AIBU to feel hurt and pushed aside by DIL?

No she doesn’t, she sounds sad that there’s not much of a relationship there.

So the birth issue (as in updates etc) I’m with DIL as it’s her private medical info so it’s fine she doesn’t want to share details at all.

With everything else your son and your shit-stirring other child are the problem.

I think digging into the minutiae of the wording of what's app messages ect is a massive sign that the big picture is being ignored or not seen at all.

From what you've said OP the first thing that jumps out is that your son just isn't doing any of the work to keep a relationship going.

The fact that you can come up with umpteen excuses for him (with DIL at the root of it) is not a good sign of how you view the whole situation.

It's such a tired old story. Man leaves home and gets married. Man can't be arsed to keep up a decent relationship with his parents. Man's mother blames the wife. Man must be downtrodden/under control/scared to rock the boat/ ect ect ect.

No. I'm afraid in my experience (twice) and in friends of mine experiences, and in a thousand on here it's a very simple case of: wife just gets on with living her life and interacting with her parents. She does lions share of day to day baby care so kid is usually with her, he can't be arsed to do much wrt keeping his mother in the loop to make up for it. MIL is left scrambling for reasons which DONT involve her son being a typical bloke.

Good advice here.
Hang on in there and things may change for the better.

I’m a DIL and I have a great relationship with my MIL. It’s tricky and we have both been very sensitive to the other to get to this point.

what my MIL has done (hoping to provide useful advice).

• She tells me upfront that she thinks I’m a great mum. I think new motherhood is hard and it never hurts to provide validation. She specifically says this to me outside of conversation including her son/my DH and I appreciate that.
• She offers to come and stay but she’s very gentle about it. She has offered to stay in a hotel before in the early days to make it easier on us. She has also offered (and followed through) to be helpful when she comes and I find this really great. She comes to stay when we are working and kids are in childcare and she cooks dinner, bakes cakes, does random jobs like cleaning the windows. However what makes this a winner is she asks first and she’s so nice about it with no criticism. There’s no “your windows are dirty” judgement; she just says “I’ve got a bit of time do you mind if I clean the windows”. It may sound silly but the lack of judgement (or perceived judgement) counts for a lot with me
• she’s willing to learn about my boundaries and be respectful. She cuts grapes because I ask her to. She learn how to use the car seat. This all makes me feel respected and trusted.
• She sees and appreciates the mental load that falls on women, she knows I do more for the grandchildren than my DH does and she verbalises this and provides empathy, again backing me up.

Essentially when I write that all down, I feel like my MIL shows she is on my side and sees me as an person, and doesn’t just see me as a facilitator for access to her grandchildren.

I think she would agree with me that we have a good relationship, I really respect her and I ask her opinion on lots of things now because she has shown herself to be a kind and engaged grandparent. I do appreciate what you are saying that you feel you haven’t been given the time or capacity to do this. My honest suggestion is to focus on your relationship with DIL not with your grandchild right now. When you visit, asking how she is and offering to make her a cup of tea and have a sit down, that kind of thing goes a long way.

Christ, there's some really cunty responses on this thread.

OP, I do understand the thing about letting people know when she's in labour, especially if her first birth experience was so difficult, but it does sound she's a bit shitty with you in many other respects.

It is perfectly normal, kind and nice to ask the father if he is OK after a traumatic situation in which he would have been desperately concerned about his wife and baby.

You seem to hold her responsible for what you perceived as 'lopsidedness' but from her perspective it's normal that she makes effort with her own family and them with her. If there are communication issues it's really for you to take up with your son and just make sure you communicate directly with him. It'll soon become clear whether he's just doing that man thing of leaving everything to his partner, or if there are deeper issues within his relationship.

Jesus! Makes me glad my son isn’t married. I hate the way these MIL threads go. So fucking nasty!

Exactly. I had a traumatic birth and thankfully know VERY little about it. My husband had to watch every second of it and was clearly very distressed by it. Whenever anyone asked me how I was, I also directed their attention to his experience of it.

Is your relationship with your son close? You seem to be second guessing everyone’s motives and views rather than making assumptions based on facts. Why not just tell your son how you feel and ask him if you are right? Then you and your son both know where you stand with each other and can move forward. But as pps have said the onus is on your son not DIL.

As others have said it is on your son, not your DIL to facilitate the relationship with you. You keep making excuses for your son, and say he's conflict avoidant, whilst blaming your daughter in law. I'm sure she can sense that you blame her and make excuses for him. Are you sure he just isn't as close to you as you think and it isn't a priority to him? I often find mums want to think it's the DIL who is stopping the relationship when it's actually the son who can't be bothered.

So I’m left feeling like I’m some sort of risk or stranger, even though I’m her grandmother.

This is a feeling, not a fact. Her not wanting to leave her DC overnight, is about your DIL and her DC. It doesnt have to be a judgement on you!

but it’s painful to feel that a hired professional is seen as less complicated and more trustworthy than the child’s own grandmother.

Again, feelings are not facts. Why would decide that a family decision on practicalities around childcare was a judgement on your trustworthiness? It will be about what works best for them as a family.

You are overthinking and projecting on so many points here that I would be very open to hearing the DIL side.

Unless he is in a controlling relationship, your DS is and always has been in control of how you fit in with their family life.

Everything you've described about the first birthday and what you it and said around it sounds absolutely appropriate and kind and reasonable. DIL sounds quite unpleasant. I didn't have a traumatic birth first time but there was some intervention required and in his first couple of hours of life DH was carrying him down to NICU for tests while having no idea why I kept passing out. If MIL hadn't checked in on him to see how he'd been feeling after that I'd think she was being really uncaring.

you aren’t top grandma. Mum’s mum usually is. is a horrible statement. My mum and MIL are equally loved and valued as grandmothers and I'd consider DH and I had both failed somewhere if that wasn't what we had facilitated.

This! Okay so you’re not mega close to your daughter in law, as is sometimes the case, but I’m struggling to see why any of this is her fault as opposed to your sons who seems just as content to keep an ‘arms length’ type relationship.
There are parts of your post where you’ve acted in ways that could offend or irritate and ways that your daughter in law has, but that’s not overly surprising given we can all be perceived that way sometimes, intended or not!

OP I feel your pain. You sound like my lovely MIL and your DIL sounds like my horrible SIL. No reason for her to be distant/mean to our MIL but she just is. Seems to get a kick out of it and BIL is a complete wet lettuce who wouldn’t stand up to his wife if his life depended on it!

my MIL has had some luck with just being super nice to DIL - telling her what a great mum she is, saying how wonderful DNiece is and how it’s all down to DIL’s parenting - so sucking up basically! Also helps that SIL’s own mum is quite busy so SIL does need MIL for the occasional babysitting.

in your shoes I would suck up to DIL for the sake of relationship with DGC, take food round and make her drinks when you visit after baby, and message your son separately asking for DGC updates/photos, so you’re not bothering DIL. It sucks but it’s the only way.

DIL is a "brat"?! She's allowed to have boundaries, it's her life, medical procedure, children etc. I struggle to imagine my mum asking how l am if my husband was to have an operating. Because it's not all about me

In answer to the original question. It does sound like being one of "those MIL" isn't that far away. People parent very differently. I know there are things my husband and l do that my mother and MIL don't agree with. Tough. It's none of their business. With regards to the picture thing then why is it your DIL's job?! The Labour thing is a bit intrusive, it wouldn't bother me but your DIL feels differently

We didn't tell our parents when our c section was planned (or anyone) as we didn't want anyone stressing / asking any questions or expecting anything until the baby was out. We then phoned parents.

Your DIL sounds really unpleasant and self-centered and I am sorry but I do think you need to accept that times have changed and most people now prefer if they can afford it to pay for a nanny than ask family.
It's easier for many to be able to just ask for things to be done as they choose rather than navigate conversations with grandparents who want leeway in how they care for the children / what they feed them etc.

I don't understand this at all. It's your son's responsibility to arrange time with you and you're just finding a way to blame the woman for his failings. OP says she guesses he just does it to keep the peace or is avoiding conflict...but do you know that for sure? Maybe he just doesn't care? Or can't be bothered? Just lets his wife arrange everything? Always shocks me on MN when I see people bending over backwards to blame a woman for something that's a man's responsibility.

You don't have a DIL problem, you have a DS problem.

I look back and I think I was a bit of a witch to my mother-in-law because I honestly didn’t understand mother-daughter relationship. I’d never had one.
The comfort that I felt in being able to tell my own mother to fuck off when she was being awful it’s not a level of comfort that you would want to experience from another person
So I’m massively regret not making more effort because she did really love my children
And now she’s got dementia they love her more than any other non-parent adult in the world and I’m just extra sad. We didn’t include her more.
This is probably not gonna help your situation, but it might help other daughter-in-law‘s Reading

Ah OP. I think the crux of the matter is that your DIL either doesn't like you very much or you just aren't deemed worthy of her time. She's very involved with her side of the family and they meet all her needs, both practical and emotional. I'm afraid to say this is the normal way of things. DILs gravitate towards their own mums and it therefore follows that the grandchildren have more exposure to her side of the family. Your son should step up, yes, but he's got to live with his wife not you! So who's he less likely to want to upset? The woman he lives with and the mother of his kids, or his mum? I'm afraid it's a story as old as time.

Why can’t your son send you pictures or bring little one over to you for the day? Why is it dil fault?

In the same way, I assume my son must have told his sibling that this is the reason they don’t visit, I very much doubt DIL would have shared that, so this is the most reasonable assumption.

More and more, it is clear that you are that type of MIL.

She does sound quite controlling and your DS clearly gives her that opportunity, in order to keep the peace. It's a shame he won't step up a little to say he will visit you with your Granddaughter. I'd say give it time.

Keep up the friendly, open relationship and in time they may well start to ask you to babysit or look after their DCs especially when they have 2. Perhaps DIL doesn't want to be beholden to anyone or feel like she owes you for looking after their DCs. Or she could be worried about you building a relationship with her DCs and that may be something she would be jealous of or would find difficult to cope with? What was her childhood like and how is her relationship with her own Mother?

I don't think you are doing anything wrong. It's really really difficult though - I'm a DGP (my DS) and do lots of childcare as DS and DIL both work jobs that wouldn't work around regular childcare. We would not see my DGS this much at all if we didn't do the childcare as they have busy lives with work and weekends are spent as their own little family and visiting other family and friends as well as us, which is all absolutely how it should be.

Keep busy with other things and try not to spend too much time wishing for something that isn't going to happen - yet.