which takes priority, my child my rules, or my house my rules?

[elfsmamma]

I am in the midst of a family get together at my parents house, it's jolly most of the time but there are certain issues that me and my mum don't see eye to eye about.

The first is stairs, my ds is not yet 1 but has been walking since 10 months, he can crawl up and down stairs but ideally I'd prefer him not to think stairs are a fun play area. He understands not to go near things that are dangerous, for example he doesn't touch the Christmas tree because we have told him not to, I think we should also tell him not to go on the stairs. My mum thinks that babies should be allowed to fall down the stairs to help them learn how to use them safely. My parents house is a split level house over 5 floors with a very open plan lay out, so shutting the door and avoiding stairs isn't really an option.

The other issue is germs, my mum isn't worried about germs but I am, I actually really struggle with anxiety surrounding my dc's health. A member of the family had a tummy bug, I thought it would be sensible if I kept ds In a different room when possible to the person with a tummy bug ( vomiting child so in my opinion a fairly big infection risk) I appreciate the risk of catching the bug is fairly high when living in the same house but I'd at least like to attempt to avoid it. As it happens no one else seems to have gone down with the bug (so far) I think it was possibly excitement or a reaction to food as the child had no diarrhea or fever.

Me and my mum get on great most of the time, but in these cases who decides? I don't expect my mum to care for my dc, she wants to, when she does aibu to expect her to respect my rules? Aibu to expect her respect that it's my baby my rules and if I want to keep him away from ill people ( not expecting anyone else to change their plans, quite happy to hang out in our room or the 2nd living room or go out) and not let him play on stairs then it is my choices to make?

My dp is here and we only have one child so it isn't a problem supervising him, I just feel rude constantly doing so, but the poster who said my ds needs me to keep him safe are right.

I did talk with my mum, it was terrible :( we came to the conclusion that it didn't really work out us staying with her ( or her with us) it will make our visits much less frequent as we will have to put aside money for a hotel.

I try to stop the spread of disease among those of us in the same house. Why would you not? Washing hands, washing surfaces (particularly in the the bathroom) more often. Not sleeping in the same room where possible. I think trying to prevent the spread of disease is to be applauded.

My mum thinks that babies should be allowed to fall down the stairs to help them learn how to use them safely.

Hell no!

Off to read the rest...

I'm a fairly lazy, neglectful parent but there are no circumstances in which an under-1 should ever be made to take responsibility for their own safety near something that could quite easily kill them. Even your "He understands not to go near things that are dangerous" is slightly worrying . Babies just do not have the mental capacity to understand danger.

I'd sooner stop my child seeing a grandparent (and have in my father's case), than allow a child of mine to die in an entirely predictable accident due to the older generation and their sheer bloody-mindedness about basic safety just because only half of their friends children were actually burnt to death in open fires and the rest were only scarred for life or whatever. (Slight exaggeration, but you get the point.)

If your DS was ill and spent a week in hospital, no wonder you're anxious.

It must have been serious for him to stop in that long, and it wasn't very long ago.

YANBU regardless of that.

It's not you being rude, it's you being made to feel you're rude.

Sorry saying it to your mum didn't go down well, was it your mum who said visiting each others homes has to stop?

How did she take it? (guessing at either devastated you could think like that about her and off to tell everyone how badly she's treated or angry at you asserting yourself, followed by tears.)

I am also very relaxed about diseases, but can be a stomach bug nazi. If it's a virus, it's usually very easy to catch.

My house resembles a Cat3 lab when DS catches one, so that I don't catch it because I'm a single mum.
I totally understand your worry, particularly if you are travelling soon.

I would be worried about glass doors as well as the stairs.

We had glass doors in a house that we lived in when Ds was about 2. I went out and bought sticky plastic and covered both sides of each door.

DH and PIL thought I was being massively over fussy. 3 days later DS fell backwards into the door panel. The glass shattered from top to bottom but thankfully was held in place by the plastic.

I think sometimes people forget how vulnerable children are; they underestimate risks.

Trust your instincts OP. You know your own child best. Falling down a flight of stairs is not a useful learning experience for a 1 year old.

I think you and your mother are both trying to keep the baby safe in different ways.
It used to be the custom to teach babies how to come down the stairs backwards, just in case they were unsupervised for a moment.
It seems a terrible shame to fall out over it.

In your situation, your rules. I have had it with my dad where I'm trying to get the kids ready for school and he puts the TV (children's channels!) on in the kitchen whilst they're eating breakfast. They go totally doolally when the TV is on and I can't get them to eat making them late for school. My dad says it's his house, his TV, he will put it on if he wants to. Fortunately Mum agrees with me!

If you think jumping on sofas is acceptable but the person who's house it is says no, then the answer is no. If you allow them to eat on their laps but the owner says food is eaten at tables then it has to be eaten at tables.

your child, your rules. and no, they don't need free access to the stairs to learn how to not fall down them!

Honey I do teach ds to manage stairs in case he decides to go down some if he escapes my notice for a minute. But I am always below him for this, ready to grab if he slips and blocking most of the flight with my body. Not two steps above and unable to do anything in the event of a fall.

Sorry your dm isn't listening op. You are of course fundamentally responsible for your baby's safety, whatever the property owner might think.

Just keep him away from the stairs. He's not in training to be a stuntman is he? I don't see how falling down the stairs will help anyone.

Its like chucking a child into a swimming pool when they can't swim and watching them scream, panic and nearly drown before you rescue them. Teaching them to swim always trumps this.

Same as teaching a child not to play on stairs or that smashing their head and ending up in a&e - can you imagine the doctors when you helpfully point out your child's head injury is because you felt that letting them get into danger on stairs and just watching them do it!! is in some way beneficial?

Virus - normally catching just before the vomiting etc, as long as everyone's hands are clean, loos spotless and no one shares toothbrushes it should be ok. Though I expect I would be twitchy with a 1 yr old who has already been hospitalised and might not be that strong where bugs are concerned, but I wouldn't segregate, just be very anal about hand washing and not putting things in your mouth:)

I think your rules should take precedence but only up to a point. You can't dictate certain things to people in their own home - if you can't cope with the way they do things then don't go.

I am always very fatalistic and pragmatic about things like tummy bugs, but if you are stressing about it then I don't see how it's workable AT ALL to visit your mums with other family members and keep your child in separate room the whole time. Quite honestly, people will think you are mad and neurotic. If it's that much of a worry just say you can't go.

As for the stairs, I see no issue with this, or any reason why you should need to fall out over it. Just police your own child like a hawk in someone else's house, which while he's crawling/toddling it's common sense that you should anyway.

The glass door is very thick, a couple of cms at least, I have been told it's very strong, so I banged it hard with a metal toy car and it didn't break so I think it's safe.

I never leave ds alone with something dangerous because I believe he won't touch it, I do tell him that he can't for example play with the tree because if I didn't tell him that he would constantly try to climb it! He walks up to the tree and says "ouchy ouchy" ( not in English in my dp's language) and shakes his finger at the tree like we do when we tell him not to touch it.

I suggested we didn't come and stay again and my mum suggested we leave right away so we went to start packing and she came to say please don't go. The rest of the holiday has been great, we are good at not holding grudges.

The stairs are a worry, but depends how many stairs and whether carpet etc. If there were lots of 4-5 stairs (rather than a whole level) which were carpeted, I probably would let him explore, with supervision.

Germs, you are being too anxious about it, it is making people feel they are walking infections etc. Let DS be cuddled, even if the person has a cold. Vomitting people won't be looking for a cuddle, and some basic hygeiene will keep him safe.

I am in the opposite position with you & your dm about the stairs - we have two sets of stairs in the house, 1 set has 4 stairs, the other has 7 and Dd has seen both sets of stairs as something to play on, we have let her but have been there to catch her if she did fall - we definitely would not let her play on them if neither of us was there. the smaller set is a hard set of stairs however the others are carpeted. she has only fallen on the hard stairs(had to be them out of both sets) but she was on the bottom step and fell onto the floor and wasn't hurt by either of the falls. we felt by allowing her onto the stairs she learned to get up and down them safely - we did show her a few times how to come down by turning her around and letting her come down backwards, after we showed her she used that method all the time.

now when my DM has been over she does not like her on the stairs and wont even let her go down them if she is there, when I say leave her she can manage DM goes away as she says she doesn't like it, that she could fall etc. but we are prepared to manage that risk and work with it - neither of us believe kids should be wrapped in cotton wool and mollycoddled - managed risk and letting them explore and build their own confidence is good for them as they build their own independence, even at 1yr old.

I guess the reason for the long story is your child your rules.

I would disagree with the others when they say you are BU in that your doesn't understand danger - they do - ours does, if she doesn't like it she will say no & ooh as if to say ooh this isn't good. for a 1yr old our DD doesn't stop surprising me in what she knows and understands. as a for instance she can already speak about 20 words but she knows what things are too e.g. if she is near a radiator she will point to it and say hot.

I agree with other with regards germs - you can stop the no matter what so YABU there.

I do agree about teaching children about how to safely go up and down stairs if stairs are an every day obstacle, we live in an apartment so the only time ds is around stairs is when we are here.

Definitely where there's a safety issue, your child, your rules. Your mother is being completely irresponsible about the stairs and fairly controlling if she let you get to the point of packing to leave at Christmas because you don't want her to encourage your child to play on the stairs.

I wouldn't trust her with him. It sounds like she's quite happy to undermine you on this.

Your child your rules.

You are being perfectly reasonable about the stairs. I don't know anyone who would let a one year old play or go on the stairs alone without a patent starting below.

My DS is 2 and a half and I'm just starting to allow him to go up and down alone our steep steps.

Illness is a tricky one. May be difficult to avoid it anyway if under same roof? When child he ill and how does child seem now?

When was the child ill?

She thinks babies should be allowed to fall down stairs?!

Bloody hell

I would generally go with your child your rules but I wouldn't expect anyone else to enforce them except me and DH if the expectations were wildly different to the house rules.

however I also tend to relax at bit at my parents house - I feel comfortable there and am happy for the kids to know that things can be a little difference at their grandparents house but it doesn't change our own house rules when we get home. do you spend a lot of time with your mum? if so I think its important to let her forge her own relationship with her grandchildren and only lay down the law on the big things - so yes have a word about the stairs but I'd relax a bit on other issues.

I do agree about teaching children about how to safely go up and down stairs"

But this is a baby, that we are talking about, he just happens to be an early walker, which brings additional dangers.

I did teach mine to come down backwards, I might be a similar age to your Mum and I used to get told all sort if crap, like letting them burn themselves because that's how they learnt. That was around 18 months, though and never with me behind them.

I have seen some vary bad accidents with toddlers who think the escalators are stairs. It isn't something that you encourage Independance over, so little.

I think it came from women being encourage to neglect the children to do the housework, tbh and close age bigger families.

He is to little to use any form of judgement, so for now, you supervise and get to say what he does.

It is you that would have to pin him down for an X-ray and explain how it happened, if he fell, so it is you who decides that that won't happen for at least a year.

Big difference between 'playing' on the stairs and teaching and supervising a child to go up and down safely.
First is a no-no, second is sensible and pretty vital imo.

As to the tummy bug - avoid sick person as much as is possible/practical.

And I'm sorry, but He understands not to go near things that are dangerous, for example he doesn't touch the Christmas tree because we have told him not to, did make me

No way. Not in a zillion years is there 'understanding' there. Biddability and luck, yes. Understanding, No.

But the bottom line is - your child's safety, your rules.

in this case it is your child your rules. 'allowed to fall down stairs' - while it probably will happen at some point, given the age of the child you supervise it closely at all times in the house.

YABU re the non-existent germs.

but kids must also be taught that it is 'their house their rules' - it is perfectly ok to have different rules for different houses and that is a good lesson.