MiL making demands on how I care for DS

[fionathepink]

DS is 5 weeks old and is a delight. This week my MiL has gone from lovely to crossing the line between advice + telling me I'm wrong. I'm furious + don't know how to approach it when she turns up again this coming weekend (uninvited and ruining our plans but that's another issue).

At SiL's on sat night eating some food with DS asleep on my lap. MiL whisked him off me to cuddle him + he woke up screaming. MiL insisted he was hungry despite my feeding him 1 1/2 hour before. I explained he is settling into a routine + DH will calm him as he does at the same time each eve. MiL was having none of it, 5 min later still telling me I'm wrong + refusing to pass DS to DH, DH said 'just feed him' to avoid a full blown argument.

DH came into the room where I was calming DS a few min later to apologise + I said I wanted to go home as I'd just been totally undermined as the mother.

Next day MiL came to ours + dragged DH into the kitchen for a quiet word. I was playing with a calm, awake DS and let his great aunt hold him. MiL came out of the kitchen , followed by a furious DH, and MiL said 'look how calm he is in experienced hands, babies always know when they are with experienced people.'

I waited for an alone moment to ask DH what MiL wanted; to tell us DS was colicky (I think we'd have noticed that + be lacking more sleep) that I wasn't winding him post-feed (I am), produced a bottle of gripe water + insisted his next feed was bottle (I'm breastfeeding) to resolve the problem. DS is not colicky + only cries for a short time as he is having a growthj spurt. Plus, we don;t want to use gripe water if he was getting colic but try home remedies first (fennel + such). Instead of discussing our child with both of us, she is now going straight to DH + demanding she is right + I am not.

I asked DH why he didn't support me + pull her up about not discussing the colic in front of me, he said he didn't want a fight with his mum + is easier to put the gripe water away than create a rift. I am upset that MiL is showing she doesn't trust MY judgement with MY son. DH thinks I am being a little over-sensitive + MiL is just being well-meaning.

I have another weekend ahead of this + I'm dreading it.

this sounds like it is your first child and you are a little up tight. saying that your MIL should really let you climb the steep learning curve of first time motherhood without any heavy handed tactics. my MIL was very forceful too about various things including leaving my sons out in the garden to cry it out. in the end i simply ignored her and did everything my way completely. for you the main problem is her whispering to your DH and being so insistent on what she thinks is right. just nod and say thats interesting, take the child back and do what ever you feel really needs to be done. ask your DH to do the same.

i have a very young baby too at the moment and mine breast fed lots in the evening (almost hourly) and as a direct result was sleeping through each night at 10 weeks. i must say they need to be well topped up as milk supply is lower in the evening. feeding on demand always worked wonders for me.

this is actually my third baby and people still say silly things to me.
sometimes though people have a real golden nugget of information. my friend recently showed me a magic hold for colicy babies - my boy goes quiet within seconds each time i use it.

My own MiL (37 years ago) could not work up enough interest in our children to want to interfere with anything we did. It was hard work getting her to bother with them at all. She improved a bit as they got older but was never a hands on Grandmother. I think "chilly" is the word I'm looking for.

I would have welcomed a bit of interference at times as it would have shown that she had some interest and wanted to be involved with her GC.

I'm a new GM myself and am full of admiration at my DiLs mothering skills...she is a much better mother than I was and the really nice thing is that even though I see them only rarely, she does ask for my advice on things..it makes me feel all warm and worthy and full of good feelings about her.

But I agree the comment about experienced parents was out of order

Of course it was-which is why you shouldn't even acknowledge that you took it in-just smile at great aunt and tell her that she is lucky not to have him on a grizzly day!
It is only a first baby thing-by the time you have your second everyone is more relaxed and if you have taken LeQueen's advice the ground rules are laid. The baby also becomes a person and has ideas of his own so everyone has to stop all the nonsense about my baby or my grandchild as if he is a possession and not a person.
DIL also have to relax a bit-I absolutely hate that term 'my baby, my rules', new mothers have to understand that the only person that they can control is themselves. When they go out in the world with the baby they will have to fit in with other rules. Strangers will talk to their baby in the supermarket, strangers will give unwelcome advice.You have to find a polite way of dealing with it-so you might as well practise with MIL first!

If I get to be a grandmother and my DC wants me to provide free childcare I shall expect a few areas of guidance to stick to normal routine ,but other than that it is my house, my rules. (not that I like that term either).If they don't like it they can pay for a nursery, CM whatever and get what they want.

At least onMN mothers look back and laugh at their PFB notions where they couldn't hand over their baby to a grandmother without 4 pages of notes!! They realise it was OTT. I don't think anyone does it with the second.

A baby is like anything new in life, you have to develop ground rules and a baby is a new member of the family, something to be celebrated, not someone to cause such a big rift that they can't have a normal relationship with grandparents! It is so easy-avoid confrontation and do your own thing-smiling all the way!

But why do sone MILs think that it´s OK to undermine/treat DILs in this way?

Suggest things by all means-but treat your DIL like an adult FGS!

It´s as if some MILs want to "prove" that they are "better" with the baby than DIL.

But OPs baby is now 5wks-I´m sure she knows how to hold him

Also, if it´s a long time since MIL held a newborn, then why is she automatically better, just because it´s many years ago?

My (very unconfident) MIL wouldn´t even attempt to change a nappy as she hadn´t used terries-but thought that I obviously knew how to to them "automatically" -because everyone uses them nowadays

There are faults perhaps on both sides.

I think taking a sleeping baby away is awful.

But I also think that if my newborn cried the first thing I would try is feed-even if it was only one and a half hrs.

But I do think generally it´s awful to be treating someone who is "finding their way" in such a manner tbh.

I would nip this in the bud now because as others have pointed out it will only get worse. Establish clear boundaries now and she may realize she's crossed a line. Also if you're this annoyed now (which is totally reasonable, imho) you are liable to explode if you let the resentment build up. If DH will deal with it, let him. If not, have a quiet, polite but firm word with her.

I'm sure my DD thinks 'err no, I'm not doing that' when I offer her my pearls of wisdom on raising my grandchildren

but she just does the smiling and nodding thing at me

So theres no falling out or drama and everyone is happy

Exactly, usualsuspect-you can't fall out with someone who smiles and nods.

I'm just so shocked at the almost gleeful "Right, you just tell her to fuck off, and threaten her with not seeing her GC to boot, and then beat your DH up about not being man enough and make him chose between you and his Mum..."

Just think of what your DC will think in 20 yrs time-'I never knew my grandmother because my mother couldn't manage a bit of advice when I was a baby'

I don't know why people make a drama of it all. Your MIL can't make you do anything-she can just be a bit tiresome. Not a reason for a family rift.

I think in some ways though, people doing it their way isn´t necessarily undermining-it just came naturally to them to do that-as with your & your DNs nappy.

But I think when there is a constant drip, drip drip-especially when you are knackered with a new baby, you just can´t see straight/think rationally.

Mind you, mine are 22months apart, my husband is an only & my sibling & I are 5yrs apart-so no one could tell me anything about that scenario-just look on in admiration at my coping skills

you just can´t see straight/think rationally.

Exactly-so don't have a huge family rift over something 'the baby' will see as absolutely ridiculous in 20yrs time!
If it was me I would be saying-'how stupid' why couldn't you have nodded and done your own thing!

It's not just a drama or subtle undermining though. The OP is being told she's wrong repeatedly to her face AND behind her back to her husband.

It's not a MIL issue-as I said previously, if you read the original post and replaced MIL with friend/sister etc would you all tell the OP she needs to get over herself and stop being a drama queen?

But back to OP-maybe MIL was well meaning-but she didn´t have to pull OPs husband aside & whisper to him-I think a lot of us would react badly to this.

But likewise I don´t think her husband really needed to "pull his mum up" about the gripe water-just say, thanks for the idea-but he maybe could have said this can be discussed with fionathepink-there´s no need for all the cloak & dagger!

It doesn´t strike me that OP wants a great big fall out tbh, just some help/support in cutting MIL off fairly quickly/changing the subject.

OP-depending on what is planned for this w/end, perhaps give it a miss if you really can´t face it.

As long as it won´t make the next meeting even worse by being built up to too big a deal iyswim.

I went through a phase of analyising/replaying everything MIL said/did during visits-what a waste of time/energy-I´m sure she never gave things a second thought.

Just remember-up until now you´ve got on well.
You know her-is it more likely that she means well, is pleased to be a GM & wants to be involved?

It works a dream with everyone! If you just nod, smile,never explain or justify there is no comeback! If it is a friend it is exactly the same-just say 'I'm not using gripewater' and change the subject-if they come back to it just look mystified and say 'but I just said we are not using gripewater' and change the subject again. If they they persist merely say 'I'm not discussing it-we are all different'. All said with a smile.

The whispering behind your back to DH is also easy-bring it out into the open-as explained by LeQueen much earlier.

Well you're more patient than me- I've never been in that position (perhaps because my friends/relatives aren't as pushy) but if the same thing was mentioned over and over again I'd get to the point where I would end up pissed off.

Luckily I have never had to go past the nod and smile.
It just pays off in the end-they give up-everyone is still friends.

I do the same with competitive mums who want to prove how advanced their DC is-smile, say mildly I am just enjoying this stage-they are all different.

The worst you can do to opinionated people is to ignore and not play the game. Start explaining and justifying and getting rattled and they have you just where they want you!

My mother's favourite was 'you are so tolerant, exotic'-I knew perfectly well the sub text was 'why don't you stop them doing whatever they were doing'-I just took it at face value and agreed that I was tolerant'.Much simpler.

Just be upfront and honest with her. If she calls your dh behind your back just say - "I am ds' mother and I will make a final call on decisions with regards to ds so I strongly suggest that if you have anything to say with regards to him, that you deal direct with his mother as Im sure you would have people do with you". Everything else just be clear. "I will be raising my ds as I believe he should be raised and will make all the decisions necessary with the information I have at hand. If I need advice I will ask for it but unsolicited advice is not welcome by anyone. I am as expericed with my ds as much as you were with yours"

Or sms her this:

Dear Mother-In-Law,

Please dont try and tell me how to raise my kids. I am married to one of yours and believe me, there is room for improvement.

Sincerely
Your Daughter-in-law

Fucking bitch. I hate my mil so I totally sympathise.

Pmsl at Nuttychic!