...to not want MIL to refer to my son as her baby?

[jumblequeen]

I should say from the off that I have a very good relationship with my MIL. Apart from this one issue, I think she's absolutely wonderful but that almost makes it harder to broach the subject. She keeps on saying "my baby" when referring to my son and it's really getting on my nerves. He's not hers, he's mine! I may have a touch of precious-first-born syndrome here but still... AIBU or should I say something? If so, how?!

How dare those MILs love their grandchildren

I said this myself when I was first a granny!

I didn't mean the baby is my child, and I wasn't trying to usurp anyone. I was very excited and emotional and relieved. I expect your MIL is too.

I realised how it sounded though and have been careful not to say it again.

" on our visit to MIL's she not only referred to her son as "my baby" but referred to herself as mummy. In addition, every time he cried her response was: "what did mummy / daddy do to you?" before taking him off! "

this was what my MIl was doing. totally unreasonable - and i was raging with anger. I am normally difficult to perturb.

solution was I said 'MIL, that is completely our of order, and makes you sound weird and scary'

and every time she did again i said 'Weird and scary'...which is probably very rude, but what the hell, i had made my feelings clear the delicate way, and she'd ignored it...it is not polite to antagonise someone either!

she stopped doing it.

'out' not 'our'

I say 'Who's Grandma's little lovelet?'to dgs [20mnths]

Oh shut your face! You have people who love your children, if this is such a big deal to you, might i suggest that you have a really care free life!

They will be Mils one day too

if/when i am a MIL, i won't be that kind of mental old baggage. I will be a different kind..

I'm sure you will

Edgarallinpink mental old baggage..lmao! No me neither and I will also remember how my Daughter in law may feel especially when its her first baby!

OP, you should definitely say something now. Your LO has one mummy and your MIL needs to understand that. Keep us informed!

ilovemountains, are you serious? There must be more of a current issue than that. I know you said about the previous stuff, but the replica birthday cake sounds really lovely of her and so sweet. It would be mean to reject a nice gesture like that. Unless there is more to it....

YANBU I hated it when MIL would scoop DD up (sometimes out of my arms) and coo over her saying "my little precious baby!" GRRR Really wound me up in the beginning but then she had a habit of making me feel like a rubbish mum anyway.

I stopped feeling angry towards her though when we all went out to lunch with inlaws etc and MIL started up with all her "MY precious baby girl" stuff and the waitress muttered "yeah like she could be your baby. Dream on Grandmummy". Although I was only one who heard I felt better knowing I wasn't the only one who thought MIL sounded like a right tit.

When your little baby is a screaming, tantrum-ing, whining, nightmare toddler and you are desperate for a break, you will probably be glad to have your MIL play Mummy for a while...

My ds (4) calls his unborn sister 'his' baby, and to an extent, she is. Family is much more inclusive than just mum, dad and kids, and you should be thankful that you DO have a good relationship with your MIL, and that she is so in love with the baby - HER gc, after all. Pick your battles, this shouldn't be a biggie.

What is your gut telling you jumblequeen? Because my advice fwiw (from long and painful experience) would be to trust your instincts and respond to your mil accordingly.

My mil, on first visiting dh and me after we'd moved house, said
"oh I am so glad - here we are - in OUR home"

(they live 500 miles away in another country)

I was young and naieve at the time (and I very much wanted to make them feel welcome and was desperate for them to like me) so I said nothing.

Sadly, as things panned out, this was the first hint of serious trouble to come. I won't go in to details because it's a sad story (would have loved to have a good relationship with a lovely mil) but I had to endure 14 years of misery and financial stress (latter still continuing) and trying to please her before I realised that nothing ever would!!

Sorry to be so heavy about it, but if I knew then what I know now then I would have, politely but very deliberately corrected her when she first put her foot in to my porch! It would have saved a lot of heartache all round.

My PIL are lovely but they do call themselves mam & dad to DD. It's a DH family thing (and maybe a Welsh thing). At the start DH said to them that it was confusing (as he still had grandparents himself called mam & dad!!) plus I was worried what my mum would think when DD's old enough to chat about them. It does still slip out when we're at the PIL's house but I try to get granny & grandad into conversation as a gentle reminder that we're not using mam & dad.

It is a bit of a pain but we won't use those terms when talking to DD about them so I hope she'll one day say... "you're not mam, you're granny!"

How rude that waitress was

YABU. It would drive me nuts. My MIL had this thing about "young mums" (I was 31) not having a clue how to do anything and was setting herself up as some kind of wise woman (she has one DD but you'd think she'd raised a brood of 12, to listen to her). I warned her not to change newborn DS in a cold room. She ignored me, she got wee in her eye. Lesson learned.

My stepmum occasionally calls DS "my babyname" and it does get on my nerves a bit, but then she has him once a week, so is a bit more entitled. Plus, every so often she actually thanks us for sharing him with her, the loon. She is doing us a massive favour!

There is a quote by Kahlil Gibran about ownership of children, but it needs in-laws to sign up to the spirit of it as well:

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

And that means, roughly, that when they wee all over your MIL, it is not your fault.

Hello taintedpaint,
Obviously there's more to it than that, I don't think I'm a totally dreadful DIL. If it was a replica birthay cake once a year I'd probably just think it was sweet as well! (Although slightly bemused that someone has kept all the birthday cake decorations in order in the loft for the last thirty-five years) I think that was just the tipping point.

Personally I wouldn't mind - my MIL does say this generally (ie call him "my baby", although sometimes says "my baby grandson") when she is showing him off to friends. My DD calls him her baby too, as does my DS.

When she comes round and he's done a poo you can say "would you like to change your baby?" and hand him over!

I bet that waitress had been through it herself.

What I don't understand is why MILs don't think about how annoying they are being. Mine did this too and referred to herself as mummy and grabbed the baby off me when she clearly wanted her actual mother or a feed or something she simply couldn't supply and it annoyed the hell out of me, though I didn't say anything directly, just continued pointedly but nicely referring to 'grandma' and 'MY baby' and she got the idea in the end. The thing is, if all nice involved MILs do this as part of the love they feel for their grandchildren (which I agree can only be a good thing if they are nice people) why don't they remember what it felt like when people did it to them?

My MIL and FIL are nice people in most ways, btw, if a little over-involved in their children's lives, and I simply can't understand why they didn't understand how undermining it can feel as a new mother. Maybe her MIL was less pushy, I have no idea.

YANBU to feel annoyed, btw, that's completely normal, IMO. But don't say anything unless you can say it nicely. It's almost certainly not worth the hassle unless she really is a horror.

I didn't mind my MIL loving my children at all..but then I'm not the possessive kind really

PMSL - when I first read the OP, I thought her MIL referred to OP's DH as my baby, not her DS! I was about to post - well I suppose it's a bit much as he's a grown man, but really he'll always be her baby

Sorry to crash in and FWIW YANBU IMO!

my mum calls ds her baby, doesn't bother me in the slightest, just reasures me that she would look after him like one of her own. I find it quite heart warmimg actually.

Ah mountains, I figured there probably was!