to be upset at pils even though they are trying to be nice?

[Moulesfrites]

think I am being a little irrational here so probably just need a talking to but this has really upset me...

My ds is 8mo. He is ebf, I feed him to sleep at night and he still has a couple of night feeds (at least). He has taken ebm from a bottle but the last time was about 4 months ago as I hate expressing, and he takes water, very reluctatntly, from a doidy cup. I have been on 3/4 nightys out with friends and have left the emb with dh, and dh has been out once or twice too (he is not really fussed about going out tbh) but we have not been out for an evening meal together since ds was born, which we used to do all the time. This doesn't really bother us - we were together for 10 years before ds and did plenty of posh meals and weekends away etc in this time. We have also been on a couple of lovely self catering holidays since ds came with family and friends when everyone has helped with the cooking (including my brother who is a chef), so we do not feel that we have missed out on eating out, socially or gastronomically!!

Anyway, all my mil has done since ds was born has harped on about how she would like to has ds overnight. she mentions it everytime I see her. Last time she was saying that she would like to get dh and I a weekend away for Xmas so that they could have ds, as "hopefully you will have stopped bf by then". She keeps saying "It's such a shame he isn't sleeping through yet or we could have him". I don't really want them to "have him" and I feel they are putting pressure on me to do something I am not yet comfortable with. It is clear from her frequent eye rolling, tutting and head shaking that shje disapproves of the fact that I am still bf and that ds doesn't sleep through. This could be influenced by the fact that she has had both of her granddaughters stay from being just a few weeks old (both ff and great sleepers).

I also am a bit sensitive about her having him, becuase on the first night we came home from hospital with ds, she and fil stayed at our house. It was a generally awful experience. There dog was there sniffing at my lochia, they had cooked coq au vin and we had to eat it at the dining table while 3 day old ds was in his carry cot in another room so the dog couldnt get to him. I really think my first night home should have involved me sitting on the sofa with a slice of pizza in one hand and ds in the other, and still feel resentful about this! To top it all off, that night ds was crying and SHE CAME INTO OUR BEDROOM AND TOOK HIM AWAY!! I have never quite got over this. It has meant whenever they have stayed since or we stayed there, I just don't sleep as I worry she is going to come in again. Also, it has probably contributed to ds being a crap sleeper as I feed him at the slightest peek for fear she will come in and take him off me again! (I do realise this makes me sound crazy!)

Anyway, what has upset me today is that dh rang to say that his fil had been on the phone and they have bought us 2 tickets to see a play on Friday night and booked us a bar meal at a nearby pub, and told dh they are coming to look after ds. I know they think this is a kind gesture, but it got me really upset. I feel that when we do decide to go out and leave ds I want it to be our decision when to do it, not forced upon me by them. I was trying to explain this to dh but it just came out as an incoherent rant and me saying "how dare they presume to decide what kind of play I will like or which pub to go to!". He has now said he will ring and tell then I don't want to go, and I know they will think I am an ungrateful and possessive cow. AIBU to have reacted in this way??

YANBU, but I don't think they are being U either (unless they have form for being overly controlling). They basically sound like decent people but a little bit insensitive to other people's views. My dad is a little like this so I'm used to managing it :)

Look at the positives: they made you a lovely dinner when you came home from hospital (many people on here have been expected to cater for extended family within hours of giving birth!) and took baby away from you so you could have a sleep (would have made me scream too - a newborn should not be taken from its mum, but in her eyes she would have thought she was doing a favour! I let my parents and PILs have an hour cuddling my day old baby and I was screaming inside the whole time!), they are offering to babysit your DS overnight so you can have a break, and are trying to treat him the same way they do their other DGCs.

It is perfectly understandable to not want to leave your DS at the moment, but don't turn this into a battle as soon enough (when he hits the terrible 2s, or becomes a threenager) you'll be desperate for them to take him off your hands and won't want to have burnt any bridges :o. You just need to make them aware that you appreciate their offers and will take them up on it sometime but that you and DH aren't quite ready just yet. I have a 3yo and 12mo - I have always found and still find leaving them hard, partic the younger one who has never done bottles, so I understand exactly how you feel.

To that end, perhaps phone them yourselves and say thank you for the offer of play and dinner on Friday but that you aren't quite ready for that amount of time away just yet. However as an olive branch, suggest that they babysit for an hour one evening next week so you and DH can nip out for a drink - they get to do what they want, you get an hour with DH but don't have to feel like you're leaving DS for the whole evening. And then perhaps schedule in a once a month babysitting where you and DH can go out for an hour or so but don't feel like you are away for too long so they get to do something nice for you and you get time alone but you don't feel bullied into anything and it is on your terms.

Given she has other grandchildren, she probably thinks she knows how to be a good grandmother and simply doesn't realize you're not keen on how she does it.

It comes across as if you don't really like to respond to her directly because you know you'll end up disagreeing, so you fume ... and she, of course, doesn't know her efforts aren't having the effect she intended.

One thing that really struck me about your OP is you say she says things like 'hopefully you'll have stopped bf by then'. Why not reply 'oh, but MIL, I won't, I want to carry on BF' (if that is the case). Or when she offers to babysit, again, say you appreciate the thought but you want to be with your DS.

The thing is, it doesn't come across in your account that these actually are things you let her know you want to do. Maybe both your MIL and her other DIL think breastfeeding would be painful or boring; maybe they both think a night out from a newborn is what everyone would naturally prefer. It's possible if you kept stressing you like to do these things she'd see it your way? I find this with my mother - you can't just turn down her offers, you have too insist you actually, positively, want to do whatever it is she's offering to take off your hands!

It all sounds a bit passive aggressive to me with the 'hopefully you will have stopped breastfeeding by then' ie 'I bloody hope you will have anyway'. The eye rolling, tutting and head shaking are fairly clear indicators too. Maybe she is trying to be nice, or maybe she's a bit manipulative and controlling. Either way, you're in charge of what happens with your child. It doesn't sound like she's going to give up on asking (and as someone with parents and in-laws who show very little interest in their granddaughter I would think that your MIL does obviously really love your son) so it's a question of how you deal with it. Rise above it would be my advice! You've got a lovely 8month old to enjoy being with.

I think you have to be straight with them. Tell them that you have no intention of stopping bf any time soon, it's not unusual for an 8 month bf baby not to sleep through and you aren't ready to leave him yet.

Tell them that you appreciate the thought, but he is still too small to be away from you and that they should enjoy the evening out themselves.

My PIL had to practically wrench DS2 away from me at 15 months so DH and I could have lunch out, so I can appreciate how you feel.

Very good advice from bluecake - don't burn your bridges. They are guilty of being insensitive but obviously want to spend time with their GC which is a good thing and could be a VERY good thing in the long run!

YANBU. Please don't be afraid to stand up to your ILs and do it YOUR way. It's your baby, she's had her own go at doing it her way, and this is yours. If she doesn't like it then she'll have to not like it! I realise it's difficult to put your foot down sometimes, especially when you want to be liked/want to consider people's feelings etc, but it's making you feel uncomfortable so there should be no discussion. MAke it clear to your DH how you feel. Tell them to take the tickets themselves.

YANBU at all. I would be livid.

You are well within your rights not to want to go on the night out they planned without asking and your DH would be massively U to try to badmouth you to his parents because of it. He needs to have your back.

No, they are being selfish. They want him overnight, you've said no, so they're trying to force the issue. You need to stay polite, but stand firm.

I think your MIL is trying to help but is going way over the top. My MIL was the same, but I realise the situation got out of hand because I let it.

You really need to start to standing up for yourself and your baby or it will get worse. You don't need to be confrontational with her at all, just a "sorry but I'm not very comfortable with XYZ. I am going to do ABC" And that is the end of the converstion.

If MIL gets the huff, that is her problem not yours. Please get the confidence to stick up for yourself. I'm sure your MIL would be mortified if she thought she had upset you so much. She needs to be told, then she won't keep going on and on about the same thing.

Rita, I wish I had stood up to her on that first night and done everything you suggest, but I was completely shell shocked from giving birth and could barely form a coherent sentence. It was only with hindsight that I realized what I had done.

Thanks for the advice and many suggestions. I didn't expect as much sympathy as I have received. Lots to think about.

Look, to those advocating the harsh responses, life is about trying to get on with each other and reach an even keel.
Obviously if you have a genuinely horrible parent or parent-in-law you have to have nerves of steel and be prepared to fight your corner forcibly.
But I think this MIL is genuinely just wanting to be involved because she loves her GC.
As someone who has a "difficult" MIL, I put up with a lot of small to middling things in the early years when the battle wasn't worth fighting and chose to stand my ground on the bigger things. I did that because:
a) I love my DH and she is his mother
b) I knew she loved the children and missed the others who were abroad.

I also kept my powder dry for when she was really overstepping the mark - and then she knew she needed to reign in.

And, remember - those of you advocating the harsher responses - you will possibly fall foul of your own DIL/SIL one day and be crowded out from your GCs lives.

You're understandably upset, but MIL sounds like she's genuinely trying to be helpful rather than thinking about herself. I suspect it's that she thinks she knows what would be helpful to you, because it's what her other DILs wanted with their grandchildren. You're different, which isn't wrong but she needs to be told that in words of one syllable because she clearly hasn't figured it out and you and DH haven't got it across to her.

Can you tell her you need to be with your ds most of the time at the moment, and wouldn't be able to relax away from him while he's so young? Sounds like that's never occurred to her. Also try to think of ways in which she could be genuinely useful, like sending her on shopping missions or preparing meals (like pots of coq au vin!) for the freezer. Then she won't be trying to think of 'useful' ways to help by herself!

OK, but 8 months on you don't need to be shell shocked around her anymore. Just be polite and firm - tell her you enjoy breastfeeding and will continue for a while yet if she brings it up. Thank them for the kind thought about a night off, but explain you're not ready to leave the baby yet and won't be anytime soon.

Have not read all replies as although many are great some are strange so skipped

YANBU, you do not have to go out or let your mil have your baby to stay. This stage of their life is soooo short

You are obviously still upset from your first time home and I can understand this, to me having their dogs by the table not your baby was the first problem

You need to let this go and remember the good times, but perhaps you need help to do this, could you be slightly depressed

You are a normal mother who likes to keep your baby with you at all times and this is good (I did the same) could your dh explain how important this is to you to your in laws

What kind of person is your MIL OP? Do you think she genuinely doesn't understand or is she just selfish?

MIL is trying to help and to spend as much time with her GC as possible. However, she is doing it in an inept and insensitive way. You and your DH need to sit down and talk to her about how she is making you feel and what you as a family have decided is going to happen with your child (EBF, going to them when they wake, etc.)

Hopefully her helpful impulses can get channelled into actually being helpful and then you will feel comfortable with her spending more time (when you say so) with your child.

OR....controversial view here...you COULD just express some milk and take her up on her offer of a night out???

To me, they sound like they're worried about you. 8 months down the track still to be upset over a dinner or the fact that she got up to see to your baby in the night and presumably leave you to get your sleep.... a lot of new mums would have been really grateful for that. 'A bit sensitive' is an understatement. You sound like someone that needs a break... even if their efforts are a bit cackhanded, I kind of see what they're driving at.

Yes, your baby is your baby and you should do exactly as you please but you appear to be completely on the defensive, rejecting help in quite an extreme fashion. Are you generally quite calm? Is it just them that brings this reaction out in you? Would you feel the same if you were thinking about leaving your baby with your parents rather than his?

I've thought about this carefully, and have decided that YABU. There's no guarantee that your first evening out away from the baby is going to be any good at all, regardless of who plans it. Unless you are saying that you just don't trust them to look after the baby, you might as well give the play a spin and break your duck. Play plus dinner might be too long away for a first go - bring fish and chips home for all if so. In a few short months you won't need to express if you want to be away, even overnight, solids and cowsmilk will see you through. Whether or not you bf will just be a non-issue. (Although I do find the other comment a bit puzzling - persons who won't look after a baby overnight if they don't "sleep through" shouldn't be looking after babies overnight, I don't think. They wake up. You need strategies. As the baby's mum, I don't need to know what your strategies are, but you need some.)

Pictish makes a fair point - why not try the expressed milk bottle and a night out with him staying over?
They may be less keen to offer again if they have a broken night's sleep because he needs a couple of feeds in the wee small hours.

I agree with Rita. I have never had anyone choose a night out for me and demand I go so they can look after my child. I think that with anyone else this would seem a kind gesture but with your inlaws they seem to be doing it for selfish reasons. Do they need their own social life?
I suspect you aren't helping your baby's sleeping if at 8 months you are feeding at wimpers though. The answer to that is to have a couple of months where no-one sleeps overnight in your house and you don't stay overnight with the inlaws if you feel you can't tell anyone coming in to your baby's room to get lost..
I do wonder quite why your MIL thinks babysitting an 8 month old is going to be so thrilling though. I wouldn't have a dog in my house so they wouldn't have been able to do the sniffy dog thing with me postnatally. I would have ejected her from the house for taking my baby away.
She sounds overbearing and too interested in trying to make your baby the centre of her life. She seems to view being a grandparent as a career choice or her "vocation".
If your husband understands none of this should be a problem though, unless your mother is always looking after the baby.

Cogito, they don't know that the meal and the first night upset me, I have never spoken to them about them, hence the simmering resentment! I think it is just them that brings this defensiveness out in me tbh. I would feel much more comfortable leaving him with my parents. They are a bit more chilled out and realistic than pil, they have said they are quite happy to walk the floor with ds as they have done it with me and my siblings, whereas the way pil go on you would think none of their 3 dc's ever woke up, cried, whinged as they get in such a flap when ds does any of these things.

I also get the impression from my parents that they have every confidence that dh and I are doing a good job with ds, whereas the fact that mil came in that first night and other things they nave said and done has made me feel that they don't think we are up to the task. I know she was trying to help, but it's not as if i went and had a good few hours sleep - I just wept as ds had been taken from me!

YANBU, my MIL was the same, lots of underhand comments that I was "still" bf'ing at 3 months, 6 months, a year.. Baby not sleeping through as a direct result.. I got sent to make her and fil tea when they arrived when DS was 18 hours old, so she could cuddle "her precious boy"

Stick to your guns, you are not there to simply push out DGS for her to take over.. It's a shame that some MIL's are like this. I think deep down it does come from a good kind place but coming in and taking your child in the night is MASSIVELY overstepping the mark, wonderful if you want it be she should have asked.

It's about boundries, you need to politely set some ground rules and make it clear that you will let THEM know when YOU are ready to let them have DS overnight, and will continue to BF for as long as you want to, as he is your and DH son, not theirs

If it was YOUR mother you probably wouldnt have an issue with any of the above but because it's HIS mother than the groudn rules just aren't the same.

Personally I think she's trying to be helpful.

I'd love someone to buy me theatre tickets "whistful sigh".

She's not trying to take your baby away, she's trying to do something nice for her son and his (rather ungrateful) wife.