MIL sucking on baby’s hand

[SilverBirchTree]

My 4 month old baby is going through a phase of constantly sucking on his hands and fingers.

Yesterday MIL said to baby ‘you like having your fingers sucked don’t you?’ and proceeded to put her mouth around his entire hand and suck.

My involuntary facial expression was . Seeing my reaction, MIL said in a baby voice ‘it’s good for my immunity mummy’ and then turned to the baby and in baby talk said ‘you need to build up your resistance. That’s a big word, resistance’ and so forth.

...She then continued to suck on his hands and fingers in front of me....

AIBU or is her behaviour as obnoxious as I feel it was?

I don’t mind people touching or kissing the baby’s hands... but full on coating them in saliva just seems disgusting. And odd. And bloody disrespectful to carry on with if you know the mother isn’t ok with it.

But I’m a first time pedantic mother so happy to be told I am wrong and overreacting.

Any immunity experts? Any MIL advice?

This thread reminds me of the time I saw a colleague kiss another colleague's newborn on the mouth with a face full of cold sores. I told her to stop the second I saw her lips on his face, she was so "offended" that I embarrassed her, I was more concerned that cold sores can be fatal to young babies and that she should learn some boundaries with other people's newborns.

It doesn’t gross me out to be honest, but maybe next time you should say in a baby voice “Yes yes yes, and it’s good for grandma’s immunity too, because I just scratched my pooey bottom”

I am completely shocked by this....if my own mum would of done this I would of put her straight!!! That is weird and gross and it should never happen!! Never let this person babysit!!!

Silver Birch - I would have washed babies hand as well, weird MIL

He can hold up his immunity naturally...and there is nothing natural or normal about this.
She could pass all sorts of utter shit on to him...including herpes!!

Yuk. Tell her to leave the baby alone

(((Heaving))) !!
(She deserves a hard round house kick to the side of her piss taking head )

Op glad you washed hand in front of her, pretty sure immunity will be fine without mil slobber all over hands !

If she tries anything like that again i'd say to bubba in baby voice ...grandmas opinions have grown legs and are walking a very thin line right now.
Heres some drink it and launch empty bottle at mil .... "just building up your resistance to all the falls u will have when you get old "

Sounds like some weird fetish to me. Sucking someone else's fingers strikes me as a very sexual thing to do, so on a baby, ewww.

Me that's hysterical....

(She deserves a hard round house kick to the side of her piss taking head )

I’m imagining the reaction this suggestion would get if a man made it.

Seriously, some of you people need to get a grip.

How do you know i am not a man ?

I'd mention that I hadn't got round to washing the baby's hands after he stuck it in his pooey nappy........I just wiped it with a wet wipe....and watch her face.

Or... Ahh he just stuck his hand in my mouth too... It's almost like we're kissing Mil.

Boack

I totally agree with everyone except that "she's doing something that used to be normal" Really?? I can't believe that. Look at all the support you've got! It's brilliant and so right!
Don't let her hold him unless she promises to be sensible. Just tell her. She looks after him obeying your standards or she doesn't touch him. You're his mother! (I'm a granny hence mil also).

I do hope she never does that again. Do let us know if her behaviour changes, OP. We are all on your side here, genuinely appalled by your MIL!

Use the same patronising ‘through the medium of baby’ cooing she does to communicate in future if she carries on undermining you. I love a bit of passive aggressive banter but seriously there will be many moments when you will feel conflicted with PIL. By the time your kids are school age youll have enough anecdotes to fill a book or is that just me?
I have never seen someone suck a baby’s hand before. Weird and overbearing at the very least.

My MIL has sucked both my children's hands in front of me. She has done it when they were at the weaning stage and their hands were covered in food as a way of cleaning the mess off their hands. I was like but thought I was overreacting! PIL are very relaxed, baby centred, bit hippy. But seeing people's reactions on here makes me wonder if my disgust wasn't so out of line!

David Attenborough was wrong about Komodo dragons!

That is revolting

How do you know i am not a man ?

I suppose you may be, but here on MUMSnet, unless you have a name clearly indicating a male sex, the normal (and normally correct) assumption is that you are a woman.

Way to ignore the point though, that suggesting violence against an older woman because she did something her DIL didn’t like isn’t actually hilarious and clever, it’s frankly grosser than the behavior being objected to in the first place.

This is bloody disgusting. Definitely stand up for yourself. I am a walking doormat but when my MIL upset me when DD was 5 weeks old, I took her into another room and fed her to sleep and pretended to sleep. I just stayed there for 4 hours until she got the message. She never tried to take over after that because she knew it meant ending her visiting time with her DGD

Amazed it took four hours to get the message, and be sure she actually got the message you wanted to convey - or you could end up being called a martyr or anti-social.

@Cheesecake good for you, how is your relationship with MIL now?

@silverbirchtree it's fine now, not great but civil. It's slightly different to you in that we don't live close. So any time I take away from her is a big deal as it might be months before she can get over again.

But my MIL is very controlling (she won't call my DD by her name because she doesn't like it and she wanted to pass on her first name, she argued with us about giving her a middle name and a double barelled name. She tried persuading my DP that it was his decision. She had an argument with me because the hospital obviously puts Baby Mother's Surname on the foot label and apparently he should have demanded it said Baby Father's Surname. She is still like that and we will never be able to have the relationship i would like to have but at least she doesn't sit next to me anymore when I'm breastfeeding to make sure I'm doing it right or standing over her when changing her nappy saying how she would do it differently and walking around my flat complaining about how my furniture isn't connected to the wall, not understanding that I am not allowed to make holes in the wall as part of my contract. Etc. Etc.)