AIBU? WWYD? Smoking issue around my baby!

[Champagnelady]

Hello....I am genuinely not trying to aggravate any smokers with this but I don't know how to handle this one.

Firstly, I know I have extreme views on smoking. Both my parents have smoked my whole life - around me and my siblings. It's very much a smoking family. I have never smoked and I never will. I hate smoking even more since my dad passed away specifically from smoking related cancer. It makes me angry that they subjected me and my siblings to inhaling their smoke for years, especially when one sibling had cancer as a child. I don't understand why seeing my dad pass away, horribly, was not enough to scare the living crap out of my mother and make her stop. She knows to some extent how I feel about this but we don't have a relationship where we can be totally honest - she doesn't handle it well.

My husband and I are due our first child in a couple of months. We don't live close enough for my mum to 'pop' in. It's a flight away so when she visits she stays with us. She doesn't smoke in the house - she tries to smoke less when she is here, but inevitably she does still smoke and goes in the garden to do so. I can smell it when she comes in the house and I really don't like it. I think partly, now that everywhere in public is non smoking and I haven't lived at home for many years I probably notice it more. She will of course come to visit when the baby comes.

When we go to see my mum we stay with her. My dad always smoked in the house and smoked a lot more than my mum. Mum smokes outside most of the time, and the house has been decorated from top to bottom. On a recent visit I kept my suitcase closed. I didn't even open it whilst in the house. Yet still, when we left I had to wash everything and leave the case outside for two days because everything smelt of smoke. All the lovely baby things she bought I had to wash to get rid of the smell.

I don't know how to handle this - there is no way on this earth I am staying in that house with my baby if that is how my clothes smell when we come away. It's been 3 years since my dad passed away and still the smoke lingers. I don't want my mum anywhere near the baby when she's had a cigarette. If I can smell it, the baby can breathe it in.

I know my views are extreme and I don't really know how on earth I'm going to tackle this with my mum without feeling like I'm being really mean.
And where do I draw the line? One sibling has a child, and they live close to my mum but my brother smokes (outside his house, not inside) but still...

I'm sorry this is so long but any advice very welcome but please don't tell me to ignore the smoking thing because I just can't.

Thank you!!

Just to clarify my last point - when someone says, "I hate smoking; my dad died of it," replying, "So did mine, but I don't mind people smoking" just comes across as a way of undermining person's grounds for saying they hate smoking. For the sake of winning an argument. And as such is unstylish.

My views on smoking are the same as yours! I deteste smoking with every fibre of my being! It's a nasty, vile, disgusting, rancid and pointless habit and my blood boils if anyone lights up within 10 feet of my children, grrrr. Perhaps you can stay in a hotel when you visit (your clothes smelling as you described after last visit suggests she does still smoke in the house imo) and tell her she can't hold the baby for a while after she's had a cigarette.

"In the 60's, when front sleeping was introduced, to the shock/horror of many grannies who thought the baby would suffocate, mothers were told that it was safer for babies than sleeping on their backs. Presumably there was evidence for this at the time?"

Nope there was not EVIDENCE, what there was was an incorrect ASSUMPTION that a baby's anatomy is a small version of an adults anatomy, so the assumption was made that if a baby vomited whilst lying on its back who could not roll, it would drown in vomit like drunks who sleep on their back do, we now know that babies anatomies don't work the same way and it's safe to sleep them on their backs

FolkGirl many HCPs didn't believe that my gran never smoked! her COPD was so bad they were all convinced that she and all her family were lying (it killed her in the end). Her husband however smoked but he wasn't always around (worked away a lot) so even intermittent, not continuous passive smoking can have terrible effects!

It certainly can

YANBU

In terms of a practical solution, I think its entirely reasonable for your mother to stay in a b&b when she comes for extended visits. Likewise I think its reasonable for you to stay overnight in a (non smoking ) b&b when you go to visit her. You don't have to make it all be about the smoking, often when people have families they decide they want more space/privacy etc with regards visitors especially if their baby is noisey at night or likely to be distrupted/distruptive because of the change in routine. If you don't want an argument about whether she smokes in the house or not, then just say you don't want to keep her up all night with a crying baby.

I have asthma. Two of my close friends smoke. I've seen a lot less of them since I became pregnant. That's because, no matter how lovely they are about trying to protect me from their smoke, I always get ill after visiting them. It doesn't matter if the one who smokes indoors airs out her home before I visit, it doesn't matter if the other one never smokes indoors. It doesn't matter if they only smoke outdoors away from the windows whilst I'm there. It doesn't matter if they don't smoke at all whilst I am there. I get ill.

So, I think that there is an effect from third hand smoke. Maybe it isn't noticeable for adults with healthy lungs, maybe to them its 'just' a smell, maybe it doesn't even affect healthy children that much. But it does affect me to the extent that I decided I couldn't put my body through it whilst pregnant (didn't want to risk a full blown asthma attack), and I don't think I can subject my baby to it either.

As someone who sometimes struggles to breathe properly, I can't understand why my friends would willingly inflict breathing problems on themselves. Chest infection after chest infection my friend swears she's had enough and will give up. Then she gets better, and it doesn't seem so important anymore - that's addiction I guess. I've been there myself with over-eating, I knew it was unhealthy, but at the time I cared more about the short term pleasure I got from eating more than I cared about my long term health. I just hope that my friends will begin to value their long term health and that it won't take a massive health scare to get them there.

I love my friends to bits and make sure I keep in good contact with them. I arranged to go swimming with them and had them over for short periods of time at mine (I live in a flat and they need to go right outside to smoke). I don't know how we'll work things out with the baby, but given how sensitive they are about not making me ill, I'd imagine the not smoking just before a visit, and washing their hands etc won't be something they object to.

I don't want to be precious about smoke, I feel embarassed in asking others not to smoke around me (or moving away from them). But whatever the longterm dangers of passive smoking, it is deadly to those of us whose asthma is triggered by it, people do die of asthma attacks. I wasn't able to go out to pubs etc before the smoking ban.

Lets forget for a minute the issue of risk of passive smoking/ how dangerous it actually is etc (because such things are always going to be rather a grey area, there are no clear cut hard and fast figures.

The FACT is smoking and smokers smell. To the majority its an Unattractive stench. Even the (few) smokers I know don't actually like the smell, and suck mints after having a fag. (I don't think they realise that non smokers can still smell the staleness on breath and clothes)

As far as I'm concerned, if someone wants to smoke, and Pour insane amounts of tax into the treasurys coffers while doing something thats bad for their health, then fine, their choice. Same with fast food bingeing. We all know the risks . There can be no excuse nowadays for 'not knowing'- nor has there been for decades.

But do it in your own home. That way the rest of us have a choice about whether to be there.

Obviously no one can protect their kids forever from seeing people coming. But it's a fact that a child with one or both parents being a smoker, makes it more likely the child will become a smoker. To my mind that's reason enough for any intelligent parent to not smoke. You either knowingly take that risk, or you do what one acquaintance of mine does, and try to hide the fact that you smoke from your kids. Of course, her kids right down to the 9 year old know, and personally I'd hate to be trying to delude my kids and myself like that.

OP- do whatever you are comfortable with. Accept that you cannot protect your child for ever (indeed s/he) might take up smoking themself when older, whatever message you put across. But at least you can be assured that you've done your best to protect them when they are too young to have a choice, and also the best you can tI minimise the chance they'll take it up. We're in a process of transition still at the moment- far fewer people smoke, and in general there is far more awareness about health and well being, but hopefully by the time your baby grows up we'll be even further along the line and smoking will be something that only a very small minority think is a good idea

I am a smoker,some of our friends aren't, when they've had babies and come round our house they've been polite enough to ignore the smell, and my husband and i have been respectful enough to smoke outside our own house because we have their baby inside! Give and take usually works well.