I'm very lucky to have good relationships with my own parents, who are already grandparents to my brothers two and my in-laws who aren't grandparents yet - but will be first time grand parents to my baby. MIL only has sons ( four ) and I am with her eldest. She has mentioned before that she loves having me in the family because irs like gaining a daughter. I saw a tik tok on my algorithm that is heavily tailored to all content that is new-mum friendly at the moment where a nasty woman was boasting about how her MIL will be put in her place when her baby grows up seeing her as 'dad's side of the family' as though to imply this is lesser than being on mums side. I think this is disgusting & it got me really deeply thinking about how to include my MIL as much as I include my own mum with baby.
Some things I will naturally speak to my own mum more about like physical side effects of the birth etc, but as much as possible I want MIL to feel like a new grandmother when I feel like a new mother and I know she will want to be included and is very family orientated but is possibly too polite to ask or insert herself. I know this is a huge chapter in her life also & I juat want to make it special for her. For any MIL's out there what specific things have you had said to you, done for you or have your daughters in law done to really include you with your grand child when they have been born? We live locally enough to family and have a nice work life balance in that help with child care won't be essential or expected but I'd love to know. I don't want to look back one day and realise I'd missed opportunities to include MIL more.