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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

MIL sucking on baby’s hand

328 replies

SilverBirchTree · 22/02/2018 06:23

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 Shock. 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?

OP posts:
PerfumeIsAMessage · 22/02/2018 08:12

Perfume is clearly a liar.

Thanks for that Gnu.

I hadn't realised I had some weird pathology.

I remember both my grandmothers doing it to babies, my MIL (86) does it to babies, and my older SILs (all in their late 60s) do it.

They chomp on babies' toes for some bizarre reason as well. Try to give them chocolate when they're about 2 months old. Etc etc.

Soup- quite. What kind of goings on one must have in their head to make that leap is far more disturbing than some granny sucking a baby's finger will ever be.

Speedy85 · 22/02/2018 08:12

PILs can believe all kinds of odd things.

I’ve got one who thinks eating a spoonful of soil is a natural medicine Hmm

mathanxiety · 22/02/2018 08:13

SoupDragon
The sight of someone sucking someone else's body part would not cause you to wonder if there was a sexual overtone to it?

Additionally, to start off, get interrupted by a clearly disapproving facial gesture on the part of the mother, and then resume, as the MIL did, shows that this woman cannot be trusted with the baby.

Amberlight003 · 22/02/2018 08:13

Oh and I got the wipes out and cleaned them straight away. It’s just rank having mil dry spit all over my babies hands.

mathanxiety · 22/02/2018 08:15

Perfume, she sucked the whole hand. Not just a finger.

My mother is 85 this year and her sisters are 88 and 78. None of them has ever done what this MIL did. My elderly aunts and grandmothers didn't do it either. They would all be well into their second century if they were alive now.

WazFlimFlam · 22/02/2018 08:15

Perfumedisamessage when on earth was this considered NORMAL?!

It's comments like that, normalising bat shit behaviour in older generations that leads to ageism on these threads.

Ickyockycocky · 22/02/2018 08:17

How bizarre! That’s just wrong, tell her to stop.

Rumpledfaceskin · 22/02/2018 08:18

I have to say my first thought was that it was perverted but I didn’t want to be the 1st to say it. Sucking on someone else’s body part just does have weird sexual connotations as it’s not a normal way to interact, even if it is with a baby. Kissing, blowing raspberries on tummy’s is different.

Youvegotafriendinme · 22/02/2018 08:19

I’m not anal with germs at all but even this made me feel a bit sick! Why would you put a babies hand in your mouth! 🤢🤢

SeaCabbage · 22/02/2018 08:19

You are only four months in. I reckon you've got a lot more shit to come if you don't start nipping things in the bud now. You made a good start, washing his hands. Next time you could try " I don't want you to do that". If she argues say, "I still don't want you to do that".

Mind you I love the PP's response - in baby voice - "Grandma's talking bollocks isn't she darling?" Grin

I do believe that weirdos like this will continue but are cowardly and if you calmly tell them to stop then they will because they have been challenged. But they have to be challenged.

athingthateveryoneneeds · 22/02/2018 08:20

Gross, but probably not harmful. I wouldn't let it happen again, mind!!

ShamelesslyPlacemarking · 22/02/2018 08:20

Out of interest barring your own child and Sexual behaviour have you EVER casually sucked someone hand?

Couldn’t honestly say. I may well have nommed on the fingers of a friend’s baby. There was no alarmed reaction to make it stick in my memory. Never sucked a finger sexually and can’t imagine doing so.

snewsname · 22/02/2018 08:20

Beside the obvious, also why should you have to to have her dried saliva over your hands when you next touch him. Gross.

AwayAndStuffYourself · 22/02/2018 08:20

Zzzzz, you have no idea what I went through, or why it was so difficult for me, or why it had such a lasting impact on me. But thank you for thinking that you do, and for assuming it's because I didn't do those things, and for commenting so unkindly. My advice stands. There are ways of doing things if you do not want to create lifelong family conflict and bad feeling. Some of the comments on here are quite frankly ridiculous.

MarshaBradyo · 22/02/2018 08:21

It really does make me recoil to imagine it, next time I’d have to say stop and probably look how I felt

RitasEducation · 22/02/2018 08:23

Yanbu. Some people's mouth germs are worse than a toilet seat. All the bacteria, live germs pooping in your mouth yuck.

I wouldn't think it was perverted, just disgusting, yuck.

ShamelesslyPlacemarking · 22/02/2018 08:28

This thread is truly blowing me away. People are talking about mouths as though they are open sewers. You people do kiss your partners... right? Or do you get them to gargle with antiseptic first? Ever share an ice cream with your kids? Hold something in your mouth when you have no hands free? Lick a finger while cooking or let your kids lick a spoon?

mathanxiety · 22/02/2018 08:29

Shamelessly
1 - Are you implying that the child’s grandmother is being sexually or physically abusive? For being affectionate with her own grand baby in full public view of the mother?!

2 - ^Couldn’t honestly say. I may well have nommed on the fingers of a friend’s baby. There was no alarmed reaction to make it stick in my memory. Never sucked a finger sexually and can’t imagine doing so.

So you are saying this is affection and not sexual.

Have you ever sucked a hand affectionately?

(It is the fact that this was done in full public view of the mother that is part of the problem here.)

callmeadoctor · 22/02/2018 08:32

Who ever said that was normal for Grandparents, from that generation, I am a Grandparent from that generation. Absolutely weird thing to do. Kiss fingers and toes, yes but definitely not putting in mouth (makes me feel sick typing it!)

MrsElvis · 22/02/2018 08:33

Wtf?!!!!!

I don't think you need to even explain it to her. Just a stern "DONT DO THAT AGAIN" Should suffice.

It's not her baby

KimchiLaLa · 22/02/2018 08:35

Eww
Has she ever smelt your babies hand? Mine smells disgusting, I make a special point of washing her tiny fingers in the bath each night as they really do stink Shock

paxillin · 22/02/2018 08:35

Yeuch.

TheFirstMrsDV · 22/02/2018 08:35

I am pretty lax as a parent. I have five kids so PFBery.
Its horrible.

I have never known it to be a normal thing to do. I'm 50 so GMs in their 70s and 80s and my own GMs would be 100+ and they never did it.
Thank God.

I hate the cleaning of dummies by sucking them too. Now that was normal.
My DS's aunt did it to his dummy once. He got thrush. Only one of my DCs ever to get oral thrush.

ShamelesslyPlacemarking · 22/02/2018 08:36

Have you ever sucked a hand affectionately?

Not on an adult, but I don’t blow raspberries on adults’ tummies either, or fly them over my head or play Incy-Wincy Spider or take deep blissful sniffs of the tops of their heads or play peekaboo by covering their eyes or any of the other physically engaging activities you tend to do with pre-speech babies. Hmm

mathanxiety · 22/02/2018 08:38

And while I have no issue really with the germ aspect of this, people don't dabble the hands of a 4 month old in the loo or give them spoonfuls of cake batter. This is because they can get really sick, and diarrhoea in particular can be dangerous for them as they can get dehydrated. Babies' immune systems are not as developed as older children's. Sensible people try not to even expose their babies to the common cold because it can set them back quite a bit in sleeping habits and feeding can suffer. You can't give them the same medicines that you can give older children to fight a cold.

So people can kiss other (consenting) adults, share ice cream and cake batter and forkfuls of each other's dinner, but obviously none of this is relevant wrt 4 month old babies.

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