to think helping with the children means helping with the children?

[Rhubarbgarden]

MIL has flown in from abroad for a few days to help with the children (2 year old dd and six week old ds). This morning I am BFing ds and dd wakes up and starts shouting to be got up and given her milk. I ask DH to do it as he passes en route from the bathroom, but he says his mother will do it as he is taking advantage of her being there to go into work early. Fine. Except that MIL turns out to be 'busy'; she is cleaning the oven. So dd has to wait till I've rushed finishing feeding ds and can get the two of them downstairs and sorted out.

Now I know it won't kill dd to wait for her milk, but really, if I wanted my oven cleaning I wouldn't have left it six years I would get my cleaner to do it; the whole point of MIL flying in is to help with the kids. Or am I being ungrateful?

But Was there anything else do do when she started doing it or was everyone else asleep so she picked a job that obviously needed doing to try to help?

I know I'm being a bit ungrateful. But I'd really rather have the essentials done first i.e. kids attended to. I just grabbed five minutes to have a shower while dd was playing happily by herself and ds was content on his baby gym. I came back into the kitchen to find the smell of poo hanging over ds. MIL was making herself a cup of tea. "He's done a poo. I think it's a big one" she says and settles herself on the sofa.

Is she normally as unhelpful as that with the children?

Hmmm...if you hubby hadn't been about and your DD was really upset, I could understand you.... but tbh, in this case I think you should be annoyed with your dh not your mil.

Ok so maybe its a length of tome thing. I know when dealing with small children to not get "stuck into" something that I can't drop when a small child needs me (mine are 5 and 3 so less of an issue now). Maybe she has forgotten. But Tbh someone else deciding to clean my oven would.piss me off (unless dh of course) and someone else offerog a specific favour and then refusing because they were doing something THEY considered more important would really annoy me.

The problem is that your DH has stopped doing his share because he thinks his mum will do it, and she isn't doing it either. So you have a house guest to look after, and more childcare to do than normal, and you're expected to be grateful for that.

But MIL isn't to know any of that. You need to be totally direct, and not leave your dh to do that (cos he won't). "MIL, you came to help with the children - if you hadn't said you'd do that, we'd have put off the visit till a bit longer after the birth, actually. Now that you're here, it would be really helpful if you could do x, y, and z with ds. I really don't want you to do any cleaning." Interspersed with some guff about how lovely it is to see her and how excited ds is to have her here, and so on

My mum is the opposite - she does all the nice things like feeding and bathing and cuddling, when I would love her to clean my oven (or iron, or anything vaguely useful!)

YANB all that U.

It's a personal thing, i think, what we would call helpful.

My mother also seemed to feel that coming round to help when the babies were young meant doing random jobs which were right off my radar at that particular point in my life.

It wasn't helpful, it was stressful. While BFing i would listen to her rummaging about around the house and think 'what are you doing?' What i really wanted was for her to sort the older two ready for nursery, get their lunch or whatever. No matter how i broached the subject she avoided taking any initiative with the children, prefering instead to do major gestures of house work.

In the end i just got on with it all on my own as although it was a bit chaotic with 3 under 5 i was less stressed just getting on with my own routine.

I need help looking after the children
Ok I will come down Amd clean your oven
Errr no thank you. Well pop up to visit very soon

x-posted. The answer to that is a big smile and "well, you came to help with the children! The nappies are in xxx. Gosh I'm so tired, I was up x times in the night. I'm so glad you're here to help", settle yourself on the sofa and look at her expectantly.

She might think she's most helpful by sorting out some of those nasty household chores you can't do with children are around, and leaving you to focus on the kids. Get off MN, thank her for cleaning the oven, and then do something nice together, with the children.

I think there is a breakdown in communication here. It appears that your MiL thinks that if she does the "housework", then that frees you up to concentrate on the DCs. I can see why she would think that, but can see your point too.

I think you need to talk to her about the type of help that you most need from her at the moment. Be prepared for her to disagree with you - she may well be the sort of person for whom having a clean oven and tidy house is important.

YABU to be annoyed with MIL...it's your DH that was U. MIL has not come so he can put his feet up and leave everything to her, has she?

My DB and SIL recently had twins. When I go to help, I don't expect my DB to sit on his arse while SIL and I run around doing stuff. I'm there as an extra pair of hands, not a replacement one.

I have explained to her at length that things like cleaning the oven, ironing bedlinen and rearranging my cupboards are not priorities. But when she decides a task wants doing, she is very focussed, and a crying baby/child needing a bath etc will not divert her from her course.

Dd just wanted to be got up and given her breakfast. She's always ravenous on a morning. But having MIL here has allowed me to have lots of one to one time with dd, which has been brilliant. This isn't a huge beef, just a little frustrated whinge.

But the op knows what help she needs! The mil cannot have "another opinion" that's like someone else having an opinion on how you are feeling! Agree they need to talk.

"And it would take me the best part of 20 mins to "grab milk" before I go to work."

Why, *Stealth?

YANBU - I think it's perfectly reasonable to direct the offer of help, especially as it came under the banner of helping with DC. I think sometimes people are blinkered and can only focus on one thing and miss the maelstrom happening all around! I think gentle direction/asking for help may be appreciated so MIL knows how she can help the most...

I understood her dh was gping straight out to work? If not then I agree.

Few mins to drive there, few mins to grab milk and stand in queue, few mins back. Ok maybe more like 15. If om setting off to miss traffic, every minute helps. Of course I'd do it of I needed to, but presumably the mil could have popped out without too much hassle if she hadn't been halfway through clea.ing oven?

YANBU. Your DH should have made sure MIL got the milk or he got the milk for your DD. In this situation, I think my DH would have got the milk. Your DH is getting to go to work early anyway, so he wouldn't have been late for work.
Did you MIL know that DD needed the milk?

I remember my MIL coming and getting down on her hands and knees and cleaning the conservatory floor. And then proceeded to empty out all the cupboards to clean them. And then went through all the paperwork I had come back with from hospital after having DC1 and chucking some information leaflets out that I needed. Everytime she visits (about once a year), she starts doing the cleaning without being asked. Maybe she thinks she is being helpful, but I'd rather she played with the kids for awhile.

My mother is the exact opposite. She came to stay for a month after having each child and she only wanted to help with the babies, sit on the sofa and hold them basically. No house work at all, didn't even take her plate to the kitchen. When I asked her if she could hoover once, she said she "doesn't do jobs like hoovering".

Not just the CD alphabetising - DH's nesting instinct also extended to sorting out the foreign coinage we'd collected over the previous 10 years into little piles by country and leaving them on the spice rack.

I think he was trying to maintain order in the face of chaos...

When dd was born I remember my mumcrying "but you're just not getting SORTED! I wish you'd say to me "mum will you grab a cloth and clean the skirting boards in the dining room?"
Ahem. "sorted" to me meant clean kitchen and bathroom. The dust on skirting boards didn't even enter our consciousness. If she had cleaned them it would have not been for our benefit

Stealth, I read it as the milk was in the kitchen, not waiting to be purchased in the shop.

You have a husband, a cleaner, a mil that has flown from abroad to clean your oven and help with your kids.

You are an ungrateful mare and frankly have too much time on your hands to even be posting moaning about this. I would love to have just one of those things.

Agree with Bertha
"The problem is that your DH has stopped doing his share because he thinks his mum will do it, and she isn't doing it either."