to be frustrated and upset with MIL

[grumpyismymiddlename]

I've name changed for this because mil is generally lovely and I don't want to be outed but I just need a rant about this I feel really weird about it.

I'm pregnant with Dc2 and mil offered to buy us bottles and asked what ones would we like. I said avent natural. So then next time I'm down she said to me she had ordered a box but when they came they were pink so need to send them back (don't know sex) but showed me them.and asked if it was the right kind anyway. I said no that's just the normal avent ones it's the natural ones I'd prefer.

So yesterday I'm down and she said she had the new bottles in and went and got them. She produced the box and said it's the normal ones again but I mean they'll be fine a bottles a bottle and gave me them.

So I said well actually the reason I wanted the natural was because I'm planning on breastfeeding this time and the natural claim to be the best for expressed/mixed feeding bf babies.

The mention of breastfeeding provoked a bit of an unexpected reaction from mil I was really taken aback. She ranted on about how I'll have a screaming baby who will be starving and will lose weight and fail to thrive.

Thankfully sil was there and I think she could see I was getting upset and she intervened but that lead to her and mil having a bf/ff argument. I really just sat there thinking why the fuck did I even open my mouth I should've just taken the bottles and said thank you

Anyway AIBU in think a) if you ask someone what they want you get them it? I'm now left with a box of bottles I won't use and I feel bad because mil has spent money on them and I am greatful but I just won't use them I have bought the natural myself as really want to try to breastfeed.

And b) you don't tell someone how to feed their baby

That's a very strange idea. I BF DS and he is healthier than most of his class mates who were FF. Conversly my MIL who is from overseas would have been shocked if I had FF, it's not common to FF there. Once you get the hang of it assuming no issues you'll not really want to bother with bottles. I tried to express but DS was a bottle and dummy refuser, he definitely thought I must be tricking him!

Thanks for the support everyone I really appreciate it.
I feel really bad even starring this thread on usually get on well with mil. We do definitely have different parenting ideas however this is the first time she's ever openly criticised my choices and made me feel like I'm doing the wrong thing. I know I'm not but it's hard not to take these things to heart. Especially when I'm nervous about it anyway.

I don't know about the hitting a nerve about it she did say when she had her pfb the mw handed him to her to give it a go and she said she tried for a second then gave him back to the mw and said no that's too sore just take him and give him a bottle. It came across as don't even bother trying because you won't be able to do it. Rather than she regretted it iyswim?

Interesting thread - my mums here now, so this is straight from the horses mouth!! She had all three of us in the 80's in hospital. I was the first, a normal straightforward delivery and mum was in hospital for 8 days! Dad was sent out of the delivery room whilst she was being examined but he was allowed to stay for the birth. I was taken to the hospital nursery each night. I was breast fed, but for the 1st few days I was given small bottles of ready-made formula at night so mum could get some sleep. She was made to lie on the bed every morning and there was a quiet time after lunch until visitors were allowed in. She was told to feed between 3 and 4 hourly. The advice was to put babies to sleep on their fronts and to offer cooled boiled water between feeds.

Mum was one of the lucky ones and had absolutely no problems breast feeding at all, I was fed for the longest and finally gave up the night feed at 14 months. The other two fed for between 9 months and a year. None of us had a dummy or a bottle but because I cried a lot mum quickly learned to offer the breast more regularly and she followed this with my siblings. She told me to say that at first she never fed me in front of anyone other than my dad but by the time she got to her third child she didn't care where she fed or who saw her.

I breastfed my daughter and used the standard Avent bottles for expressing - they were the only type available then - so I think you are getting yourself into a stew for nothing over the bottles.

MIL's attitude is something else. You say she's normally lovely so it sounds like she's got an historical issue with breastfeeding and has been subtly trying to influence you to do what she genuinely believes is best. The rant happened when she found it wasn't working.

Try to ignore it while sticking to your decision. Your way of feeding your baby is fine for you and you'll do your best to make it work. Your SIL is onside so MIL probably felt ganged up on. Doesn't mean she's right to say what she did, though.

Breastfeeding on demand was recommended in the 1960s. I know, because I was there and did it with my 4 children. It was during the 30s or earlier that strictly 4 hour feeding came into vogue, as proposed by Dr. Truby King, the Gina Ford of that era.

I was born in 1971, in north London, and my mum was kept in the maternity hospital for a week which was standard at the time. The stories she tells about that week are terrible. 4 hourly feeds only, rationed nappies, not allowed to cuddle your baby in case you "spoilt" it. They shouted at her and insisted she move to ff me because I lost a couple of oz post birth! When she left her confidence was in shreds.

So to those posters who describe feeding on demand as being standard practice back then - not everywhere it wasn't.

MIL sounds really defensive about you BF. Either that or she is controlling and can see that if you BF she won't be feeding the baby? Either way she needs to butt the fuck out.

If bf meant babies failed to thrive, the human race would have died out a long time ago I think.

I have no intention of turning this into a BF/FF thread as it's such a personal thing. However, as MIL seems set on filling your head with negatives, here's some positives from me.

I EBF both my DC and they were consistently in the high percentiles of weight (they were a little chubby tbh) I found bf really easy and far less faff than FF. I always felt really sorry for friends who were FF and couldn't do spontaneous things like I could because they had to factor in sterilising, heating bottles, etc. My DC were both good sleepers, although of course we still had some night crying and when they were very little I would feed them in the night when they woke and cried, but you would do that with a FF baby too wouldn't you?

I agree with PP to distance yourself from her a bit when you establish BF and don't feel worried about saying cheerily "Am just going upstairs to feed baby, let yourselves out if I am ages." This is your baby, not hers. You and DH get to decide.

I'm in a constant cycle of smile - nod - thanks - eBay with my MIL. It's much easier than trying to get her to change the waterfall of unsuitable crap that she tries to pour into my house.

BFing provoked a strange reaction from my family too. Not the "unnatural" stuff; but more that baby would never be off the breast and it wasn't fair that they would want to feed the baby too [Mmm] Once baby was born I was told in no uncertain terms that the quality of my milk was no good and that baby was not getting enough. When I started on the bottle there were sighs of relief and "I told you so" comments all around. I can only conclude it must be a generational thing.

I started off BF and after getting the tongue tie sorted established it quite well after a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, when I tried mixed feeding, I ended up stopping BF after 4 months as I was struggling to get enough milk so I wish I hadn't bothered with the FF at all.

I'm a granny and MIL as well as having a 6yr DS and I wouldn't dream of interfering with how my DiL chooses to feed her son. She very competent anyway and if she asks me for advice, I'm not upset if she then chooses to do something different.

Is your MIL very involved with your first child? I think if you haven't set clear boundaries previously, maybe she just expects to be equally involved in all the important decisions?

I think you need to tell her to back off as its really none of her business unless you had asked her for help and then it's entirely up to you how to progress.

Just tell her that this time around, you feel a lot more confident about parenting and you're going to try things differently and would appreciate her full support. If she's still overly critical, tell her straight that you don't appreciate it and as a result, you're less likely to involve her in the future.

I think there were very mixed messages given out in the 70s and early 80s. Breast was best, yes, officially, but a lot of older HCPs hadn't taken the message on board, didn't know about feeding on demand, not to a schedule, and there was an assumption that at some stage you would need to bottle feed (not called formula then) so why not have some in?

Definitely generational: even in the early 80s DH's cousin was constantly nagged to offer top-up bottles by her numerous aunts. My DM, of the same generation, thought her milk was 'no good' because it was thinner and more bluish than nice creamy cows milk. Only seeing me BF successfully convinced her that it could work, and then she was sad about how she had been made to feel a failure because of the dud advice she had been given.

Try not to let it upset you. I suspect your MIL is like those above, and has her own unresolved issues.

MIL called me backwards for wanting to BF my DC. I had been BF in the 70s but DH was FF. She is of the school of thought that anything natural is primitive, and anything processed is 'scientifically improved' - so butter bad, Benecol good, fresh veg bad (FIL boasts about no vegetable having passed his lips in 60 years!!), fortified cereal good etc In her eyes, I was causing real harm to her GD through my ignorance. And in my opinion I was doing everything I could to act in her GD's best interests, so we definitely clashed over it!

She stormed out of the post-natal ward because I wanted to feed DD during visiting hours. She would come round to my house and tut and sigh and say 'haven't you managed to get her on the bottle yet?', and call me selfish for not letting my DH (or her) bottle-feed DD. Our very kind health visitor sat down with DH to talk through BFing and how best to support me, and also offered to have a word with MIL next time she was over if DH did not!

Unfortunately MIL was a nurse pre-retirement and convinced that she is an expert in all things health-related so it has been a hard slog at times. I also ebayed the constant stream of bottles coming into the house!

YANBU - some people are just difficult!

Can you not take them back and change them, for something else?

From what you've just said about her BF,she's reacted the way she has because she feels like she'll be judged because she didn't BF and you are.Of course she won't be,this is her reflecting how she feels about it onto you.
It's nothing you've done or said so try to ignore it.

With the bottles I'd see if you can exchange them or sell them and get the one's you want and please don't let your MIL's views worry you about your baby getting enough.I breastfed all of our 5DC and none of them ever lost weight they always gained and were well above the national average on the centiles for height and they're weight was inline with how long they were.

It's like living in the land of the giants in our house now.

She would come round to my house and tut and sigh and say 'haven't you managed to get her on the bottle yet?', and call me selfish for not letting my DH (or her) bottle-feed DD.

I ff both of mine and with dd2 refused to let anyone else other than dh feed her for quite a while. Dd1 had been a fussy feeder and I can still see her twisting the bottle round in her poor little mouth. I don't think that feeding tiny babies is something for 'turns' like a fairground ride so its a strange thing that its identified as an issur for bfing. I would never demand to feed someone's tiny baby for my own entertainment. Just odd.

It we mil btw twisting the bottle. Dm I'd just have said 'why are you doing that?'

I told my mum about it yesterday because I had to pop in to her on my way home from mil and it was upsetting me still so had to offload to her. I try not to say anything negative about mil to my dm because I know dm is judgey about how mil favours Bils dcs over mine. So I don't like to give dm any reason to disapprove of mil but I couldn't help it yesterday.

Anyway they've both just turned up at my house at the same time there! They're gone now and thankfully the subject was avoided but for a while there i thought it was going to get brought up again. Especially as mil was dropping off a steriliser I thought my mum might use it as an excuse to get a little dig in. But it was all very pleasant and civilised.

23 years ago I was kept in hospital for approx 10 days the baby was taken away and only returned every 4 hours and everything the baby needed was provided even clothes!

Grumpy have you joined the NCT? I found it very helpful to my confidence, knowing that I had a support network of like minded mums and a breastfeeding counsellor that I could call on if need be.

It's probably out of print now, but there was a very good breastfeeding book called "The Experience of Breastfeeding" by Sheila Kitzinger. I found it invaluable.

Stand your ground. Your MIL has had her children and done things her way. Now, this is your child and your MIL should have no say in the decisions about how to feed.

DM fed on demand in the 80s, however MIL at the same time fed to schedule every 4 hours, 10 minutes each side. Apparently this was the advice she was given. She thinks I create a lot of work for myself by doing it on demand, as I am regularly told. She also is an advocate of rice in the bottle, letting babies get tired by exhausting themselves crying "why are you trying to settle her, she will tire herself out eventually", crying it out (i.e. ignore a baby all night), not spoiling a baby by giving her attention, weaning at 4 months, pretty much force feeding solids etc.

All very difficult, try and very politely say "advice has changed".

I do think some GPs, and particularly MILs prefer scheduled/bottle feeding because it enables them to take the DGC for alone time at a much earlier age as they are not glued to the mum.

So good luck OP, don't let anyone change the way you want to feed your baby, I think a lot of tongue biting will be needed with MIL, try and be sympathetic, explain that advice has changed, and of course she did the best thing with the advice at the time. Do be aware however, that this might be the tip of the iceberg with differences in parenting style, and there may be future challenges ahead - like sleep overs if the GP has a different view on sleep training to you and when they should happen and for how long and diet (I really don't want her to have a sweet tooth, but I suspect this will be unavoidable has MIL will just tell her "not to tell nasty mummy" about all the chocolate and fizzy drinks) . Does SIL have kids? If so maybe have a chat with her about what her parenting style is and what challenges she has faced? Avoid being antagonistic about MIL, but you might get a useful insight.

Ds was bf on demand in the 80s . Dd the same in the 90s. Dd used to go 5 or 6 hours from the word go. Both were chubby and transferred easily to a feeding cup when ready

Here's a newer version of the Sheila Kitzinger book. Still available second hand.

Meant to add I did get a lot of stick from sils for bf. Just ignore if you can

The bottle issue is a red herring. There is nothing more "natural" about one than the other, just because the packaging says so.

I've never heard in real life of a baby getting nipple confusion, they're perfectly clever enough to feed from both if introduced early enough. It's the bottle refusing after 3 to 4 months of exclusive BF that's more of a real issue

I've never heard in real life of a baby getting nipple confusion

Oh well in that case it can't possibly be true and everything you've read saying otherwise was written by big fat liars.

OR, it does exist, you've just not personally come into contact with it?