Not wanting my 4 month old to stay overnight at my mother in laws

[Alisonjayjay]

So since I was pregnant I've been feeling slightly annoyed as my mother in law has been getting all the baby equipment for her own house. She now has more baby stuff than we do. People have given her a moses basket, a swinging crib, a cot, a high chair, 2 bouncy chairs, safety gates, boxes and boxes of nappies, toys etc etc. the list goes on! We have gone out and paid a fortune for baby things while she has been given things for free which are immaculate. We could have made use of some of the things but she hasn't even asked if we wanted them. She knew we wanted a specific highchair which was quite expensive so we've had to save money and cutback in order to buy one. A few weeks before we bought the highchair someone gave her the exact same highchair which we wanted to buy but she's keeping it for herself, then last night my oh came home saying someone had given her a travel cot. I said 'for god sake she's got more baby things than we do' and he said well it'll be good for when the baby is staying overnight with her! He's 17 weks right now and exclusively breastfed. You should have seen the look on my oh face when I said he wouldn't be staying overnight, not when he's a baby. Yes maybe when he's a bit bigger and he wants to stay but not when he's so little. Am I being unreasonable? He's my baby and I don't want him staying out overnight. My oh said but what if we are going out. Firstly I don't plan on being out overnight and if I did need someone to look after him I'd want then to watch him at our house so he could sleep in his own bed. Yes he can stay with her for a few hours during the day but not overnight. Am I being unreasonable?

Er, you can leave an ebf baby overnight. I babysat my friend's 3month old overnight, had a shit ton of expressed breast milk to give her.

Just saying

What you should really say is that you can have an ebf baby overnight if the ebf baby will take a bottle of expressed milk.

Mine won't and not through lack of trying, as we have tried!

Thread still going!

I was thinking about this again - both of my babies were EBF, refluxy, screaming banshees at 4 months. my instinct was to keep them with me including overnight. Maybe I shoul have let them stay with MIL overnight...

Dd is 7. She has never stayed overnight at her GPs without us there. She hasn't stayed anywhere without us there. She hasn't missed out and her GPs haven't had a problem with it.

I don't understand why some posters feel this is a 'right of passage' that all kids should experience. Kids do not need to spend time away. Nice if they want to, but not compulsory.

GirlWithTheMouseyHair - that's all well and good when your child takes a bottle and you express, I for one didn't get on with expressing and DS flat our refused.....plus...why is the OP getting a hard time for not wanting to part with her baby?

My DS is 2 years and never been apart from me, its my husbands and I's choice. Nanna spends time with DS during the day, what's eveyones problem with that?

Yes Mousyhair - not all ebf babies will take a bottle. Not all mothers wish to spend time expressing milk, when they can feed the baby perfectly well themselves. Just saying.

DS has stayed at GP's from I think about 10weeks. He went at 7pm and I was sitting in there living room at 8am drinking tea the next morning

My dd never didn't stay over with anyone untilnshe was about 8. But that was because she!couldn't. It was a cause of great distress to her, because she missed out on so many fun things- including nights away with her beloved grandparents, and I consider it a failure on my part thatnfor some reason I couldn't help her to do this. Even now, her cousins talk fondly of things that happened "when we stayed with grandma" and she looks wistful.

Please don't see it as a badge of honour that you child "has never spend a night away from me" It's not.

And whoever we make any decisions around our children, we Alwqys need to consider whose needs we are meeting.

Seeker, I'm not using the fact my 2 year old has not spent a night away from me as a badge of honour, its just a fact like others saying their 10 week old has spent regular time away with GP.

If the OP is not comfortable with her 4 month old to go and stay with GP's and lets face it she has good reason as she is EBF then she should be supported.

catfart, I agree a 4 mo who is ebf and where the mother is not comfortable with it should not spend a night apart.

This may change as the child grows, I know it did with me, however I have great ILs who look after the children really well and they all have a ball. I cannot remember when he first stayed over on his own, he will have been quite old simply because we lived quite a way from ILs. We now have 3 DCs, two who are under 2 and due to logistics, if we need a night out / away GPs come to us so the children are still in their own house. However as I have said my GPs are great and the children are happy with them.

I think the accusation that someone who is happy for their child to be with he GP when they are little has a bonding problem is shocking and unnecssary.

OP still hasn't answered the question, has your MIL actually asked to have him overnight? If she hasn't what is the problem and why call her lots of names? If she has, just say no, its simple, on this issue the mother / parents decide.

I have never understood the whole grandparents-want-their-GC-overnight schtick . Probably because it never happened in my family. I NEVER stayed overnight with either set of grandparents. I had a very good relationship with them all without doing so. My DS has had a few overnights with my PIL, but from about the age of 6 onwards, when they'd taken him out somewhere special for the day so that it was all part of the day out IYSWIM.

My PIL did have DS for the day once when he was four months old, but that was because DH and I were both ill and DS was bottle-fed by then. They did this at our request, they never lobbied for it, although they let us know that they'd be happy to help out any time we wanted them to do so. (My PIL are fab. If they weren't relatives I'd want them as friends.)

And the whole equipping her house sounds very - odd. And massively presumptious.

To those worried about being a MIL take comfort from my situation (I certainly do as I'm pg with PFB DS!)!! I haven't seen my own mother in 5 years, haven't spoken to her in 3. Emotionally abusive, unresolved mental health issues (I'm a candidate for the Stately Homes thread!). So she doesn't know I'm pg, or that DH and I now live 22,000km away.

MIL has been AMAZINGLY supportive throughout my pregnancy - more than my own mother would ever have been! She is flying out for the birth in a few weeks and I can't wait for her to get here!! she is staying for a month and then she, baby and I are flying home to stay with her and FIL for 2 months. I am so, so grateful to them both for being so enthusiastic.

And it's not like I've got the most perfect diplomatic MIL either, she can be overbearing and a right pain at times, we've certainly rubbed each other the wrong way at times over the years!! Honestly she can be a loon (her DD finds her a pain to deal with!). Her brain is melting because its PFB GC. But I love her and appreciate the support she's giving me.

OP it is kinda weird that your MIL has bought/been given SO MUCH stuff, but communication (by your DH with her!) to find out what's going on, what expectations are etc is what's really needed here. Jumping to conclusions about other people's motivations is never wise. Obv if it turns out she is expecting your baby to stay overnight with her from
so young she will need to be (gently) corrected.

YANBU.

Sounds to me like the biggest problem the OP has with the MIL is the presumptuousness of it all. The expectation that the baby will be stopping over often enough for her to need to duplicate all the day to day essentials.

I'd love my children's grandparents to want to be/be able to be more involved in my children's lives, but I would find this very overbearing.

I agree with Zara1984, communication is so important.

Good luck with your DC Zara. Thank you, I hopefully will be a MIL for my two DSs and was dreading it.

YANBU. my colleague has turned into one of those grand mothers from hell, who refers to her new grand daughter as 'my' baby. She came into work the other week with her DIL to show 'her baby' off - I felt sorry for the poor girl. Even when the baby was crying and needed feeding 'Grandmarm' refused to hand her over to her mum. Baby is BF - Grandma referred repeatedly how it would only last for a few weeks and then her 'little pudding' would be coming for sleep overs.
I think such intense feelings from a grand mother are a clumsy attempt to over compensate for some of the f* ups they've made as parents.

(and I say that as an ex DIL of a woman who threw a strop when I refused to let her take my EBF week old back to her smoke ridden, out of control dog infested house, 100 miles away)

My mum has DS1 quite often, and even she has only bought stuff as she needs it! Love that she buys her own stash of nappies and everything
OTOH, mil has DS1 once a week and doesnt have anything. Not that I expect her to!

And FWIW, I never stayed with my maternal grandparents (though I did move in with my grandad when I was 21 ), but I used to stay with my paternal nan about once a week! She was scared of being in the house on her own?! (DGF was in the army)

Seeker, who said its a badge of honour never to have your dcs spend a night apart from you?!

As for considering needs, where is the need on the part of a child to spend the night with their grandparent? I suspect it's often more to do with the needs of the gps.

interesting thread....

my own mum has DD overnight ocassionally, my MIL has never had DD overnight. my DD probably sees my mum more than she sees MIL, but that's because i call into my mum's for a coffee or we go shopping together with DD etc.. i don't do this with MIL (it's not that i don't want to, she is lovely, we are just very different people and she's never really tried to be my friend) my MIL takes DD for a day out once a week on average and my DD loves both grandmother's equally.

moral of the story... you don't need overnight stays to have a strong bond with your grandchild. it's about quality, not quantity.

Agreed CSI, should have said if baby will take a bottle. My friends baby refused a bottle too til that point, but then she felt comfortable and confident enough to leave her baby with me anyway (she took the bottle!)

Agree OP shouldn't leave her baby if she doesn't want to but as already pointed out nowhere has OP said that MIL expects this to happen.

I'm in the "sure all that stuff seems a bit excessive but it's lovely she wants to be involved and sees getting all the stuff in will actually HELP rather than making DS and DIL cart it around" camp.

If she asks to have the baby to stay and OP isn't happy, just blinking well say so

I think GPs have inflated ideas of how important they are. Yes, they come right after parents and siblings - but definitely after. And they do not have 'rights', they have privileges. I don't even see that they have 'grandparental responsibilities' really, unless the parent delegates.

Children live in their own house together with their parents. Why should they be anywhere else until they are old enough to be excited about it? It's so selfish to ask a baby to be with someone other than a primary caregiver right through the night, just to satisfy a grown woman who apparently 'really cares'. With my DD, only I could really tell what all her little faces and pains were about. That's normal and my DM would have been exactly the same. She wouldn't have asked for overnights (although illness meant they had to happen quite frequently for us).

I'm all up for lots of grandparenting action during the day though. And as for "oh well, they're excited"...this is a baby, not a puppy! The only person allowed to flounce like a diva is the baby and maybe mummy too sometimes.

I agree airforceone.

My brother and his wife recently had a baby. I've offered to stay at theirs to babysit and to have the baby here to stay. I'm really looking forward to spending some quality time with my niece and getting to know her.

And they both know this.

But we all know that they are her parents, and that I would do things exactly as they would want me to - even if it's something I wouldn't have done with my own - they are the parents and they are the ones who make the rules and have the final say.

I've offered so that they know they are not alone (there are no grandparents in a position to be involved) and so that if they do want a break/night out/time alone they can.

But it will be entirely their decision. I am her aunt and I love her but I have no rights.

She is currently 10 weeks old. It wouldn't occur to me that they would take me up on this offer for many more months yet!

YANBU op.

my pfb is 3 and I've only been away one night when i was giving birth to his baby brother. although i did manage to put him to bed between contractions. It's just not what we want to do.

your MIL does sound a bit ott, but i think when a first grandchild is expected gps can get a bit overexcited and maybe over prepare.

my PIL stay 1.5 hrs away and still asked what kind of baby seat they should get for their car. I'm glad we kind of went and explained that it was unlikely they'd have to drive baby anywhere! they also thought we'd like to leave him and pop out for lunch about 5 days after i got out of hospital having had a unplanned cs. and looked and felt like crap after a long labour and no sleep for a few days

they just get a bit carried away.

it is handy that both gps have a high chair that they got from a friend for us to use and a travel cot and maybe a few spoons. :)

i also didn't spend any nights at gps houses as a child, so it's not a requirement :)

I think the poster who commented that nobody is thinking about the baby in all this notion that GP may "deserve" overnights identified something that made me uncomfortable.

Parents who assert their rights, without stopping to think about the child's needs, wind CAFCASS and judges up something chronic. A tiny baby's primary need is the main carer. If BF, that's true with bells on. And a reasonably happy mother is good for the baby, so a night off if it is what the mother needs won't do the baby any harm, and will be a positive in future, in terms of the mother feeling better after a night of unbroken sleep. But if it won't make the mother feel good at all, and it won't do a single thing that's positive for the baby, then it's putting the needs of the GP ahead of that of the child, pure and simple. Which is not right.

A close relationship being fostered between GP and GC is lovely, and to be encouraged. But it doesn't require nights for a tiny baby who will only really want his or her Mum, if they had the choice. Why should the GM's preferences come first?

YANBU! My DS is 9 months old and I wouldn't even consider being away from him overnight and he's bottle fed rather than breastfeed so it would be easier in theory!