MIL strikes again

How interesting. I was surprised when my mum told me she waited until 6 months as I did think that advice was more recent. We discussed it when my now 9 year old was a baby. My mum had one of those baby books to record my first year and there’s a photo of me trying food for the first time at 6 months. That was in 1981 in Yorkshire. I wonder why the advice she was given was different from the norm. Strange.

Yes, and now we know better, we should be doing better. If you can't put your child's needs first at 4 months then you're going to have a very rough ride as a parent. Hence my previous comment saying that OP and her husband appear to be unable/unwilling to manage their very young baby's needs and are already looking for shortcuts and finding it very stressful when other people won't/can't do the parenting for them. MIL is probably worried about the fact this small baby is being treated as an inconvenience to be managed rather than a privilege to be nurtured.

Baby rice? Sorry OP the 90ies called and want their parenting book back.

I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't judge. That's all I am saying on the matter.

@ThatRareUmberJoker but there IS something wrong with it. It vastly increases the risk of SIDs and a baby monitor doesn’t mitigate against that risk. If OP wants to gamble then that’s on her but you cannot say there’s nothing wrong with ignoring the safe sleep guidelines.

Jeez, this and your op show mil isn't the unreasonable one...

So does a lot of things we stick in our bodies there is a risk. Contraception for women being one of them.

Absolutely YABU. 🙄
If I was the step MIL, I wouldn't be asking, I'd be telling you 'no, x can't come if he's poorly as I have my other GC to think about and also my own health'.

But tbh, she shouldn't have to say that because you shouldn't have such high expectations of her and you should be organising time off work to look after your little baby rather than whinging on here about MIL 'striking again'!!

Perhaps put more energy into that rather than slagging off your DH's step mum!

Your baby is 10 months old.

Yabvu to expect him to be happy anywhere but his own home with his own parent whilst ill.

Your MIL is not under any circumstances being unreasonable in questioning whether he is fit to do the usual overnight.

You or your dh need to take a day off and care for him yourselves.

All my babies were beside me but I wouldn't judge if parents decide to put their baby in a nursery room.

I found an article about when the Government wanted babies to be weaned at 6 months. Although health visitors was still advising parents to start introducing purees at 4 months. I swear to you my health visitor was giving me advice on weaning and introducing solids. I would have waited. I lived in South London at the time. She even pressured me to give my daughter the BCG jab. When I moved outside of London the advice changed.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2004/nov/10/health.medicineandhealth

I breastfed both DC. However, to start solids at 4 months was the received wisdom and I did it. I did not stop breastfeeding, however, for many, many more months.

Yes you can take emergency leave for dependants

If DC is not well one of you has to take time off work. It's not unreasonable for your long-suffering MiL not to want to catch a cold or pass it on to her other GC. PiL are doing you a huge favour - with a 10 mth old, so no sinecure! - and you are being ungrateful and thoughtless. Why not pay for childcare?

You're unreasonable - our 9 month old daughter is poorly at the moment and the last 2 nights I've only slept 3 hours per night.

I don't think you can expect a grandparent to go through this physical and mental torture that is sleep deprivation. Being a grandparent shouldn't be that hard.

It riled me a bit too. My dm always brags that "By the time you were 4 months you were on cows milk, and a lot easier it was!" Yes well thanks for that🙄My adult kidneys appreciate it

Great! Lots of people aren’t though. Early weaning doesn’t guarantee problems in later life but it does increase the risk. Advice changes as we research and learn more.

I’m 43 and the advice when I was a baby was breastmilk or formula only until 6 months. Maybe depends where you lived at the time.

Breastmilk and formula are both far more calorie dense than other foods a young baby is likely to be given so the “hungry baby” argument has never made sense to me. Babies get most of their nutrition from their milk until they are around a year old. Starting solids is nothing to do with hunger.

Being in the same room as another person is protective against SIDS. A baby monitor is no substitute for a person.

This ^

My mum weaned me at 4 months and I am fine. That was the advice back then.

The advice back then was 4 months I even owned a baby book. Ask any older parent what the advice was 20 years ago. Even my health visitor advised me on what purees to give her.

When I had my first baby the advice was 4 months weaning and that was 20 years ago. Then it changed to 6 months a baby is hungry by then. All I heard was miserable mothers saying I waited 6 months and he was always so hungry. With my last 3 children I weaned them at 5 months old.

Some people decide to have a nursery room for their baby rather than have them beside their bed at night. Nothing wrong with it they had a baby monitor beside their bed, it's personal choice.

If PP had said, "I weaned my daughter at 4 months because I didn't know better. She's 20 now and luckily currently seems to be OK, but I wouldn't do it again," I wouldn't have said anything.

The way she's worded it smacks of survivor bias, i.e. "I did it and I was fine, therefore no-one else should worry about doing the same." I'm just pointing out that actually, she has no way of knowing if her daughter is fine.

This. Why would your son need to stay over when they are only 40 minutes away? And she's not your MIL, she's your step MIL, which makes your demands even more galling.

How is this meant to help? Is that poster supposed to get a time machine?