AIBU for thinking MIL has priorities wrong with her grandson ?

First time mum are you? The baby fits in with you not the other way round. Think Grandma has a lot more experience bringing up children than you. Precious much?

First time mum are you? The baby fits in with you not the other way round. Think Grandma has a lot more experience bringing up children than you. Precious much?

I said nothing about "taking advantage" of parents.

The Lullaby Trust's website has a blanket statement in their Co-Sleeping page which says:

"Babies should always be in the same room as you for at least the first six months for sleep, day and night. This doesn’t mean you can’t leave the room to make a cup of tea or go to the toilet, but for most of the time when they are sleeping they are safest if you are close by."

Taken in the round, by which I mean taking into account factors such as (1) multi-child families (2) occurrence and recidivism rates for PND and equivalent (3) availability of paid maternity leave (4) unequal split of parenting duties in the first 6 months of a baby's life (5) diverse family set-ups and make-ups (6) childcare availability, type and quality, and whatever other social and economic pressures new mothers may feel in 21st century Britain, this simply isn't possible for many many babies. So, are the parents (let's face it, mothers) of those unfortunate babies delinquent if they can't provide this? Have they caused the death by SIDS of their babies?

The ONS says that in 2021, "166 unexplained deaths of infants (aged under one year) [ocurred] in England and Wales in 2021, accounting for 7.1% of all infant deaths". Obviously for the parents concerned that's 166 too many. Equally obviously, we don't know that all 166 were caused by factors that can be prevented by always being in the same room as a napping/sleeping baby.

Put this into the perspective of the nearly 700,000 babies that were born in the UK in 2021. That's 0.02%. The NHS says that between 10-20% of women are affected by PND. How can it be reasonable to suggest that while they're suffering exhaustion, hormonal upheaval, unending pressure that breast is best, financial worries in this day and age and the lack of availability of affordable and good quality childcare, whatever other pressures a post-partum woman might be experiencing in her life, it's also OK to make such a bald statement as the Lullaby Trust's above? Yes of course there should be education, yes of course information should be made available. But it needs to be conveyed unsensationally, in a measured fashion, and not in a way that vulnerable new mothers read as "if I'm not in the same room as my baby for naps and overnight's sleep, it might succumb to SIDS". That's simply not responsible (or, in fact, necessarily factually accurate).

@Topseyt123 I survived not having a seatbelt in a car when I was a DC. Should I have not used a seatbelt with my DC?

I survived sleeping on my front as a baby, should I not have put my baby on his back when putting him to sleep.

When you think about it the logic for being in the same room as the baby at night when they are sleeping should apply for when they are sleeping during the day

Have you explained you are meant to be in the same room if they are napping?

@blueyavocado the guidance for being in the same room when napping is reasonably recent. She might know about being in the same room at night but when that guidance first came in, it wasn't mentioned that you should be in the same room when baby is napping

Why would you watch your tumble dryer?

Toddlers are different to new babies

It is perfectly normal and appropriate to cuddle a young baby. Yes there’ll inevitably be occasions when you can’t attend to them immediately for one reason or another and there’s no need to feel bad about that but babies need a lot of attention and affection and it’s depressing to see so many people advising OP to withhold that from her young baby. They are not older children. They have their own needs specific to their developmental stage and being close to their caregiver(s) is important for them. It being inconvenient for adults doesn’t mean that it’s wrong.

Not everyone thinks baby cuddles are precious. You don't mention that your son was distressed so I'm assuming he was perfectly happy - if you ask someone to look after your child you don't get to judge their priorities.

I never ask her and I quite often decline as I don't feel comfortable. We have shown her the blanket thing so many times and we have also shown her paced bottle feeding so many times and she just ignores us

Babies don't need to be cuddled all the time, you will create a rod for your own back doing that. MIL obviously has experience with babies and knows what's safe ( I'm assuming your DH made it safely into adulthood). Your being a bit precious in my opinion. However, if you are a first time mum then it's understandable you are a little anxious.

You can't force someone to want to cuddle your baby!

And if the baby is perfectly happy without the cuddle, why force it on either of them?

It's healthy for babies not to learn to expect cuddles all the time, because they can grow into toddlers who are upset if mum isn't holding them, and children who are grief-stricken when they're left at nursery the first time. One of mine wanted to be cuddled all the time. So I gave cuddles. Never got anything done, often still not showered / dressed mid afternoon. The more I cuddled, the more they expected it. Night times included. I ended up exhausted and stressed.

I eventually had to ween them away from it, and that was much more painful for both of us than if I'd not overdone it in the early days.

20 year of being around they are hardly new and as you actually used them there was no reason to make out there aren't other options to blankets.

Maybe those grandparents should try and remember what it's like to be new parents and be less judgemental dicks to new mothers.

DH under MIL "supervision" at 2 once followed his Dad up the ladders onto their two story house causing panic - I only know as they went on about it when our kids were that age how funny it was and how no-one got hurt.

She told me when DD1 was older that she been letting her cross road and post letters for ages and I was being over cautious that she was too young - she stood on step watching so what could go wrong - so stood with her - DD1 ran straight across the road and car had to slam on breaks before we could do anything - any less quick reaction car would have hit her. Same woman had go at us when we let DD1 up town with her mates at 12.

So personally I don't think having grown kids means automatically better at judging risk and knowing what best for young kids- sometime I think they've just been lucky or others risk assessed and intervened round them.