Did I do the wrong thing keeping newborn’s hands covered ?

I'd be tempted to tell MIL she won't be seeing any part of your baby unless she stops with the comments.
Does she criticise your DH for keeping her hands covered too?
You did the right thing. I had to do the same with DD1;, she's 18; and I can promise you it's not affected her in the slightest..
Ignore them or tell your DH to have your back on this (or do my first suggestion but that'll probably cause more problems than it will solve).

Ignore them, OP. They are being weird. Frankly I’d struggle not to tell them to fuck off.

My oldest child had severe eczema so was in scratch sleeves for most of the time u til he was about 20 months and amit started calming down. We were worried it would affect his fine motor skills but it hasn’t at all.

I literally did the exact same thing. My baby scratched herself in the hospital and I kept her hands covered for about 5 weeks too ... I don't understand their issue 🤣 sounds like they just like to put their two pence in and comment on something... It would be commenting on the scratches if you didn't keep the hands covered!

(Quite) an old lady here… we were always told that us Mums could nibble the sharp nails down, it was fine and probably safer than trying to cut them!

Sorry you’re having this daft nonsense, OP, why do new DGrans cause pointless issues with Mums? Surely just enjoy your lovely new grandchildren, and let Mum do things her way…🤷‍♀️

fuckem. Ignore the batshit old hags with their PA bitching.

You're doing good.

You did exactly the right thing, and what I did with both of mine. It’s why the sleepsuits have inbuilt mittens. My eldest still learned to suck her thumb very young and my youngest has amazing fine motor skills. Your in-laws sound really awful. You don’t need their approval - you’re a fantastic mum and your instincts are just right x

You did the right thing. When my Ds was 7 weeks we had to go to the eye hospital as he sliced his cornea scratching his eye it was horrific. Def sensible to use scratch mitts

I don't have a bite so this wasn't possible.

Asked DP to cut newborn's nails once...

He cut the top of DC's finger off! Luckily no long term damage done but it was stressful and bloody!

My teeth don’t meet up to be able to do that!

To give the benefit of the doubt – though I do think MIL/SIL sound obnoxious – babies are quite boring when new and there’s not much about them to comment on, yet everyone wants to say something. When my first daughter “woke up” properly around six weeks and got a bit more alert my own dad said quite jovially, “Oh, she does have eyes after all!” Because he’d only ever encountered her asleep. Hormones being what they are, I burst into uncontrollable weeping at this insult.

Yep, you need to fight fire with fire here, OP. This is one situation in which I disagree that it should be left to your DH to handle (unless he’s actually in the room when it’s happening).

You have your own relationship with her and need to set your own boundaries. Don’t give her a free pass to continue her PA bitchiness by ignoring it, you need to shut it down - or imagine all the ways she’ll keep going with this aggravating nonsense over the years if you say nothing and she thinks she can get away with it.

Personally I’d directly call her out on it, but then I’m old and grumpy and give no shits and I appreciate you’ve not yet reached that glorious state of grace. So reply in kind and tell her through your baby in a nice bright voice, “Crikey, is silly old grandma still going on and on and on about your scratch mitts? When do you think she’ll stop mentioning it? We both know she doesn’t like them, but it’s getting reeeally boring now, isn’t it? Cup of tea, Brenda?”

They sound awfully right pair of idiots.
The mittens are for exactly that purpose, so you did nothing wrong.

I’m in the nibble baby’s nails off with your teeth camp, so much easier and safer than cutting them.

I kept my babies hands covered for around the same amount of time too and funnily enough my MIL also commented about seeing his hands. I didn't take any notice. My baby, my rules and like yours, his nails were super sharp!

My youngest baby had an awful rash over his face for first few weeks so he had scratch mitts on most of the time.
Every time I saw MIL she would say that baby doesn't need gloves its summer and every time I would say they are not gloves and I have told you he won't leave the rash alone.

She turned up with SIL one day(so was showing off) and first words out of MIL mouth was to shout I've told you get those gloves off that baby now.
I shouted back I am sick of you mentioning bloody gloves,they are bloody scratch mitts...silence...she never mentioned gloves again.
It did my head in.

You say something OP.
Tell them to mind there own business

What a pair of shrews. Babies can badly scar their own faces and it can take months to fade. You’ve done nothing wrong and they are not being nice.

I think up to 6-12 month baby is not even aware these are ‘her’ hands … that’s why baby will scratch face- chew on them etc.

seriously : this is no biggie .

life is hard without family making it harder .

giver your best Paddington hard stare and then one of the comments already wisely made .

stay strong ! You are doing a great job !!

My midwife told me my baby wasn't a bear or a cat, she has hands not paws so there's no need to use them all the time. I think I only occasionally used them at night when I noticed her face was getting scratched. I think it's incredibly strange you kept them covered for so long. Did you not go to any baby classes? See other babies?

Your in laws sound nuts to be making a big deal out of it. I think we all use those inbuilt mitten things, I definitely did.

I did a course the other week though regarding newborns and what they are capable of (way more than I ever realised), and actually keeping their hands free is important as it’s key for self soothing (think how much we touch our face or bring our hands central when worried/ upset/ tired to self soothe).

Baby nails are the sharpest thing in the world, but if I could do it again knowing what I now know I would leave his hands free.

Don’t beat yourself up, we all do it, mittens have been around forever. Be kind to yourself, parenting is stressful.

And point out to your in laws that the constant saying about it is driving you nuts. Sometimes they just don’t know what to talk about and cling onto something. My MIL always makes a joke about how we must be starving him when he eats hungrily. Our son isn’t that interested in food and getting him to eat can be really difficult. That comment hits me like a freight train every time, she doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s just a way to make conversation with her grandson, she doesn’t realise how much I worry about his weight, it’s not a personal attack.

Get some glass nail files. They only cost a couple of quid and last forever. They don't have a rough surface like usual nail files so no risk of scratching the baby's skin and they make very quick work of nails.

I have eczema and scratch in my sleep so I use them for a couple of seconds each night to smooth off any sharp edges - it only takes one swipe.

I detest comments like this particularly to new mums. I used to put socks on my baby's hands they went up to their elbows, easy to keep on. Can you imagine the comments i got. I hated my mil and sil x2. Thought I had the scummiest job being a midwife! I mean wtf! Glad they lived at the opposite end of the country from us.

Babies use their hands from birth to map their mother and stimulate milk flow, this behaviour is seen in bottle-fed babies too and helps with bonding and self-soothing. You haven’t done anything wrong, your MIL and SIL are probably just nit-picking, but it is objectively wrong of PPs to say that there is no reason baby’s hands should be out. We can have this knowledge, based on much research, and still sometimes cover their hands.

OP - they wouldn’t make sepsis with inbuilt scratch mittens unless they were needed - and your dc needed that facility for a while so you were sensible to use them. If you hadn’t used them and dc had scratched themselves - especially on the face - they would be making passive aggressive comments about silly mummy not letting you wear scratch mitts because you’ve scarred your beautiful face by scratching it… they are just flexing and using whatever they can to be mean to you (but in a way that they can turn around and say they were only joking/you’re too sensitive/ they don’t really mean it etc as bullies often do.

use the same technique to talk back to them and they’ll soon shut up and not think it funny. And if they complain you can just say that you were only doing it because you thought that’s how they liked interacting because you were just copying them.

no consolation but my gran used to worry that she kept my uncle’s hand covered in scratch mitts for the first couple of years of his life - he had such bad excema that if he didn’t have the gloves on (or his hands covered in other ways) he would have scratched himself so badly that it was the only thing she could do. He is now in his late 80s, did a job that he needed to use his hands for to do very delicate things and is still a fit and productive member of society. The important thing is - his hands were fine even after being covered for much longer, it wasn’t something that my gran wanted to do but it was better than him injuring himself and scratching himself as a baby and as he didn’t scratch himself he never had to suffer like he might have done and like she had seen other children suffer!

Was it nice to do - no.
Did she feel guilty - yes
Did she think she had done the right thing - yes, eventually she knew he was ok.