AIBU to not want other people to bath my baby ?

[MummyCat1711]

We have a 5mo and live near my inlaws but 300miles from my parents. My DS is the second grandchild for my inlaws and they see my nephew several times a week and my FIL used to look after him for a whole day a week before he started school.

My inlaws have literally only seen our baby a few times and have never offered to help me in anyway with him. A few weeks ago
I got upset and told my DH that I felt unsupported . He agreed that his parents make way more effort with the other grandchild compared to with our DS and asked them to see him more.

Since then both of them have messaged me and asked to see him which is great... the only issue is my FIL has started coming over every week to bath the baby. I told him that the baby gets a bit ratty around 5.30 and his bed time is 6-6.30 so it would be best if he came at 4.30. He’s self employed and works from home so there’s no reason why he couldn’t come at this time.

All three times he’s come to do this he’s arrived about 5.20 by which time the baby is grumpy and needs to be in the bath and then to sleep. FIL wants to play with him and the baby always ends up crying ..... I know a lot of people say “my baby never cries” but unless my DS is tired or hungry he really doesn’t cry much, he loves bathtime normally but all three times FIL has bathed him he’s been inconsolably crying.
He then demands to hold him after the bath when all the baby wants is a breastfeed and a cuddle from me to fall asleep. FIL holds him while he cries and it makes me feel sick to watch, all I want to do is take DS off him. When FIL leaves the baby is then past the point of tiredness and takes hours to settle to sleep when normally he’d b asleep and settled by 6.30.

I feel guilty because I can see FIL is making an effort to see the baby but I dont think it’s fair to keep upsetting DS , he’s ruining his bath time and making him overtired.

Also part of the reason we wanted the inlaws to see the baby more was to take a little bit of pressure off me, but this situation is just making my days longer and more frustrating by having to deal with an overtired baby all evening which then leaves no time for me and my DH to even eat tea in peace or have a conversation.

Any chance you could just go ahead with your normal routine and then when they come over if the baby is asleep tell him, if not tell him he's bathed and you're going to play or ask could he read him a story or something. Sounds like he's seriously old school if he's doing the 'he needs to get used to other people' thing

It’s your baby, not some old git’s Who happens to be related to your husband

Oh come on thats just nasty. Its her husbands Dad!

It's weird that he's decided he wants to start bathing the baby. Not remotely suggesting there's anything inappropriate going on, but there are plenty of more useful/less disruptive things he could have chosen, right?

Well what are you suggesting then?

He wants to bath the baby because that was what he used to do with my nephew at SILs request.

I definitely don’t think self employed people are free all the time, but until September he had my nephew one day a week and now has that day back again until he picks nephew up from school at 3.

I do take the baby over on weekends but he wanted to come over in the week too.

I agree that it seems unreasonable that I’ve asked for help and now am not happy with it but I didn’t anticipate that the baby would be so unsettled by it.

This thread is genuinely helpful and I think what I will do is tell FIL that the bath thing isn’t working and see if we can arrange a morning or afternoon thing.

Also I deffo don’t expect help with the baby, it was just that PIL see the other grandchild 3-5 times a week and always have, so I guess I thought they’d want to do the same with my LO.
My SIL has a timetable with who’s looking after her LO and doing what when and tells both sets of grandparents what they’re doing, I’m not that confident and would never ask anyone to come and see my baby, but in hindsight maybe I should have been more prescriptive about what I want them to do and when.

I just don’t want to seem bossy to ungrateful because I know lots of people don’t have any help at all. My mum was a single mum and we didn’t see our extended family .

You asked for help
He is not helping - he is doing the opposite
And it is making your life worse not better, including stressing you emotionally
MIL is apparently doing nothing

I would find it very weird if my baby's GP showed up and the first thing they wanted to do was bath my baby
Like a PP has said, not suggesting anything inappropriate per say, but it would make me instantly uncomfortable
And no way would I be ok with someone not handing baby back over when distressed - you shouldn't even need to ask and NO WAY should they refuse to do it
That would result in them leaving my house promptly

Sounds like you need to sort out boundaries
Decide what you want / your expectations are
Then find out whether the GP are willing to meet those
For example - were you more looking for help with light housework during the day? - someone to look after baby for an hour or two at the weekend while you go for a coffee?
You need to communicate this
And maybe introduce a house rule of no visitors after 4.30pm 'it's great that we tried it but unfortunately baby has been very unsettled, can we change the time you visit to x as feel that would work better for baby'

Next time fil is around at your house for a meal, you have yours but make fil wait for 3 hours until he can have his - maybe that will help him to realise quite how inconsiderate he is being... Or if baby wakes in the middle of the night you could call him to tell him... Anything to disrupt his routine and cause him some grief and make him realise that he's being really thoughtless.

OK so probably might have to tweak the first one to just ask him why you should serve him now, rather than make him wait for hours as he does to your baby. And dream of other ways to disrupt his routine... but might be worth a shot!

For what it's worth I do think he is unreasonable to be quite so inconsiderate. Could you talk to MIL and find out what is going on, and why fil is determined to cause so much grief to you and the baby? particularly given that you have told him / asked him to come at a different time and said it is causing problems. If you talk to MIL she'll probably say don't be ridiculous, he doesn't realise (then get into a discussion to say that you have told him so what else can you do to make him realise) or specifically invite him at a different time or ??? Hopefully she might help to make him realise that he is making things worse. Actually, you need to get dh to have this conversation with mil and fil separately to see if he can get them to understand.

Do you really need his help at bath time? Or would it be more appreciated earlier in the day when there are errands to run, housework to do, maybe even....a friend to meet for coffee?
Why can't you say "I really appreciate you coming to help at bath time, but I'd really really really appreciate you taking X out for a walk in the pushchair while I hoover round, mow the lawn, plonk on the sofa?
I can't imagine letting anyone except the baby's father bath my baby unless I was hovering around in the background too, and that's not really helping you is it.

The minute my baby is bathed and in her pyjamas (which sometimes my mum does if she's around) everyone has automatically left me to feed her and put her to bed. It really doesn't work for babies to be being played with just before bed.

You know that, I'm just saying it to support you so that you feel you can lay out for FIL how it needs to be. 'Baby loves seeing you FIL but he's so excited to see you that it's difficult to wind him down for bedtime. Earlier in the day will be better. What would suit you best, morning or afternoon?'.

"Next time fil is around at your house for a meal, you have yours but make fil wait for 3 hours until he can have his"

Yes, do this. Making an obscure, passive-aggressive dig is always going to be much more productive than politely stating that an ongoing arrangement isn't working for you as well as you'd hoped.

Not to labour the self-employed point, but just because he no longer has your nephew, does not mean that time is now free. He may have re-arranged other contracts or taken on a new project to fill that time.

Your lack of confidence may be making you appear prickly. Perhaps just speak to FIL and say 'It's lovely to see you but you're not seeing baby at his best and it always feels rushed so let's re-arrange to xx'

Just tell him the baby has vomited / pooed himself and you had to bath him earlier. Then just tell him the earlier time works better for you and bath the baby at this time each day - don’t wait for your father in law! To be honest, I would not have complained about their lack of involvement. People get to decide how much time they want to help with babies. If you want help - ask for it and be specific as to what help you want. Complaining someone is not doing enough to help you with the baby you chose to have - never goes down well.

but what was supposed to be help isn’t really working out that way!

FIL is not a stupid man - and he has enough childcare experience to know and understand that what he's doing isn't right or even good for the baby.

My feeling is he is doing this deliberately in order to be passive aggressive in response to the 'complaint' from you and dp.
You know, the 'you asked for help and now that i give it you're still complaining/you're never happy/you're unreasonable' spiel

I don't think your dp should have 'told' his parents to become more involved in the first place.
I can understand wanting the support but nobody should be guilt tripped into it - it's not a competition between your child and nephew.
If they don't want to do so of their own free will then no good will come from emotionally blackmailing them into it.....as you can see for yourself now.

I think the best way to manage this now is to assert yourself re your boundaries and pre-empt any game-playing.....and if that results in in-laws reverting back to type then accepting that they just don't want to be as involved.

Give FIL a couple of options timewise re when is a good time for him to come round and play/hold your baby.....if he won't/can't and insists it's 'my way or no way' - then you're just going to have to do without their support.

Yanbu OP. Being the parents of second grandchild can be tricky.

Employ the shit sandwich delivery of instructions and I think you'll make progress here.

Yanbu OP. Being the parents of second grandchild can be tricky.

We’re the parents of PIL’s eldest grandchild (of 7).

The OP’s FIL has shown her baby more attention in 3 short visits than PIL have to DD in 7 years. She ought to have a bit of gratitude. I get the sense she feels she’s owed by the in laws.

Troodiedoo- yes I think the 2nd grandchild thing deffo might be a factor, they seem to expect my LO to be the same as his nephew, they are very different babies ( as all babies are) mine is EBF, cosleeping, won’t take a dummy or bottle , loves being in a sling.... my SIL was more of a Gina Ford Mum and he was bottle fed so GPs could get more involved with feeds too .

OP - please for the love of god change your username: it's incredibly outing with both your child's name and DOB. The Daily Mail will love this, your in-laws less so.
You see them at the weekend, why would you want him over in the week as well? Don't let anyone upset your baby and deprive them of sleep and a boob. Release your lioness!

Sorry to say this but you are DIL not DD, your relationship and the demands you can make are not the same so it isn’t going to help to make comparisons. A lot of people live many miles away from family and have no support at all. They manage.

HatingTheBigShow - thanks I didn’t even think of that! I’ve changed it but it seems the name on old posts doesn’t change?

Pearlsaringer - yes I agree, being DIL is probs why it’s different. I didnt expect any help as I said my mum was a single mum with no extended family at all and she managed , it was more my husband that planted the seed that they should be helping when I said I was getting exhausted ( at the time DS was going through the 4month sleep regression and I was exhausted and had tonsiltilis) DH works long hours with a 90 min commute each way......( he’s just got a new job to be home mor) if I was tired he might say “why don’t you ask my mum/dad to help”

You might need to report the thread to MNHQ @op, and ask them if they can change your username to your current one, instead of the previous, outing one.

If your DD is reliant on you for food and sleep (and no issue with that) then surely giving a bath is one of the few “looking after” things that grandparents can do? My dad used to travel back every other month and loved giving DD a bath. My mum (when Home) would pounce within seconds of a new nappy being needed or bottle being ready (I exclusively expressed) giving me a chance to get 10 minutes to myself. It was a welcome oasis and I wouldn’t have dreamed of being difficult about it. We weren’t routine focussed and went for later bedtimes etc.

Pick your battles carefully.

Thanks!

And yes the daily mail is a disgusting rag

My PIL only have sons. They’ve provided full time care for their other 6 grandchildren but haven’t visited us/DD for over 3 years. It’s not just a DIL thing.

The difference I can see is your SIL is having your FIL for childcare/school pick up as she is work I’m assuming?
You aren’t back at work and therefore have a slightly different take on it.

For you, it’s more of a relaxed set up.

You’re FIL obviously thinks that he isn’t helping, because that’s what your SIL found helpful for her DS.

Why don’t you say to FIL “ rather than a week night, how about you pop round Saturday afternoon etc, then you can take him for a walk in his prom”.

That way, you can nap whilst they’re out of the house or get some jobs done etc.

The Daily Mail is indeed a worthless, disgusting rag.

However, I would not like anyone but myself or my husband bathing our child. It's a private time, to me. And quite a vulnerable situation, for a child who doesn't know him very well.

just bath your baby at 4:30 and when FIL comes let him have some cuddles before the bedtime routine begins?