MIL deliberately ignoring my wishes..AIBU or is she?!

[havingastress]

Quite prepared to accept it's me who's being unreasonable...

BUT I literally had the biggest stress out yesterday!

Baby due literally ANY minute, am being induced this week. It's her second grandchild.

We found out we were having a girl at the 20 week scan (with hindsight, won't find out again, but there you go!) ...and told parents and inlaws. Her first reaction was...Ooooh great I love all the little pink clothes and outfits you can get.

Now....daft I know..but I BLOODY HATE PALE PINK BABY CLOTHES!!! You know...the whole rows of the stuff in Asda, Next, M+S. it's that insipid pink. Ewww. Anyway, I laughed and told her, Oh god please NO PINK..Honestly, I don't like it and I won't be dressing my daughter in it. Please save your money!! She was categorically told for want of a better way of putting it!

My mum has bought us 5 beautiful outfits for our daughter - each time she phoned before she purchased, described how it looked and asked would I be ok with her buying it.. Totally over the top as it's my mum and I know she has brilliant taste! But I appreciated her respect, and she said she knew from personal experience how annoying it is to receive loads of stuff you don't like because then you feel pressurized into using it because you feel guilty.

MIL turned up yesterday with a bin liner. A bin liner FULL of a mix of second hand clothes, car boot purchases, ebay purchases and some reduced sale stock from Asda and Next. ALL BLOODY PINK. THE WHOLE BLOODY LOT. A ridiculous amount of clothes that I have no idea where to put. She actually said, 'I know you said no pink, but come on, it's a girl, I want her to wear pink'

I was blazing! I feel as though she is deliberately ignoring my wishes, spending money needlessly (which then makes me feel guilty) and forcing HER wishes/beliefs onto me.

I know if I get rid of them to the charity shop/ebay she will open the wardrobe and demand to know where they are. The stuff with tags I took the whole lot back last night and swopped for 9-12months plain babygros etc that will be used and we will be very grateful for.

So...AIBU or is she? And even if it's ME being U, how the hell do I get her to stop buying loads of crap that I don't want?!

Halloween baby born 3am...6lb 2...can't say much more, don't want to out myself!!! BUT she's beautiful..absolutely beautiful..and now even more determined than ever to ensure these next two weeks are house visitor free!!! [hgrin]

Thanks to everyone for the lovely messages

Pretty awful birth if I'm honest, baby is fine, I"m still rather traumatised though! Prostin gel induction was just horrible, but all progressed quite quickly once they manually broke the waters - ended up with an epidural and an episiotomy...But like they say, you do kind of forget that when you've got a gorgeous baby as the reward! 3 days of no sleep at all though I look like a walking zombie!!!

Wow congrats! Keep your beautiful girl close and make dh keep mil away!

Congratulations!

Are you going to name her after MIL? Seriously, hope she stays away and you get all the newborn snuggles you need x

Congratulations

Def keep the guests away until you are ready if you've had a tough time of it!

congratulations

stay strong on the no visitors front!

Congratulations and thank you for letting us know. Got a big smile for you.

Congratulations!

Well done for being together enough to come on and let us know!

Shut the world out and enjoy every minute of being with your beautiful baby girl

Congratulations! Snuggle her close and enjoy. X

Congratulations!

I hope you get a peaceful few weeks to recover and get to know your baby :) x

Congratulations!

Enjoy being parents.
x

Congratulations!

Enjoy your peace and quiet and look after yourselves.

Delighted for you - enjoy her!

That is lovely news. Congratulation's. [balloon][mags]

Congratulations on your baby x

DO not throw away the stuff she bought you,.... sell it! buy something you want! o just get id of it to charity if that is too much strress. is there anything a bit bigger in the heap of clothes that you could dye a lovely red? deep purple?

I can sort of see how you could forgive her for one pretty pink frilly thing as some people find them irrisistable... but a whole bag full? the steriliser was, well, a bit strange.. it sounds like you arre oging to have to be firm and not accept/pass on these things.

stick the binliner in the loft, a cupboard, the garage. dress your baby in what you want her to wear. when mil asks say 'oh, she's wearing this today' and stick to it.
after eighteen months ebay the tat.

Congratulations, wishing you and your baby lots of happiness

YANBU my mil is the same and it's all about control. Dp was very angry about her buying Winnie the Pooh and I love mummy crap. We had discussed our likes and dislikes and neither of us can stand them. We tried to involve her in the shopping for baby process but she wasn't interested. The reason dp was so cross is that he called it 'lazy shopping' literally no thought went into it. She's a nightmare, I feel awkward when she is around and feel physically sick when handing dd over to her. She has done a number of unacceptable things since dds birth but whilst I was in labour she was visiting someone about an hour away and text to say ' we are going to drive to the hospital so we can have a cuddle' errrrr, no you won't be! I would have just given birth, I don't even want my own mum there let alone you and your new partner who's a stranger to us. Took all my strength not to tell her to fuck right off!

Congratulations. Just enjoy your baby- the clothes thing really is trivial. Just smile and thank her- you don't have to use them.

Havingastress I actually can't believe how much your mil sounds like mine! My dp never tells her where to go either, whereas if my family behaved like it he would be on my case to say something. After the initial desperate to see her business, she didn't actually visit for 2 weeks as she wasn't down this way visiting her partner until then. Dd is 6 months now and mil never makes seeing her a priority. We are squeezed in when she visits her partners daughter. Her and partner have been together a year! She just texts all this ridiculous 'advice' about formula and weaning! Yep, coffee in a bottle is great parenting! Argh.

Congratulations. I had a MiL like yours. My biggest regret about those early days is not being assertive. I was polite and considerate of her feelings she didn't do the same for me and caused me huge distress

Enjoy your baby

She had hers

You are being massively unreasonable and rude to boot. What ever happened to accepting gifts nicely with a smile and a thankyou? Keep a few and pass the rest on. Make sure you mil sees your gorgeous daughter in the few. Absolutely no need for a snit or a row.I empathise with the pink hating but tbh it is nearly unavoidable. Nothing else in shops.and your mil clearly went to a lot of trouble. She's clearly excited, isn't that great? Just thank her and put it away! It's a gift, you're not supposed to be dictatorial about them!

A gift is something you give for the benefit of the receiver ellee, the receiver in this case having stated quite reasonably that pink is not welcome. This muppet mother in law is playing power games. Personally I'd shred the clothes and send them to the daft woman to get a point across, but I don't suffer fools gladly any more.

Why should she have to behave as if she is grateful for something she clearly stated that she didn't want? Ellee you have spectacularly missed the point here - the mil is attempting to impose her wishes on the OP and is completely ignoring what the OP wants for her own child.

I'd have dyed the (nice) clothes any colour other than pink, just to make a point and would have dumped the rest.

ellee would you expect someone to be grateful if they said they were allergic to chocolate and you went out and bought them a big box of Thorntons for their birthday?

What if you had a lovely new brown and cream themed living room and someone decided that purple was nicer and bought you a nice big purple throw for your sofa for Christmas? How would you feel about them deciding that your taste wasn't relevant?

You might smile sweetly and say thank you politely but I doubt very much that gratitude would be your first emotion.