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?!

just a wee quick question. Is the other GC a boy? Is she giving all this pink stuff to you because it wasnt needed for the other GC?

cakebar Yes, I thought ebay the bundle I have, and buy another ebay bundle for the next age group/size? But you're right, I know that everyone ends up with an enormous amount of stuff.

expat...she's been offloading crap for ages, just not baby related! I think it's just this baby related one so close to me going in has tipped me over the edge! (she also ASKED us if we'd like her to buy us some nappies. I was honestly overwhelmed at her generosity and said that would be brilliant, but I've been told by lots and lots of friends that huggies aren't very good, so any other brand would be fab. I suggested Aldi or Sainsburys own brand, this wasn't about cost. Guess what she turned up with? 9 boxes of Huggies)

Actually good time to ask. Are Huggies newborn nappies really that bad???!! I've kept them, because obviously nothing wrong with them, feels bad to bin them when I haven't even tried them!

It's just a memory now havingastress but I wouldn't like it to happen to you. Expat is right and if you need to then it is fine to get into bed with your baby and shut the door.

I never noticed any difference between any nappy brands tbh

I am not a fan of huggies newborn nappies but had small tiny babies. Aldi don't do them that small they start size 3.

Oh, MIL did this, too, having. They're not in our lives anymore (long story, but it's pretty serious and DH decided enough was enough), but it was just bag after bag of crap. I mean, other peoples' used sheets. Gees, thanks, there's a cloth bank around the corner.'

lilq sorry, yes, other GC is a boy.

scarlett

Nappies are nappies, they will do the job.

Ok. well planning to use the nappies and give them a go. If they work, then fab! Will obviously be very grateful!

(although I actually laughed out loud when i saw that they were all Huggies boxes..I mean, which part of 'please avoid Huggies' did she not understand!...now you see why I think she deliberately ignores my wishes!)

You were 'blazing' 'deliberately ignoring my wishes'. Blimey you sound hard work. I feel sorry for mil.

We only used Huggies others were awful for ds

beattheclock there's a little more to it than that, which I appreciate from the original post doesn't come across. Honestly, I'm not hard work - I've been MORE than patient with the MIL for the last 2 years!!!

I think with nappies it depends on the babies. I like huggies when DCs got bigger but use reusables and whatever brand I can find on offer.

OP, so sorry you lost a baby. Hope everything goes okay for you tomorrow!

I think that your MIL is being ridiculous. Why, but why, would you buy someone a secondhand steriliser when you knew they had been given a brand new one as a work-leaving gift? That's downright weird. Not to mention inviting yourself round for the first 4 days. Um, bugger off! As for the clothes thing, a bin-liner full of pink does smack of totally ignoring your wishes. Non-pink baby clothes aren't that hard to come by, so the fact that out of a whole bin-liner not one thing is a different colour seems a bit pointed.

Giving you a bin-liner of baby clothes is a nice thing to do, though, especially as they are in different sizes. Summer frocks can be perfectly nice in the winter over woolly tights and a long sleeved vest, or under a cardigan. Plus, it's often cold enough in the summer in Britain to wear winter clothes! You say money is tight, so I would hang on to anything in bigger sizes. If you have hundreds of newborn/0-3 size clothes and don't need any more chuck those, but people don't tend to buy so much bigger stuff for you. I had a panic when DD hit 6 months because suddenly she seemed to have no clothes whatsoever and we were broke. Luckily my mum and MIL came to the rescue.

I know you are massively pregnant OP and I have been there 3 times myself but you just need to suck this up, take the clothes, smile and gush your thanks then take out the stuff you will use and charity shop the rest.......easy and no ones feelings are hurt.

I must add as a mother of DS's that I'm sure she is just as excited by the birth of your baby as she was about her DD's baby........we love our boys as much as our daughters you know [hsmile]

halcyondays some nappies leak. huggies are horrible at least for dd and we used boots before moving on to little angels.

actually I agree with you.. its not so much the precise issue (though I had EXACTLY the same problem with my MIL who handknits beautiful things for DD, in SODDING pink), its the lack of respect for your wishes implicit in the act. She has been told, clearly, that you do not like it and don't wish to dress your DD in it. I deal with it by having a few pinkish bits of a shade that I don't mind (it looks quite cute with denim or mint green) and putting them on her when MIL is around. It does make me very cross though - she totally overrides my opinion as being unimportant and its that that I find difficult.

OP you're heavily pregnant so quite frankly yanbu about anything. You're the boss. You're rammed full of hormones and I can remember the feeling of fear at the loss of control of your body and your new baby. I'm sorry about your loss and your mum being poorly.

I was so stressed about things that wouldnt normally matter. It's hard but try to forget about it. Keep the clothes you want, charity shop the rest (Dh could take them to supermarket charity skip today so they're out the way)

Concentrate on yourself, read a book, watch tv, eat something nice and relax as much as possible because you're meeting your daughter tomorrow. (yikes I'm welling up!)

Huggies were fine IMO, OP. Pampers leaked just as much. It used to take me at least a couple of nappy changes to work out how tightly to fasten a new brand/size to avoid leaks.

Hi, Your DMIL does sound like abit of a nightmare and I can see exactly where you ate coming from. Some Grannies do get ridiculously overexcited about new GC. It is very overbearing and irritating.

It is hard to know what to do about it. I bet I can guess what you would like to say to her but I imagine the following dramatics and guilt tripping wouldn't be worth it. I would get rid of the stuff you hate or that is too scruffy immediately and then just see how it goes. I think it's a good idea to phone her to tell why she can't invade stay after you have your baby. Don't apologise though. You just have to manage her as best you can. When she comes over can you get her to do chores for you? Maybe some ironing or something, she may like doing it martyr syndrome and it may make her seem slightly less irritating.

Otherwise you just need to be very VERY firm and clear about things and understand she will probably never change.

Ps, good luck, I hope you feel better for you rant.

i think you're being an awfully good sport on here, OP. i lost a couple of early pregnancies and because of that i wouldn't let anyone (but me) bring baby clothes into the house until the baby was born.
i'm with expat, keep the few nice bits, swap what you can swap and ebay the rest. it's all very well saying you'll be grateful for whatever you have by the time they've pooed up to their armpits for the sixth time that day, but it's much more practical for them to be in a white, boil-washable babygro than some silly frilly pink thing.