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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want another daily mail article on how to bring up my baby?

33 replies

Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:18

MIL is coming this weekend, and has already told DH that she has a really interesting article for me. This will be the third article she has passed to me since DS2 was born. The last two were clipped from The Daily mail and ran along similar themes - give baby a bottle before bed (I EBF) put baby in their own room ( we mainly co sleep) and leave baby to cry ( my baby is only 5 months old). I know this will be more of the same and I'm fed up with it. Okay, my baby doesn't sleep through but most babies don't at this age without the kind of sleep training that I don't want to use! I don't complain to her about having broken sleep, so why does she keep putting her oar in? She bottle fed her children and left them to CIO when they were newborn, so we obviously have very different ideas about things. DH says I should just say thanks for the article and leave it at that but I want to explain to her we're happy with our choices and the daily mail is not going to make me change my mind! Hmm Thoughts?

OP posts:
troisgarcons · 18/11/2011 07:24

She's trying to be helpful

If you were a keen knitter and she passed on patterns would you be so antsy?

PomBearAtTheGatesOfDoom · 18/11/2011 07:25

Your DH has the right idea. She won't listen to you, won't hear what you say if she does pretend to listen to you, and won't care. She won't change her views one little bit, because that would mean admitting the way she raised her child(ren) was wrong. You would be wasting your time.

blackeyedsusan · 18/11/2011 07:27

yanbu she is just trying to push her own agenda.

Sirzy · 18/11/2011 07:27

She is only trying to help. Just smile and nod along and then do what you feel is right.

LydiaWickham · 18/11/2011 07:28

My MIL does this, neatly clipped articles from the Daily Hate, usely explaining why all my parenting choices will lead to DS being in a gang whilst having cancer.

I've found the best way to pretend she genuinely is interest in a debate about it. So for bottle fed babies, how about a nice list of the benefits (I always mention the higher IQ of breast fed babies and reduced bowel cancer, great for Daily mail readers), co-sleeping somehting about reducing cot deaths (with a little smile and "and of course keeping DS alive is far more important than his routine" - argue with that MIL!) and the CIO - surely there's something about the stress hormones that build up increasing the chances of DS being an axe murderer if you leave him to cry. At some point, the Daily Mail will have covered all of these (they never leave a mother feeling like she's done the right thing for long) so have a little search of their website, print articles that back up your arguements and present them back to her.

Original poster
Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:31

Trios... Well, I don't knit, so I'd find it a bit odd Smile.
Pom, I agree really. I think she feels defensive about bottle feeding as she has said in the past 'well they sleep better with formula' etc. I never retort 'but breast milk is better for them' because that would be unkind (also a bit smug) but I'm getting tempted to...

OP posts:
AmberNectarine · 18/11/2011 07:31

My mum does this - I think I may have even been proffered the same article about a bottle before bed. I just tell her frankly that she had her turn and now it's my turn. She also doesn't approve of my cosleeping and is pressuring me to wean. Some of her ideas about parenting are so ingrained that I don't think anything will change them, and that's fine - I just need to be blunt. I appreciate it is much harder to be blunt with your MIL, but you either need to be, or do as your DH suggests and politely accept but ignore the article.

Original poster
Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:34

Lydia
Fave daily mail article recently was titled simply 'why your fridge can give you cancer!'. Great stuff! I really want to engage with her but DH thinks I may come across as aggressive (moi?!) and says just ignore her...,

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 18/11/2011 07:37

DH says I should just say thanks for the article and leave it at that

Just that. That is what is polite. Say "thanks, I will look at it later" when she hands you the article, and then change the subject.

squeakytoy · 18/11/2011 07:40

It does make me laugh a bit though... even though "experts" have introduced new guidelines over the years.. these women who you all mock did manage to raise your or your husband, so they cant have done all that bad a job!

And sometimes, just sometimes, they might just be right!

New guidelines are not always the best, they are just the outcome of a funding for someone who had to produce a "result", and admittedly the Daily Mail loves to make everyone knows about it.

Original poster
Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:41

So, not chuck it ostentatiously in the recycling then? Grin

OP posts:
ChesterDraws · 18/11/2011 07:43

I think your DH has the right idea. But, you could start collecting relevant articles for her about getting old like this one

Gincognito · 18/11/2011 07:46

You need to print out this article for her:

Study Finds Every Style Of Parenting Produces Disturbed, Miserable Adults

Original poster
Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:46

Chester... Sniggering away here wishing I had the nerve!

OP posts:
Original poster
Ams25 · 18/11/2011 07:56

The thing is... I'm not at all evangelical about how I do things... Mostly I just go with what's easiest and what feels right at the time, I often doubt myself about certain things and I don't claim to be an expert. The breastfeeding issue does annoy me a bit though because all the medical evidence IS that it is better than bottle feeding IF you can breast feed (I know some people can't and I totally understand why they bottle feed) so I think she should just be glad for her grandchildren that I am giving them the best nutritionally speaking...

OP posts:
exoticfruits · 18/11/2011 07:59

I don't know why people have to justify and have the last world. Just say thank you-put on one side and when she has gone throw it away. There is no need to discuss.

TestAnswers · 18/11/2011 08:12

I guess she is just trying to be helpful. FIL does this a lot - cuts things out of papers to pass on (usually related to our jobs). DH and I don't find them useful but they seem to bring FIL a sense of being useful so I guess they are - we just thank him, glance read them and recycle them. Sometimes we could easily choose to come to the conclusion that he thinks we are stupid/never listen to the news but I really don't think he means it that way.

I found both MIL and step-mum to be defensive about their bottle feeding when I was breastfeeding. Step-mum decided to declare I was 'starving my son' and it was 'a fad' - completely unprovoked, I wasn't sitting there trying to educate people, I just quietly slipped away to BF occasionally whilst I was at their house and vice versa. Eventually, I tackled every little snide remark in, what I though, was a comical piss take - seemed to stop it! MIL, bless her, really tried to be supportive about it but still came out with a few odd remarks (FIL was worse though). I think after all this time it still presses on a raw nerve for them especially as there has been so much in the press over the last decade about the benefits of breastfeeding.

difficulttimes · 18/11/2011 10:00

You should inform her that controlled crying on a child under 6 months is strongly advised against.

porcamiseria · 18/11/2011 10:05

MIL and DM in one post, well done

porcamiseria · 18/11/2011 10:06

i alsdo find it hard to beleive that DM prints stuff like this. I am no DM-lover but this is hardly cutting edgde news

Tangle · 18/11/2011 10:09

YANBU not to want it.

That said, if all she does is clip out articles and hand them over I'd probably try and just smile and thank her and then ignore. If she follows up with lots of comments about FF, CIO, etc, then I'd be telling DH that one of us was going to be having words with her - would he rather it were him or me.

difficulttimes · 18/11/2011 10:10

I cant believe someone would actually be against BF iits insane ,

Iggly · 18/11/2011 10:10

Grin before I read the OP I was goin to say YABU for reading that DM.

Take your DH's lead. Don't make it a battle - it won't end well. This is the best kind of MIL interfering (if there ever was one) - she's not wrestling your baby off you and giving formula, she's not shoving chocolate down her throat at 2 weeks old.

They're just bits of scrap paper. Treat them as such and recycle.

Pootles2010 · 18/11/2011 10:13

I know where you're coming from as had exactly same with my mil. However someone pointed out to me, if, in 20 years time, my dil was letting her baby cio, and was intent on bottle feeding, wouldn't I be gently trying to steer her towards bf'ing?

I would hope I wouldn't be militant about it, but I probably would say something.

sospanfach · 18/11/2011 10:13

my granny saves articles from the Daily Fail for me. I put them in the guinea pig's cage for pig to wee on. I say thanks to Granny, though, cos she's my Granny and 'means well'