.

Why are you focusing on your MIL when you have a massive DH problem?

He's a useless twat. He should be doing equal parenting in the evenings and weekends.

OP, you need to take a massive step back from all of this.

Tell MIL that she needs to organise all visits with her son from now on.

Who cares if they blame you? These people don't matter a jot.

None of them helped you or help you now so their opinions are irrelevant. The type of sexist cunts who blame the wife even though it's their lazy son/brother at fault do not deserve your worry.

It will be so freeing not to worry about this anymore.

What you need to do @Hedgehogdetective, is arrange a visit when your Dh who ditches his parental responsibilities of an evening, is around and then YOU go out. Go anywhere. Get your hair done. MiL and DH can muddle through.

You definitely have a MAHOOOSIVE DH problem. In 10 months has he ever put the baby to sleep? He should start that now. You need to shower every evening. When you have a baby, you adjust. It doesn't read to me as though he's adjusted a whole lot in his life.

I'd be as dishevelled as I could be when MiL arrives, don't gloss over it. She gets to see you as she would if she was popping in from living around the corner. If you haven't showered, you hand her your baby and say "Right, I'm taking half an hour to shower and feel more like the old me. You've got this, right?" as you walk out of the room. She's a parent and a grandparent. Leave her to it for 30 mins.

See how you get on but the key to this is getting your DH on side and doing more. She can see just how much (or how little) her own Precious Darling Son is doing for his child.

You will feel a lot better if you just kick out the lazy asshole husband.

No. You aren't. Your useless husband is. He is a pathetic failure as a husband and as a father. Did he even want children in the first place?

Please see your GP and get help for your depression. Then when you are feeeling stronger evealuate your marriage and decide whether it is worth staying with this useless, lazy piece of shit.

And please take strength from everyone saying that the problem is not you, but everyone else.

I am sorry @Hedgehogdetective while MIL sounds a bit difficult this is the least of your worries. Your DH has equal parental responsibility and if he won’t step up you really need to look at whether he is right for you. But you sound in a bad place too. DH complaining that you being depressed is stressing him out sounds like he couldn’t care less and is about 12.

Oh my days. I'm really sorry you're currently stuck with this utterly useless wankpuffin. See you GP, get your strength back and start thinking about your exit plan

No, not at all. I was a mess with dd1 who didn’t sleep (twins were bizarrely easier as I had a routine and they slept!). You’re not a failure, I just think you should speak to your health visitor - I think it would be helpful for you.

Having read your latest post - I really, really feel for you.
unfortunately, for your MIL to sympathise with you properly she would have to accept her son was a bit of a shit to you, and she is not willing to do this. So you will be the problem. It’s not fair and completely unreasonable but I would try very hard to just accept she is going to be very biased towards her son and you can’t take it personally because of that. Leave all relationships with her to your DH and be clear with them both that’s how it will work. You’ve done nothing wrong cancelling but it’s their business now. You 100% do not need that nonsense.
you have done brilliantly to get this far - please put yourself first for a change. Someone mentioned using annual leave while she is in nursery - do that! Go to a spa! Or whatever.
i think you said yourself you need to advocate for yourself - if you keep waiting for people to see you are struggling and give you an break it won’t come, you need to make it happen. And I say this as someone with a good DH and family, but still had to advocate for myself. I take a bath now when DH comes home and just give the kids to him. He never offered it - I just do it now. Insist.
Please do just leave her with him on a weekend for a while and take some time.
big hugs, you will get there xx