AIBU to not let DH take DD to see his parents in another country without me

[butwhatif]

My DD is 7 months old and has always refused a bottle. While I am at work she eats her solid food and drinks water from a freeflow cup. When I get home she feeds from me and will often wake in the night for a feed. She still feeds to sleep every night and in the early morning she will always wake between 4 and 5am for another feed and fall back asleep feeding.

My DH's parents were supposed to be visiting at the end of the month but due to my FIL health they are unable to make the trip. My DH is feeling a little bad about this especially due to us planning on spending Christmas with my parents. His parents have requested that either my DH and my DD go over there for a couple of days or that I and DD go. I do not want to go without DH as I do not speak their language and they don't speak English so it would be a very isolating trip for me. I also do a lot of stuff for work at weekend and it would mean I would fall behind even more than I am already. Both of us going is not an option as we do not have the money, one going would max the OD out and mean that there is no money for Christmas.

AIBU to not want to go?
AIBU to not want to let DH take DD without me? She has never been apart from me for more than 7 hours at a time and never gone down for the night without me. If I'm honest I hate expressing and know if he does this I will have to at least to relieve the pain.
AIBU to think the inlaws have no right to ask us to do this at this time of year? We have planned to visit them next March anyway.

FWIW FIL has been unwell for a long time. He had a heart attack years ago and stopped working. He was told to give up doing certain things and hasn't done. He had another heart attack a few months ago and this is the health concern that is stopping them coming.

TIA

YANBU. I had a bottle refuser and couldn't have contemplated doing this when he was 7 months because it would have been totally unworkable - he would have been hungry and wretched while he was away, and I would have been in agony after 24 hours. I went back to work FT when he was 6 months and we really struggled to get enough food down him during the day for the first couple of months - for a while DH was spoonfeeding him milk.

I agree with those suggesting asking in-laws to pay for you all to go if they really want to see the baby. I wouldn't get into huge debt in this economic climate if I could possibly avoid it.

I would never ever have wanted my baby to be away from me. I think it is a terrible thing to expect a new mother to do - but some mothers would be fine with it. You just have to be clear about the type of mother you are (attached, breastfeeding) and not waver.

YANBU. You are your daughter's primary source of food. she should be parted from you except in an emergency. also no one should be maxing out their overdraft for non emergencies. If pil will pay for your ticket then I think you should suck up the language issue and just go, if they will pay for dh also then so much the better.

frutilla What a ridiculous sweeping statement. What if you split from their father? He couldn't take them on holiday? And what if he said the same? They'd just miss out?

Choceyes is right.

At 7 months are people suggesting that she will be ok without any form of milk for a few days?! Really?!

At that age she will only just be on solids and as we all know, babies are supposed to get most of their food intake from milk until they are a year old. The health implications for the FIL in no way compare to those of the baby, and thats not even considering the fact that she will be screaming and upset due to hunger and missing her BFs the whole time. I would not want to be on those flights, never mind living with that baby!

Suggesting that the OP is being selfish by not allowing her baby to starve for a few days is outrageous. I am bloody certain if she had posted saying "AIBU to leave my BF baby for a few days" and said that all the baby would get in that time was solids and water, she would get pounded in no uncertain terms!

Thank you for the replies. My PIL has met his DGD. He came over for a week when she was 2 weeks old and we went to visit them for 2 weeks when she was 4 months old (so in July).

My DH's and his family don't seem to have the most open and honest relationship. Especially with regards to finances. My DH is a proud man and likes to portray a certain amount of wealth especially to his family. For this reason he would never ask his parents for money. I believe he does because he doesn't want them to worry especially due to his fathers condition. I think if the inlaws would pay for the tickets I would go and take my work with me but my DH will not ask. I also suspect that the inlaws could barely afford the trip anyway and were scrimping and saving to come.

The use of the word "let" is unfortunate and not really meant the way most of you have taken it. Unfortunately my DH, although I love him dearly, it hopeless with money. If it was left to him the bills wouldn't be paid as he will keep spending the money in the machine until the machine says no :( Unfortunately the machine tends to say no only after there is no money in the account - it isn't clever enough to take into consideration the rest of the bills to be paid that month. As a result I hold the bank cards. This may sound like I'm exaggeration but honestly once he went over and said to me "Well why did the bank let me go over?" It isn't a nice system but it is the only one that works for us. If he wants to spend money (greater than £50) he has to check we have it with me. So it was really "do I let him have all the Christmas money or not?". Hopefully this also explains why my DH asked me if it could be done. He literally has no grasp of our financial situation.

He doesn't seem to have a grasp on your babies feeding routine either!

YANBU! I would have found it very hard to let any of my DCs go that far without me at that age - some of us are just like that!
Also, I don't think it's fair on DD to expect her to go without BF for that long - especially as she won't take a bottle - milk is an essential part of her diet at this age.
I would def get DH to ask if there is anyway that his parents can help with the cost so you can all go. Think that you just have to put up with the stress that the extra work-stuff will cause tho...

I don't think it would be very practical for dd to miss out on her milk! Also, if your dh is ditzy about money, how is he about grown up responsible stuff generally - like being solely responsible for a screaming, hungry baby on a longish journey?

& if you go with dd, well, I imagine FIL would rather see his ds if he's not expecting to be around much longer...

I would probably sit him down & patiently talk him through just how skint you'll all be if you all go, which would be the only option for me. But I'd be willing ultimately to do that & have a vv budget Xmas if he still wanted to go.

From what you have just said then YANBU. I would actually say to him if you want us all to go over thats fine but only if you ask your parents to help fund it.

The thing I was thinking, but reluctant to day is, what is dh going to do about money for a flight over for the funeral if this trip is going to wipe you out?
Can you get them to set up Skype so they can 'see' each other and save the money for the essential trip?

Go without Christmas is my view. Family is more important than presents.

Erm. Your DD is 7 months old and breastfed. YANBU.

(Do any of the posters saying YABU have experience of breastfeeding a baby?!)

It really depends how bad your FILs health is. Is the scenario where he dies within the next 6 months sufficiently likely that it should be taken into account when making decisions? If not that's one thing.

However, if so I think that your and your husband should be doing everything you possibly can to try to make this trip possible. That means your DH should ask for help from his parents, and you should envisage going yourself by yourself. The financial issues may be no-nos for going as a couple and a breastfeeding bottle refuser may be a no-no for you not going, but many of the reasons you've given for not going by yourself are not insurmountable, just inconvenient (except possibly the financial ones.) It might not work out but at least you will know you did your best.

I'd also say that if it's reasonably likely that your FIL dies in the next few months, yes , I would think it more important to visit him than celebrate Christmas, especially as it doesn't sound as if you have older children who would notice.

And I'm a little surprised that you can't speak your DHs native language even a little bit. I assume this means you have no relationship with them ?

I think it would be unreasonable to enforce BF withdrawal from a BF baby to cover up your DH's dishonesty over his lack of money. Either you all go or just DH does.

Sorry to hear that your FIL is ill. I think a key factor is the degree of illness - if he has a life threatening condition then you need to prioritise a visit; if he's broken his leg you can probably safely postpone.

I think you need to be honest with your PIL and explain that you cannot afford both visits. Can the money / tickets for the March visit be reallocated / prebooked for a visit now

Ah sorry, I missed the part where you explained about the heart condition.

It would be harder on the vavy for your dh to go so I would go and visit, and bring work with me. It may not be ideal, but your FIL may not live long. He may live for a good many more years, but there is no way of knowing for sure.
It doesn't matter about the language, you won't need to talk a lot. Bring a language guide with you. They want to see their grandchild. I do think you should learn to speak their language enough to communicate, but that is a whole other topic.
Hope it works out ok.

They have already met the baby twice? I think a lot of replies were on the basis that this would be the first (possibly only) chance for fil to meet the baby. 3 times a year if family live a plane-ride away is excessive (unless you have the money/time easily available)

I know they want to see the baby, but isn't it more important that they see their son?
Your DH should go on his own to see his parents.
It is entirely unreasonable to even consider him taking your breastfed baby on his own.
Not remotely doable imo.

think of it this way

if it were your dad who was very very poorly and not likely to last long, would you begrudge him asking to see you and your child?

would you not move heaven and earth to let him see you and your child, and not put petty grievances in the way

Has your h ever tended to your dd at night? Has he ever tried to feed her a bottle? What I'm saying is how is he so confident that he can look after her at night? If he had to do a trial run of looking after her all night I think he'd realise that he can't really take dd without you.

I don't really see the point of you going with dd either- surely they want to see their sOn? I think that if your inlaws can't help with the cost of tickets then the choice is he goes alone or nobody goes.

Why don't you use the money you've organised for your March visit, and all of you go visit now instead?

Then instead of you going in March, the ILs can come to you, as hopefully your FIL will be better by then?

There are workable solutions here.

I also feel like you are insinuating that your FIL's health problems are partly his own fault and therefore you don't want to make any sacrifices for him.

MrsMuddyPuddles striking out the words "what kind of person ? can't even be bothered to try and speak the language" doesn't make it any less nasty. What kind of person even has the TIME to learn a new language when juggling work, which is so high pressure that OP can't take a weekend away because the work spills over, all the while BFing a small baby who is still feeding in the night? Seriously, you think "learning a new language" sounds like fun or even possible to someone with that much on their plate?

OP it sounds as though you are under massive pressure. If it is at all possible I think your DH should go (and ask for a contribution from the PIL). Your DD will feed from a cup, she won't be completely milkless without you. He might be in for some long nights but it will really help him bond with his DD if he is able to feed her until she's satisfied. This is like his "immersion" in learning how to care for her if you like. (I may be biased as my DD was BF but also took a supplementary bottle, I don't have experience of bottle refusers.)

But I do think even if you don't do it in this situation, you should be trying to bring your DH into doing more of the caring for DD, both to take the pressure off yourself and to help them bond. DD will be growing all the time and doing new things, and her routine might be ready to change naturally anyway. If you are struggling to juggle all the balls it can be hard to see that. If DH is somewhat childish and irresponsible, he'll only learn while you are not there to snatch her out of his hands?

Good luck with it all.