to expect people not to phone in the evening when I tell them no to?

[Choufleur]

MIL does it frequently. She knows what time DS goes to bed but phones about every other bloody night at bang on 7, when he is normally in the bath. Then leaves a message asking to phone her back as we are obviously busy.

Yes we are! DS goes to bed every night. FFS phone half an hour earlier and talk to DS or later after he's gone to bed.

If you just ignore it anyway and call her back later, what's the problem?

YANBU, my SIL phones me every night just when im putting out the supper despite me telling her to leave it till later, ive actually got my suspicions that shes got a drink problem.

Unplug the phone for the hour then.

But then she will still leave a message as it will go to call minder thingy.

I just don't get why she can't call a bit earlier or later. Particularly if she wants to talk to DS.

Can you pre- empt the call and phone her first, half an hour before ds goes to bed?

Thing is I don't want to talk to her that much and a lot of evenings DH is out at work.

Maybe if you stop calling her back she will realise that she only gets to talk to you if she phones at the right time.

Why should she? What is so hard about remembering to NOT phone someone at a specific time?
Unplug as you go up for a bath then, thats what i'd do, should get the message after that, dippy moo.

Can you just ignore her message (assuming she isn't ill, very lonely etc etc) - if she says anything just make a vague comment about having been out/busy etc. Or better still get DH to ring her when he is around.

I have this all the time, usually my Mum or sister and always when I'm cooking. It's a convenient time for them but not for me and I'm always telling them and my sister always gets shirty with me.
I just leave the phone to answerphone and call back at my convenience.
If a phone wasn't a neccessity I would get rid, I very rarely answer it unless I can be arsed.

Choufleur we may well be related and sharing the same MiL. Mine has control and boundary issues and is a bit extream in her behaviour.

She had a habit of calling us at the worst time possible, for example ringing at 6:55pm and then saying something like "I know you said you were going out at 7pm so I just thought I would catch you.." but taking offence that she was then rushed off the phone because we had to leave the house. It wouldn't even be anything important that she was ringing for, she'd actually say "I don't know why I rang, we haven't been anywhere or done anything to tell you about..." It was more the fact that she knew it was her last chance to call and so she was taking it.

If she knew we wanted to watch a certain programme at 8pm she'd be on the phone at 7:59pm to remind us it was about to start and then she'd want to talk to both of us for an hour and we'd miss it.

If we didn't answer the phone she would phone without fail every fifteen minutes until we answered. If she still didn't reach us then FiL would ring and leave an aggressive message to say she was crying and it was our fault.

She once rang my parents 17 times in the space of two hours to ask them if they knew I was missing (they were at work when she started to call) and I wasn't missing, I'd gone out to my book group and missed the other 17 calls she had made to us at home).

The calls were almost always when she knew for certain that we had other plans or would be busy at just that particular moment.

YANBU. Here's how I dealt with the problem.

I recorded a message on the answerphone that said "Mr and Mrs Takethis...are not taking calls right now, please leave a short message with your name and number and if we want to call you back we will get back to you tomorrow. Please don't keep calling in the meantime as we are unable to come to the phone right now."

I also stuck a big sign on the door saying "do not knock, telephone or otherwise disturb, new mum and baby are sleeping."

That did help to keep her calls and visits at the wrong time down a lot.

Perhaps you could do the same, leave a message on the answerphone saying not to call after 6:30pm because it's your busiest time with the baby and that anyone who does call at that point will have to be called back the following day when you have more time.

Both my Mum and MIL do this.

My Mum eventually cottoned on to the fact 7pm was bathtime/bedtime so started phoning later however it took her so long to cotton on that, by then, the DC were quite a few years older, hence had a later bedtime than 7pm, hence she still phones at their bathtime/bedtime. Argh!