To want MIL to go home

[Slh122]

I know I probably am being unreasonable. DS is 3 weeks old and DP had a fortnight of paternity leave then my mum came to help for a week. Now she's gone back to work and MIL has decided to come for the week. She lives 10 mins away so will be coming over everyday for a week.
I'm not overly comfortable with feeding yet and didn't mind feeding DS in front of my mum as she's my mum but today just want to spend the day in bed with him. She keeps coming in when I'm feeding him and everytime he's finished I lay him down in the bed next to me and she comes in and tries to take him off into the living room. I said no it's fine he can stay here with me but she then hangs round in the bedroom!
I feel like I could cope on my own now but feel bad because I know my mum had a week with me and the baby and know she probably wants the same. I want to be free to do as me and DS want. I want to take him for a walk in the pram this afternoon and don't really feel like talking to anyone but I know I have to ask her to come and then I'll have to make conversation.
I know I sound ungrateful and horrible but it just feels more awkward with her around than my mum, I don't know why. Maybe because I'm not as comfortable around her.

She is treating her like a visitor-a shame that she can't just treat her like family.

She IS a visitor.

And visitor and family are not mutually exclusive groups.

My mother is family, but when she visits my home she is a visitor. This is not where she lives.

What does it mean to treat someone "like family"?

Do you mean she should treat her like her grandmother? Great Auntie Nellie? Like her father? Like her brother?

"family" is a pretty vague concept when it comes to "treating someone like family".

It depends on the family, surely?

And that's the thing about in-law relationships, you are suddenly officially "family" without having grown up with the same expectations, traditions, idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, rows, boundaries, notions of privacy, sense of decorum.

In-laws come to feel like family gradually, over many years. Demanding that woman who had a baby 3 weeks ago treat a woman who is in her home making her feel uncomfortable "as family" shows no appreciation at all of the complexities of human feelings and relationships.

I really feel for you OP - sounds pretty bleak!!

I'm having an ELCS in 6 weeks and for one week afterwards I am going to have to be "Babysat" and my MIL offered to take the week off and sit with me 7am-3.30pm. I have a lovely MIL and get on with her very well but the thought just doesn't appeal.....and mostly for the same reason as you OP, I don't want to be learning to breastfeed with my MIL sitting next to me.

Thankfully after speaking to my mom she is going to take 3 days off and I have asked my dad to sit with me one day too so I'll only need the MIL to sit with me for one day.

Yes, MIL is my husband's mom but that's by-the-by in some situations. Just because she is his mother that doesn't mean I feel fine about her seeing me in vulnerable situations. There are just some things that you are more comfortable with when it is your own parents involved.

I would never expect my DH to feel happy about my father seeing his private parts just because he's his FIL, so why are us women expected to feel ok about our MILS seeing ours??

TamerB:

Oh dear, didn't expect to get flamed so much. Am severely sleep deprived and have asked her to do jobs but so far she's still watching tv.

FGS stop guilt-tripping a woman with a three-week-old.

And YES, I do have sons. I just don't assume the key to a good MIL-DIL relationship is the DIL.

Demanding that woman who had a baby 3 weeks ago treat a woman who is in her home making her feel uncomfortable "as family" shows no appreciation at all of the complexities of human feelings and relationships.

Well put.

Families grow organically over time, not overnight with a marriage certificate - and anyway, the idea that families are always a cosy source of Waltonesque comfort is rather naive. Families can be more like the Borgias than the Bradys. Enough MN threads can attest to that.

OP it's your home and your baby. You do what suits you.

I don't subscribe to all of this let MiL help out when you clearly don't want her there. Her presence is making you uncomfortable and preventing you from establishing your routines. I suggest you tell her you feel well enough to be by yourself now but would appreciate her popping in for a cup of tea and a chat occasionally (pre arranged obviously) and maybe she can give you time for a bath/shower then but for now you need to get yourself sorted.

As for all of this "You will need her when you want a babysitter later on." well maybe you will but maybe she won't be in a position to help out. You can't make decisions for now based on a possible future for this one.

I have a very similar predicament to you OP and if I never saw DP's mother again it would suit me.

A baby that age does nothing that anyone is going to miss -that's why I never really get the need for people to want to clamour round at that stage.

It's all about other people's wants as the baby certainly couldn't care less that they've come to visit.

It's nice to have a wee hold but unless they're your own I always get a bit bored after a few minutes tbh...

There are some pretty dire MIL on MN. They turn up as people get out of the delivery room, they come for hours and expect to be entertained, they take over, they offer advice etc etc etc.

This one seems pretty good, she saw that her DS had maternity leave and then that OP had her mother and help so she stayed away. She now thinks she can help, especially as local. She isn't expecting to be entertained, she isn't inviting all her friends around, she isn't whisking the baby off, she isn't giving unwelcome advice, she isn't even daring to do any work without being asked! She seems almost perfect to me! The poor woman is left having to watch daytime TV.

OP just needs to be a bit more positive. Suggest what time to come around. Have it when most useful. She must find it useful to go and have a bath knowing someone is with the baby. If she wants to cuddle up in bed with the baby what is better than having someone get her lunch, do some shopping, a pile of ironing?

By family I mean you don't have to stand on ceremony with her, if she asks to help say 'yes, that would be lovely if you could peel the potatoes' or whatever needs doing. Surely it is better than having to do it yourself, or get DP to do it when he comes in?

perfectstorm your second to last post is the most sense I have ever read on one of these IL threads.

You see the same defensive posters pop up time and time again when MIL's are mentioned. Why can't some people accept that, just as in any walk of life, some MILS are wonderful people and some are absolutely wretched. Not BECAUSE they are MIL's but because that is what they are like.

My MIL is an overbearing, selfish, toxic and needy woman, FIL isn't far off and they put their own needs before their GC, their DS and obviously over mine. It is positively hellish having awful IL's and it is tiresome to see posters jumping on those who dare to complain or ask for support. I am very much looking forward to being a MIL myself as I now know everything NOT to do.

Rant over, apologies OP. I think in your case if you don't want to speak directly to the MIL, you should speak to your DH. Maybe MIL could come over for an hour or 2 of the remaining days. You are clearly not trying to push her out you just don't want her to witness every little intricacy of life with your newborn. Totally understandable.

TamerB she's been constantly dropping in every evening when my mum has gone home! She turned up at 8 pm lags Friday night and expected me to unlatch DS mid feed so she could have a cuddle...

I have a very similar predicament to you OP and if I never saw DP's mother again it would suit me.
This is the entire problem-people read their own situation into it. I like my MIL and as one child is just like her it is just as well!

TamerB she's been constantly dropping in every evening when my mum has gone home! She turned up at 8 pm lags Friday night and expected me to unlatch DS mid feed so she could have a cuddle

You didn't say that in OP or my reply would have been entirely different!!

Your dp seems conspicuous by his absence within the conversations on this thread anyway!

I'd get him to have a word with his mum about what would be helpful, and if that fails suggest she comes round for nanny cuddling visits rather than tv watching visits!

At 3 weeks I remember hitting a real low point, with bleeding nipples and blocked milk ducts and anything touching my nipples would make me cry with pain. Add in someone, however lovely, who was in my personal space and crossing boundaries, whilst being of no practical purpose, well, I would be feeling pretty miserable.

I can only go by the information given. The impression I got was that she has stayed away for 3 weeks.

She turned up at 8 pm lags Friday night and expected me to unlatch DS mid feed so she could have a cuddle...

Then I think you should not presume she wants to help but doesn't know how, as I suggested earlier.

She probably is sitting around for the quota of cuddles she believes she is owed so she is even stevens with your mother

Tell her you don't need her around any more and that you and your son will be fine on your own for the rest of the week.

I can only go by the information given.

I'n sorry, but what? You ignored the OP when she said MIL isn't doing anything to help practically despite requests, and you've ignored the OP's own words when she said: to the poster who asked her how often I let her cuddle DS - everytime she sees him. She drops in a lot on an evening as well. in favour of assuming, on no evidence at all, that MIL was staying away for the first three weeks.

You aren't "going by the info given". You're inventing your own scenario and then protesting that it isn't your fault when reminded of the facts the OP has actually already provided or that you've made statements/assumptions without troubling to check their accuracy. You can't just create a fantasy about someone else's life and then assert that those are the given facts.

In that case then I think you need to stand firm. Sadly I think you need to start establishing boundaries, especially as she seems to have the hide of a rhinoceros.

Obviously no one is talking about cutting her out, but she needs to understand that ds/your needs come above hers.

Has she gone yet?

ffs op. you have one small baby? why did you need this much help? your dh was off for 2 weeks. you were very lucky.

you had your mother so obviously your mil now feels she wants to help. suck it up for a few more days but you certainly didn't need this much interference.

live and learn for baby number 2.

personally I would always prefer to cope alone it's actually easier.

I scan over some of it-it needs to be clearly in OP or it will be missed.
Yes- I should read it all but I don't- I get the gist and miss bits!

She turned up at 8 pm lags Friday night and expected me to unlatch DS mid feed so she could have a cuddle...

OP, did your MIL bottle-feed? I ask because it's so different - you don't have to learn how, and it can be shared, so she wouldn't understand that unlatching a baby for a cuddle is a nightmare at 3 weeks because it can be a struggle to get them correctly latched to start with.

Having said that, any fool should know that interrupting a baby's feed without an alternative food source is a horrifyingly bad idea - and not exactly child-centred!

and if you really feel stifled tell your dh to tell her to go home now. you are fine and coping.

Cuddles, dropping in and not doing as requested where not mentioned at the start.
From OP, yes she was being unreasonable. From subsequent posts, no she isn't being unreasonable.

Er, ffs op - really? At what point has she said that she needed help? DH was on 2 weeks paternity leave, her mum came for a week (no information to say whether this was asked for or offered - either way it's her choice) but mil has not only arrived in the evenings and decided that she would be there every day this week.

How on earth can you exclaim ffs op from that?

^I scan over some of it-it needs to be clearly in OP or it will be missed.
Yes- I should read it all but I don't- I get the gist and miss bits!^

Fair enough in some threads, but when you're reading a sensitive one, or expressing strong views on difficult aspects of someone else's life, I'm afraid my view is don't comment if you can't be bothered to read with care. It takes less time to read than post, after all - and if you do cock it up, which Lord knows I have, then the decent solution is to apologise to the OP for failures in reading comprehension - I don't proclaim that the fault is theirs, when I've done this. Adds insult to injury, really.

AIBU is not a sensitive thread! Don't even ask if you want sensitive replies-try another area.