Not giving me my hungry baby back

I would find it a bit odd really if a new mum was saying their baby was hungry while I was holding them, but wasn't making any moves whatsoever to actually come and take and feed the baby! I would personally pass the baby back, but I can imagine some people just thinking oh I'll try be helpful/give her a break by holding the baby until she's ready to feed him. Might need to go get a bottle for example.

You can't mess around with things like this really, when you want your baby back in your arms you don't need permission. You simply go over and move to pick up your baby.

They may be wondering why you keep repeating it and then doing nothing about feeding him.

If you are finding that everyone is doing it they are probably waiting for you to take him back rather than not giving him back.

I had this problem too (yes, older frmale family members). They should cover it in ante-natal classes so mums are confident in taking babies back.

I don't understand why you are expecting them to "hand baby back". Maybe they are just confused by the fact that you are saying he needs a feed but yet don't seem to do anything about it? It would seem natural to me that whilst saying this you get up to pick up the baby.

It's particularly odd when you say several people have done that. It never happened to me, and I have never observed this with my friends, mums' groups or family either.

OP I totally get it.
But this is the first of many times you will need to assert yourself a bit. If you’re not the confrontational type, it can be uncomfortable but remember you are advocating for your baby.
It can/should be done in a nice way eg ‘ah poor baby is hungry, let me feed them and then back to grandma/Aunty when I’m done’. Keep it breezy.

Just in case it is helpful, I was in the situation you describe this weekend, only I was the MIL/SIL. I was bobbing already-whingy DNiece about for Dsis, and was reluctant to ask her if she wanted to take baby back and try boob because it would have felt a bit like I was giving up and saying 'You do it'. Dsis deals with 2 under 2 day in, day out, so I wanted to try and deal with at least one episode of baby whinging so she didn't have to. Is it at all possible your MIL/SIL had the same impulse? Obv fair enough if you don't think so!

Here come the MIL bashers ( I’m not a Mil or a grandmother) 3,2,1…..

I started a series recently that was full of guess-ers. People kept doing things without an actual discussion to agree, then getting annoyed at the "wrong" thing being done. It was so immensely frustrating that I wanted to shake all of them. I stopped watching obviously!

OP I feel this to my core!! And in my experience it gets worse. Like you my comments, “think baby is hungry/think it’s time for a feed” you know, trying to be polite and all that was ignored. Then I started getting push back from ILs like, no I think he just wants a cuddle (as he was wriggling to get away from said cuddle) to physically dragging him away from me as he’s crawling to me for a feed when he got older, to the latest telling FIL to go fetch him some water as he approaches me for a feed. It’s beyond infuriating and I completely empathise.

Like others have said just actually getting up and physically taking LO away as you say time for a feed is the only thing that worked for me. I hope it settles down for you and they start to respect your and your baby’s needs more. Sadly for me it’s an ongoing battle.

This seems a bit much. I’m almost 100% certain that @Wife2b doesnt mean that OP should introduce a bottle for the MIL.

Just take the baby as you say it and keep the conversation going if you feel it seems awkward.

Funnily enough grandparents always seem to hand baby back when nappy needs doing!

Did your mil bottle feed?

i found bottle feeders quite opinionated on feeding frequency. I was often told I was spoiling him and he couldn’t possibly need another feed already. So they’d hang on to the baby and try to settle them because it couldn’t be hunger.

that and this obsession with feeding babies and they tried to make be give in and let them feed a bottle, rather than selfishly bf.

i also found lots of people seemed to take it as a personal failing when baby wouldn’t settle.

Some people are askers and some people are guessers.
Askers find guessers passive aggressive and guessers find askers too direct and rude

Sounds like you're a guesser OP, and you are expecting that by making a general comment (baby is hungry) everyone knows that you actually mean please hand the baby back now.

Whereas askers who expect people to say things directly (like @IReallyCouldntThinkOfAUsername ) will be left wondering what the guesser actually wants.

I'm an asker and my DH is a guesser so we get this a lot. For example while packing up after a camping holiday, DH said 'it's going to rain soon' and then went to put things in the car leaving me with the tent. When he returned he was surprised I hadn't started packing the tent down as obviously his comment about the rain meant 'start packing away the tent before it rains please'.

I kept saying ‘oh he must be hungry’ and eventually said outright that he needs fed. They still didn’t give me him back.

If you repeatedly said this to me but didn't get up and cross the room I would assume you weren't ready to take the baby yet. A lot of women prefer to go for a wee, get a drink/snack, get their phone, set up a clean nappy station before getting the baby. So I would be waiting for you to come to me, not the other way round.

O/p has said the baby is breastfed. Why would she introduce bottles just because mil won’t give the baby over to be fed?

So you'd be proactive if someone said "oh he's hungry" about their baby but you're no proactive when yours does. Makes no sense

i would keep hold of the baby until the mum took them yes….I would be thinking ‘fuck me when is she going to take this baby’

I also have an 11 week old and agree if someone is holding DS and he starts getting hungry then I just go and take him, I don't expect him to be brought to me.

If I was holding someone else's baby I think I'd also expect them to take him rather than sit and wait for me to bring him over. I would likely ask 'do you want him back?' if they didn't make a move though.

Whatever you did today to get baby back. It may be a case of holding out your arms and being direct about it.

I found people of older generations don;t fully understand (or agree) with the concept of demand feeding. My Mother bottle-fed us so it was all very routine, and my Mother-in-law breastfed my ex-DH but it wasn't on demand. I hated hearing anyone saying things like "he can't still be hungry" "He can't be hungry again, he's just been fed" etc.

You will only need ot do it a few times - practice in advance if you need to - but just assertively get up, say "it's time to feed you now" or some such phrase, and swoop the baby up. Do it for your baby, for your supply and for the comfort and health of your boobs!

I had this exact issue with ds1 and a female relative. Didn't have the same issue with ds2 as by then I knew what he needed without being told it was "just wind" and damn well (politely) took my baby back. Didn't help that she had bottle fed and seemed to think it was a personal attack that I breastfed, so was the only one who could feed them.