AIBU to feel hurt and pushed aside by DIL?

She’s now been labelled a “twat”.

So disrespectful. You think DIL’s contribution during your visits is to “wipe GDs bum.” I’m not surprised she is distancing herself from you.

the DIL treat her MIL, a near stranger with whom she has just made some small talk on occasion, differently from her own mum, who has raised her? No kidding 😂

Demanding to be treated "equally" is exactly why it's necessary to put strong boundaries, and frankly stay well away.

You don't DEMAND. If you want to get close, you make efforts from the start of the relationship. Why do you think a woman would suddenly owes you anything simply because she had a baby that you assume you have some rights over? Ridiculous

You are nothing to that woman. Not respecting her as a mother and demanding rights on her baby, and ignoring her as a person, is exactly why you have none

Full sympathy for you, and you are doing nothing wrong. It sounds as though it wouldnt matter what you do, the DIL is intent on being unhelpful/remote/distant and it is so upsetting to hear.

You sound a lovely gran/nanna and its such a shame women are so mean to each other. Do nothing ....let them know you are so wanting to help and send your love and then wait....

TBH the new Mum sounds horrible - she may not be - but in this situation she does know at some level the 'power' she has and she's relishing it. Let your Son know how you feel and then stand back.

Just because she has had a baby and feels less than great, doesn't give a license to be a rude and unkind person...and she is....be less available, and hopefully, it may improve. Im so sorry this is happening, and I do hope it gets better for you.

What a stupid answer. Of course their relationship is not fine. The DIL treats her MIL completely differently from her own mum. The son needs to step up and ensure his mum is treated equally. They are both grandparents and unless the OP has a backstory we don’t know, then they should both see the grand children.

All this ‘top grandma’ and ‘daughters naturally trust their own mothers’ stuff. Utterly awful.

why? Not many people are as close to you as your own mother,

The OP doesn't sound unpleasant at all, but they were hardly close, making small talk and seeing each other when it was polite to do so.

Why on earth do you think people should magically get close because one has a baby, or want to suddenly have any serious contact with that stranger? The polite ones, because of your husband, of course, but why do you think a stranger should suddenly get involved with pregnancy, birth, newborn stage, and have contacts?

If someone wants a close relationship with their grand-children, get close to their mum first

All this ‘top grandma’ and ‘daughters naturally trust their own mothers’ stuff. Utterly awful.
I know my mother and when my children were small I definitely trusted my mother in law with them more. We are much more careful around each other, gentler and more respectful. Whereas my mum felt and feels able to absolutely ride roughshod over me!
Generally however, I felt that were the DC ever cared for by their grandparents (didn’t happen often due to geographical distance) that they would be with people I trusted because they loved the bones of my kids. They might not have done things the way I’d totally wanted but they were in their care and both parties were at least fine and at best having a blast.
These are early days OP. The relationship will shift and change in time.

Have you asked to stay over and been told no? From reading your responses there’s an awful lot of “I guess” “I think” and assumptions about what your DIL is thinking or doing. It’s not your daughter in law responsibility to keep your relationship up, that is for your son and you! Sounds like your son needs to step up and is a bit passive

I don’t think you’ll be able to answer who does the prep really, I was just musing and considering another angle. Making tea and taking coats is a lot easier than vacuuming and making beds (also usually somebody will thank you for the tea, as I’m sure you understand being a woman and mother, the invisible work that nobody ever thanks you for grinds you down the most). Being a SAHM is also exhausting whilst also pregnant, I missed that part. I think you sound perfectly reasonable from everything you’ve said. I would guess she’s just in a difficult place and easily irritated. Been there with pregnancy and small kids! Sometimes a perfectly reasonable person can still be too much.

It sounds like the first child is only 3yrs old so there might be opportunities to babysit when they are older and maybe your DIL feels more comfortable. Sometimes it just takes time and offering to babysit feels like you’re pressuring even when you don’t mean to be.

I think your relationship will grow as your grandchildren grow and try to keep your expectations low and be supportive and enjoy the time when you do get a visit. Just to add I hated being babysat by my grandparents so don’t assume that is the only way to build a relationship spending time all together can be as rewarding.

I don’t choose to spend much time with my in-laws as I don’t enjoy it so maybe have that in mind when visits occur. Don’t try to take first visits to zoo or other activities, but maybe offer to arrange outings if you can afford it maybe somewhere between you both so it cuts the driving and might be a lovely activity/memory for you to build relationship with you all.

Good luck and you might find the second child’s birth softens your DIL a little more as juggling two and also more confidence/experience in parenting usually helps.

The MILs on here that are loathed were a DIL at an earlier stage. MILs are usually at the disadvantage compared to a woman's mother and her side of the family. It might hurt but there isn't a great deal you can do I'm afraid.

She sounds like a controlling twat

You don’t sound like a difficult guest from what you’ve written here. She’s very pregnant though and maybe all guests are hard.

I would like to know what the division of labour is with guests. My DH used to just assume the guests turned up and that was it. I had to teach him that there is cleaning to be done, beds to be made, guest towels to get out, meals to plan and shop for, dietary requirements to be accounted for.

Do you think your son would do all the prep for your visits? I would be interested to know the answer because based on my friendships, men generally don’t. It’s a lot to put on to a pregnant woman for a guest who she’s not particularly close to. Maybe she knows he wouldn’t do it and that’s part of the reluctance.

Do you ask (your DS ideally) if you can stay over? Do they have the space for you?

And vice versa, do you invite them over? Do you have space for them?

"So how I see it, there was a honeymoon stage of trying to show each other the best version, impress the parents, then wedding and baby!"

How I see it is you were acquaintance, exchanged pleasantries but were never close and just because she has birthed your grandchild you now expect her to be welcoming you with open arms...?

It is. And that misogynist slur has been repeatedly used about a heavily pregnant women who isn't here to defend herself. Anyone using that word needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Fucking disgusting. And a good example of the adage, when you point a finger, three point back at you.

’Top grandma’ 🤢

Well MIL is definitely top grandma here because my mum’s dead. Before she died they definitely both had their own ‘top grandma’ aspects. MIL for example would always go to there parks and go on all the rides for example, pretty cool.

I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t want as many people to love their children as possible, you don’t know what’s round the corner. Boy am I grateful my dds have MIL. Despite her being hugely different to me and my own mum.

I’m quite conflicted on this but as a new Mum myself I would like to offer a helpful reply as I see you are getting torn to shreds by some people & I feel like your intentions are coming from a good place.

Firstly I’d love to hear your DILS side. It’s not great that you found out the stuff about her feelings around your comments post her traumatic birth through your other child. This means you don’t have the full context, or know how or when it was said- if it was said shortly after no doubt she was still feeling vulnerable and post partum is a very mentally challenging time. Regardless it’s unlikely she wanted this repeated back to you.

I have a very good relationship with my MIL but after my kid was born I felt irritable towards her for often no real reason. I know lots of women who’ve had the same experience, maybe it’s a primal thing. I certainly said some things to friends about how irritable I felt toward her at times that I would not want repeated back to her because they weren’t particularly fair or kind but I couldn’t help how I felt at the time and needed to vent.

That said, it is really important to me that my kid has a relationship with both sides and I do my best to facilitate that. However, the lion share of this is the responsibility of your son and you seem to be placing all the blame on your DIL. She is obviously going to be closer to her mum and family so it’s up to your son to foster the same with you.

Could you make more effort to nurture a relationship with her? Treat her to something, make extra effort to ask how she is.

Also with the babysitting thing, the bottom line is there’s very few people I’d trust to look after my kid especially during his first year, bar my own mum. My MIL is a fair bit older than her and has some health issues and just wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone with my kid for multiple hours. Not saying this is your situation but leaving your kid with anyone is hard so I really would try not to take that so personally. In short, I think the best thing you can do is not put so much of this on your DIL and remember your DS is the one who has the main responsibility to include you. Respect the current boundaries and hopefully with time they may soften.

That is specifically in reference to the DS bringing the child for an overnight stay as the DIL and the child are not used to be separated at night. You carefully excised that part from your quote.

There is nothing to say he cannot visit for the day, as the OP does. There is also nothing to say the DS wishes to do this either.

I don't think the OP posted anything about how their relationship was before the first child. I'd be shocked if it were plan sailing. No one cuts out their ILs from the birth/after when they get along like a house on fire before. If you genuinely want to have a better relationship, have you asked your son how he thinks that you should fix it vs just having him at yours? There is so clearly part of the story missing when just cutting out DIL altogether is the go to move.

I said the same thing. Glad I’m not the only one who didn’t see OP mention it.

I would think if it was smooth sailing, she would have put that in the beginning or later posts.

See it all the time here that once children enter the picture, relationships especially with grandparents change for better or for worse.

Plus, if DIL hadn’t liked OP from the beginning, think OP would have mentioned that too.

There’s a lot of OP assuming based off what her other child told her and I also don’t see a problem with hiring a nanny when OP said they lives 90 minutes away.

A nanny who is local and knows what is expected, highly unlikely to push boundaries, comment or ignore what parents choose to do (not saying OP would, but not uncommon for grandparents to ignore their adult children) likely knows first aid, etc would be preferable to those who can afford it vs someone who lives 90 minutes away and that likely does include traffic.

OP also hasn’t said what reason they think DIL doesn’t likes it at their home. They must have an assumption on the reason if they already have assumptions on other things.

There’s something OP is leaving out.