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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Mil keeps asking and asking

892 replies

Stormi12 · 27/07/2018 07:07

Mil has recently been begging to provide full time child care when I go back to work and even suggested she and fil take my 6 month old out by themselves. I do not like them. I do not want them around my child. Why on earth they think I’d let them take the baby out is beyond me.

Aibu to keep visits as a family as opposed to providing alone time?

OP posts:
Racecardriver · 27/07/2018 09:10

YANBU. By the sounds of it you have a lovely, willing, family member who wants to take care of your son so you can both get back to your careers but instead you are going to leave a very young child in a nursery just because you don't like that she has a close relationship with her children. I agree that she sounds slightly overbearing but only very slightly. No more overbearing than you. You don't like her so you don't want to give her the opportunity to develop a close bond with your baby. That's it basically isn't it. Quite selfish really. Both she and your baby will be missing out on what could've a lovely close relathionship. I have seen a lot of bad DIL/SIL rekathionships in my time and without exception they only occur when one party is behaving ridiculously. You are the ridiculous one. Obviously your MIL could accept bring pushed away from her son and grandson with a bit more grace but it's not unreasonable not to. It us however unreasonable to hold a grudge over things like kissing your DH on the lips or insulting you a tiny bit. Adults generally have the good sense to get over occasional lapses of judgement and differences in family dynamics fir the sake of family unity and peace fir all concerned. I suggest you out your big girl pants on. You don't have to use her for childcare if it duesbt work for some reason but you should get over this ridiculous grudge or yours, beyond having a different family dynamic that what you are used to and bring a bit of a string personality she hasn't done anything wrong. You sound like my MIL OP. She started of bring oversensitive like you but has descend into baselessly accusing people of horrendous things like child abuse and infidelity. Get a grip before you loose all control like her.

Weepingangels · 27/07/2018 09:11

I think yanbu especially given that your husband is in agreement with this and refusing your MIL because of her manipulations and coddling of him.

Boundries are important. Pick your battles and have your boundries.

missyB1 · 27/07/2018 09:12

I wonder what kind of weird upbringing Op had to have such funny views?
She thinks its abnormal to still have a relationship with your adult children
She thinks its abnormal to show physical affection to family members.
She thinks its abnormal for GPs to spend time alone with their Grandkids.
She thinks its perfectly normal to put a very young baby in full time Nursery when you dont need to.

OP the issue isn't your Mil, it's you!

HattieAndHerBoy · 27/07/2018 09:14

Her furnishing a nursery and buying equipment for a grandchild that doesn't live with her is creepy as duck. Normal mentally healthy people confer with the parents and buy the odd easy to store thing to use for visiting babies

I have a bedroom kitted out at home for the infants in the family as well as bedrooms for my older grandchildren. The bedrooms used to be their parents. When we have family gatherings that mean people stay overnight it all works out and everyone still has a bed.

One of my daughters also has a bedroom in her house thats for all her nieces and nephews when they do sleepovers. Last week she had 4 of them there.

We're all mentally sound.

SnuggyBuggy · 27/07/2018 09:14

The OP is already bringing her child to visit the grandparents on a regular basis. Should she be giving her baby to MIL for adoption if it would make her happy?

As for the bath thing, decent people don't ride roughshod over a mothers wishes even if they think the mother is unreasonable.

Bingpot · 27/07/2018 09:14

YANBU OP. I don't know why people are insulting you quite so much but you're clearly dealing with someone who doesn't respect your boundaries and you're trying to be accommodating by visiting regularly and not favouring DM by letting her do childcare and not MIL.

Stick to your guns.

leighdinglady · 27/07/2018 09:15

So the MIL might kiss the baby, give it a bath or visit friends?!?! What a monster Hmm

HesterShaw1 · 27/07/2018 09:15

A child is not a possession.

ElevenSmiles · 27/07/2018 09:21

This is a strange one, I agree MIL isn't the problem here.

Iizzyb · 27/07/2018 09:21

What Chottie said.

If you were on a thread complaining about mil doing free childcare & causing you loads of grief you do realise everyone would be saying put your child in paid childcare don't you?

I have a great dm but even then the pain that goes with her looking after him a day a week (pre-school age)and now picking him up from school a couple of days a week is sometimes not worth it mostly because my dsis who lives too far away for her to get help from dm stirs it A LOT.

Find a nice nursery or childminder and let dc make some friends and have different experiences Smile see family when it works for you & don't let mil control your life - looks like you and Dylan have the right idea xx

thricethebrindledcat · 27/07/2018 09:22

OP I think it would help you to try to defuse the relationship with MIL. Seeing her 4 times a month Shock would have driven me potty too. Make your own plans and tell MIL that her ideas don't work for you, but thanks for the offer.

YANBU and you have my sympathy, being pressured like you describe is not what you need.

Iizzyb · 27/07/2018 09:22

Who's Dylan??

Dh!

marmaladecats · 27/07/2018 09:22

God I wish I had a MIL (or mother) offering To do daycare! It costs us a bloody fortune for both.

SandyY2K · 27/07/2018 09:25

There's no drip feed. How much cab you say one post without writing a novel.

The MIL seems to have made assumptions that she'd look after her GC which one could well find annoying.

OP you seem not to want your baby to bond with his GM.

I can see that if she's forceful..it'll put you off...but it won't harm for her to babysit during an evening when you want to go out with your DH.

Or even let her have him for half a day or a couple of hours while you go shopping without the baby.

Try and be a bit flexible even though you don't like her. Maybe when he's older of you don't feel comfortable just yet..... but think about it. It really comes across as you hating her...not disliking her.

Grandparents like to show off their GC....It's natural.

GnomeDePlume · 27/07/2018 09:28

YANBU
Just because DMiL has raised her own children doesnt make her an expert in child-rearing. A lot of things have changed in approach since her own DCs were small. I know my DM dismissed a lot of current thinking as 'fashion' rather than based on research. Also memories of what was appropriate at different ages tend to get less clear.

My DM, when DCs were small, was always trying to extend whatever was being done so a coffee in the morning would become 'oh, but I thought you would be staying for lunch' so I got food in' (even though we had clearly said we had other plans). An meal in the evening would become 'oh I thought you would be staying the night so I got beds ready'.

It put me on edge waiting for the wobbly lipped guilt tripping. It meant that I would actually reduce what was agreed to just to keep the guilt trip to something I could handle.

crimsonlake · 27/07/2018 09:30

You have a grandmother who sounds like she would love to be involved in your child's life, she actually sounds lovely. Many posts on here from people wishing the gp were more involved. You do not have any valid reasons for not wanting to allow this apart from you actively disliking her. You do not come across as a nice person and for some reason you resent the close relationship your partners mother has with her own family. You need to develop some kindness and empathy, I would not like myself if I were you. You reap what you sow.

SnuggyBuggy · 27/07/2018 09:31

If there is one thing you should teach your kids it's that life is too short to try and please needy, manipulative adults.

witchofzog · 27/07/2018 09:37

I hope when your ds grows up his partner treats you better than you are treating his mother. You sound bloody awful op. And you have been drip feeding on this thread too. Why would you say you think a bath isn't for fun first before mentioning your ds has sensitive skin later in the thread? Hmm

TabbyMumz · 27/07/2018 09:37

Some people on here are really against nurseries. Yes a lot of the staff are on minimum wage, but there have been threads on here saying how highly trained the majority of them are. Some of them state they virtually have teacher status. The majority of nursery workers have years of experience with babies and young children, and nurseries are extremely well run and have to pass Ofsted and safety checks. Please don't run nurseries down as the big bad wolf of childcare. I think the op has had a lot of stick here. So she doesn't want the Mil to look after her baby. Her choice entirely. Yes they may have been parents of young babies once, but it sounds like that was a long time ago, and setting up a nursery without the op ever agreeing the baby could stay over night is just weird and controlling. I can totally understand why that would worry the op. I didn't let my in laws look after my baby either (they only asked once, and that was Christmas Day). If they wanted to see my baby, they had to see me and be nice to me too. Otherwise, totally unacceptable. You have to trust your instincts and if the OP doesn't trust the mil, thats totally up to her. As for saying it's wrong the baby is in childcare whilst there are two sets of GPS wanting to look after baby, so what. Nothing wrong with that at all if it's the parents choice. The MIL sound overbearing and manipulative to me.

ElevenSmiles · 27/07/2018 09:38

It's obvious OP doesn't want her kid to have a good relationship with ILs, nothing they do will ever be right, Hope none of my sons bring home someone like OP.NIGHTMARE.

LanguageAsAFlower · 27/07/2018 09:38

Can your MIL look after my baby? I'd kill for some family nearby offering this! I'm having to put off buying a house for three years because of the cost of childcare!

CocoaGin70 · 27/07/2018 09:38

My god I hope this is a bored teenager posting this and isn't a real person. No one could possibly be that nasty in RL Confused

IWannaSeeHowItEnds · 27/07/2018 09:43

My ILs never looked after my dc by themselves and they still had a loving and close relationship with them. They visited regularly, played with the kids, gave them their undivided attention fed them too many sweets and it was fine. I got on with my housework for some of the time and left them to it, so I wasn't watching their every move.
You don't have to hand over your baby in order for gps to develop a bond.

crazychemist · 27/07/2018 09:45

At 6 months it is perfectly reasonable to want to keep your baby with you, just keep saying you don't think baby is old enough to be away from you. Do you have bf to use as an excuse?

Full time childcare clearly won't suit you as you are uncomfortable with how she parents. Would you consider her doing one day? It would reduce your childcare costs and give her the opportunity to bond. She may also be useful for some evening babysitting later if you don't upset her now. Get DH to speak to her about boundaries - that you don't want her to kiss on lips as this is not how you choose to show affection to baby and you want all caregivers to be consistent.

Setting up the room etc does sound a bit over the top, but she's probably just excited! My DD isn't even two, but I highly expect if I ever have GC I might get a bit over enthusiastic now and then!

My DMIL stormed off from her last visit and won't speak to me because she doesn't get enough "alone time" with my DD. But I'm not budging because she won't respect my boundaries (I really don't like her smoking while she is really close e.g. Pushing the buggy ot carrying her) and because she often falls asleep when I have asked her to supervise (I could hear DD crying in the paddling pool, when I went out DMIL was fast asleep in a chair). She raised your DH, so I think you owe her a bit of leeway IF she can respect your rules. Give it a go when DC is a bit older and see if she can manage that.

What is the problem with her seeing her friends? Is it because you'd rather she did different thi

liquidrevolution · 27/07/2018 09:45

She sounds tiresome and I agree with setting boundaries now.

I have a complicated relationship with my in laws as everything has to be on their terms. DD was full time at nursery and when they quibbled i just said how lovely that they would be around to do emergency childcare. Which i knew full well I would never use.