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

hmm... sounded worse than I meant it to tbh. Last time we went I did end up with no food and no money for food and waited desperately for the child benefit to come in so I could get through to pay day. But this was because I had allowed my DH to book the trip to his parents with the instruction that we could only just afford 10 days and then he booked 14 days because "the flights were cheaper". Completely forgetting the additional cattery fees, parking fees etc... He's hopeless sometimes. He did make sure I had something though by bringing me food home from his work so I got a proper meal a day (he works in a restaurant and his boss, the owner, doesn't mind). This was also at the end of my ML too so when we were at our lowest. I now budget really tightly as far as food goes and have very little food waste. Food is planned religiously to save every penny. This though, is something in this economy we all do. The comment was reflecting the fact that I had literally gone hungry last time and irritation over the constant expectation from my DH that I should be able to find the money to do what he wants. Even though in fairness I often do. This was not the place to air that though as it is completely separate to the original post. So I apologize.

As far as my language proficiency. I don't fall into your latter category MrsMuddyPuddles. I don't speak a word. I do however know a few basic verbs and nouns and understand enough about the formation of a sentence to work out what is being said - it is much like a game of sudoku, I work out the missing bits. I do love a good puzzle :) It is strange, when I want to say something I can't think of the words but if I hear it I instantly know what it means. I'm sure it will come eventually.

The snatching the baby comments I'm sure were well intentioned and ofc you do hear of these things happening. In the same way you hear of one partner taking control of all the finances in order to control the other. Some people could think that is what I'm doing - it is not, I'm securing our (as a family unit) financial security for the future. My DH would never take our DD away from me permanently so that is not my worry. There is a reason stories like that make the newspapers and daytime TV films - they're not the norm.

I believe my inlaws didn't request for my presence as they know if I go then the time would be limited from Friday night to Sunday night. My DH can rearrange his days off though so that he has 4 consecutive days off (and head back the morning of the 5th day) without using any holidays. I guess there are advantages to shift work. I don't think they have a problem with me as such - although culturally they did take offence when my maiden name was not given to my DD upon her birth as a second surname as is tradition in Spain. They did not approve and took the view that I didn't wish to be associated with them. My DH set them straight though.

I have now bought a webcam off e-bay and installed skype. My DH pointed out that this is not the same but if he is unhappy with it I will tell him that he has to ask his parents to pay for the flights for the 3 of us and we will pay any associated costs of us going away. From the responses I have got on here this seems to be the most reasonable thing to do. My DD has woke up tonight crying twice already and nursed back to sleep within 10 minutes each time. I don't feel she is ready to be apart from me overnight. It wouldn't be fair to her or to my DH and his family who would not be able to give her the comfort she gets from suckling (before anyone suggests a dummy- she doesn't understand the concept, she treats it like a teether).

Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. I wondered if it would be unreasonable to ask them to contribute so wouldn't have suggested it. Although if it were my family I would have demanded they pay if I didn't have the money and they wanted to see DD. Although it only costs £60 for a return trip to my parents rather than £350 to his so it isn't quite the same.

Glad to see you have come to some resolution that does not involve taking on more debt, butwhatif. With your finances having to be budgeted as tightly as you say, international travel really has to be regarded as an unaffordable luxury.

Skype sounds a good compromise. It may also be reassuring for your husband, as he can regularly/frequently monitor his father's appearance - any health deterioration should be reasonably apparent.

Good luck.

YANBU - if they want a visit they should pay for the tickets. When my family want us to visit them they pay tickets... and the famiy means all of us, not just the most wanted members...

Them´s the breaks for living abroad from your parents.
(I do also)

Sometimes one of you has to go alone.

Your husband sounds as if he needs a kick up the arse re money though.

It would be handy always to have some flight money put aside.

Much as I´m sure FIL loves his GC, I can´t help thinking that if push came to shove he´d be happy just to see his son if it was a last visit.

I don´t really see why ILs should pay for OP/husband though.

The money they were going to use at the end of the month they perhaps want to save until they can visit.

They are probably thinking OP can use the money for the March trip now-they aren´t to know that there isn´t any!

YA DEFINITELY NOT BU!!!! My dd is not even BFing and I wouldn't want my dh to take her away without me and he would never suggest this. It will be very traumatic for your dd to suddenly be separated from you especially as you are BFing. I am sorry your FIL is so ill but you have to put the needs of your dd before the needs of your in laws.

Unless you are worried he wont bring her back I dont see why he should not take her, although if you are going in March anyway that seems to make more scene

Oh good, I really hope the skype works out! We skype weekly with my parents in the US and they have drastically reduced their begging us to visit

It would also probably help with your Spanish -- I do know what it's like, not having enough time, but life will always be busy and there's never enough time. It may not seem important living in the UK, but assuming you want DD to be bilingual it would be really helpful. I really recommend Michel Thomas audiobooks, you can listen for 15 minutes on your ipod or whatever and you learn a lot very quickly.

quietly lovely post It's true, you can say so much with non-verbal communication.