Feeling pressured to let MIL look after baby

[flamingox]

My LO is 8 weeks old. Both grandmothers are desperate to take her out without me and look after her. My mum understands that I'm not ready for that and LO is still too young to be away from me for a day so we do stuff together.

My MIL is not so understanding. She sees LO less than once a week so doesn't know her well - doesn't know her little ways, how she likes to be settled etc so I wouldn't have 100% confidence that everything would be ok. However she texts me weekly asking to have her, saying it will do us both good to have a break. I'm running out of excuses but my partner hates going against his mum and will do anything to please her so I know in the next few weeks he will be pressuring me to let her take her for the day. How do I go about this without causing conflict?!

I don't understand at all why grandparents feel the need to have the baby alone, especially at such a tiny age. My mom and MIL did the same. I told them 'no thanks, I don't feel the need to be away from her and it wouldn't be a break for me, I'd worry too much about her' every time. It took about 6 months but they got the message. You need to get your DP to realise that you aren't ready to leave her. And if you don't want to let her look after her whilst you bath/nap then you don't have to either. It's when you're ready to.

^this. My MIL or DM never ever offered to have either of my DC. Emergencies only. From what I read on here it seems others are batting people away. I was so desperate for a break from childcare I went back to work at four months. And the coveted sleepovers never materialised either (now teens!)
If you feel differently however, stick to your guns.

mimibunz Because it is way more relaxed interacting with a baby when its mother is not watching you.

And I say that as a previous childcare worker. I would never have worked as a mothers help or anything where either parent was watching what you do. I would have felt so self conscious and stilted. Even with friends I feel self conscious interacting with their young kids when their parents are there. Without them there it is totally different.

Mothers should not be bullied into leaving their babies with another relative. But I totally understand why any relative would want some alone time with another child. And it has zero to do with showing them off.

My MIL did this with me for the first year of my sons life....I wanted to spend every minute of my time with him until I had to leave him & go back to work.
Don't feel guilty it's your child so your choice!!
Everyone got to enjoy him when I was back to work.
Just enjoy your baby

@gerispringer would you be my mum 

I had to leave DD3 overnight at 3 weeks old due to an extremely poorly older being in hospital and it was horrendous. She was being syringe fed still but breast milk and I was expressing constantly whilst trying to look after the eldest one and I was tears the entire time.

There is no fucking way I’d be choosing to leave my newborn.

@abacucat I have worked with families for years and in my job I want the parents actively involved. I absolutely love working with the families and my role is to add, not to take away.
To empower mums and dads and children and help them learn and have a fun time.
So when I live, when they go home, they can continue and have a stronger relationship.
Selfless relatives would want this too, to help new parents rather than have their 5 minutes of glory.
I don't think parents "watch" me. I am very friendly and take a second role. And I absolutely love that they might have a stronger bond as a result

Tell her you will consider it when baby is one year old, and you no longer wish to discuss this until then. Put your foot down and make sure she gets the message that this is no-negotiable, and you don't wish to have weekly texts about it.

Sorry, that should be non-negotiable, not no-negotiable.

Do you breastfeed? If so, that would be number one excuse.

Really depends on the grandparents for me. Both dh's and my parents are great, and we were happy to leave DS with them for a few hours while we rested or went out for some time to ourselves.

My MIL kept doing this but I just didn’t feel happy to be apart from my baby so I said no. What I should have done is say, yes that would be amazing, but I’m not ready to be apart from baby yet but if you could come over for a few hours while I had a bath/nap/caught up on housework that would be amazing. Think my MIL just wanted to go push the pram around for attention, as she never offered to do anything other than take baby out.

Just say no. Whilst you are at it, also say 'im not ready yet, please stop asking and just let me get there in my own time.' She is your child, not an accessory. They need to back off.

Although I agree that taking the baby for the entire day is ridiculous, seriously I would have loved for someone to take my baby for a walk for an hour!

My MIL used to come stay with us for weeks on end. I remember her saying "how can I get to know XXXXX when you are always around?" It was my house FFS! She also used to grab the pram off me and push me out the way. I remember being in the kitchen once and she came to the door and closed it. She did this a few times. Another time my SIL came to me in the kitchen and said "you look tired, why don't you go out and we will look after the baby for you. There is no need to come back until tonight".

In a recent argument they told me that I didn't;t seem to really want them there

What is it with grannies desperate to get babies away from their mums?
I wondered this too. When they were young mums did they hand their babies over to their MILs? And that’s why they expect babies to be handed to them? Why can’t they spend time with mum and grandchild? Is it because they don’t get to play fake mummy while real mummy is around?

Wow, so many replies! Thank you everyone.

MIL only seems interested in having LO all day alone - not an hour or so. She was off work a few weeks ago and we spent two days together - Me, her and the baby. We went out for the day and met SIL for lunch and then had a day at my house, also going to visit her elderly father.

I always tell her she is welcome to come to our house at any time, but this offer is never taken up. If she came around to our house I would gladly get on with housework/washing etc while she watched the baby in the living room, I don't have a problem with that at all; but that's not good enough!

Her ideal scenario would be us to visit 3 times a week and her have LO 1 full day a week which I think is unreasonable at 8 weeks old!

I am going to grow a pair and tell her how it is (nicely). Have spoken to DH about it tonight and explained how I feel. He said if I'm not ready to leave LO maybe I should invite MIL around to spend time with us at home (music to my ears!)

You sound very reasonable OP 🤗

Having a visit 3 days a week and her having your DD once a week would be unreasonable to me at any age. When you factor in time for other family, when on earth would you spend time by yourselves? Hopefully the new baby novelty wears off OP.

If MIL and DH both work full time, how would that visiting schedule work?

Apart from work, does she not have any other interests/hobbies?

At 8 weeks it's still very early days.I was lucky enough to see my DGD most days for short periods but I did practical things to help like dropping in some shopping,walk the dog,collect some washing etc so mum could concentrate on baby,or get some rest.The plus side was I got regular little cuddles and updates.MIL however got off on the wrong foot with DD by turning up unannounced and staying far too long,pushing to have her a day a week once maternity leave was over even though DD and her partner wanted to use a nursery for various practical reasons.And then once she got her way and took DGD out on her own ignored DDs wishes re feeding and wasn't honest about it.Subsequent visits to her house weren't relaxing either as she would literally snatch the baby from her parents and shut herself away in another room with her.Totally bonkers.I've kept out of it and hoped for DDs sake things would settle down.MIL has lost out though because after months of being patient DD barely has a relationship with her,it's caused stress to the new parents and she actually sees less of her grandchild than she would have.I love our grandchild,love helping and having her to stay - which she does now she's older -but find it hard to understand why some grandparents are so pushy or possessive and what they hope to gain by it.

I don’t understand why grannies want babies without parents there either. Unless they are planning to do something they know the parent wouldn’t like. In which case, does that mean they will sneak and do it behind the parents back if parents are not there. That doesn’t fill me with confidence to be honest.

I was lucky with MIL and my mum, in that even though they really wanted DD alone they didn’t pressure me and we had some happy days out all together.

Grannies, if the mum thinks you are desperate to get the baby away for alone time, it raises suspicion that you might do something against the parents wishes. (Like give the baby Unsuitable food or ignore the routine etc. I remember FIL giving 5 month old DD ribena and I was Sooooo upset. He was all ‘oh I didn’t know she couldn’t have it, you didn’t say ‘. Of course I didn’t say because it didn’t occur to me in a million years anyone would do such a thing, she only needs milk, she isn’t weaned). Also grandparents can have old fashioned ideas that are now seen as dangerous. Such as ‘lets Just pop in and show you off to our neighbours Jean and Fred. Who smoke 60 fags a day in their house.(this was not known to be linked to SIDs 35 years ago). Or ooh let’s see if 3 month old baby likes XYZ food. Because in their day babies were weaned then, but now we wait until 6 months.

Anyway I understand grannies are proud but surely they can be proud with the parent there.
In my experience over proud grannies are cringey big time, and their friends usually are kind, but people don’t generally have much interest in babies that are not direct family.

Anyway hooray for all the lovely supportive helpful grannies, who come and take the toddler/dog for a walk so mum and newborn can rest, and come home with milk and teabags and a frozen lasagne for supper.

I wouldn't have wanted that either. Though I'd bite her hand off to take my 2 year old they never seem so keen then. Funny that. 

fuck that shit.

She can maybe have her when you are ready.

It's not about her.

No fucker could have prised my 8 week month old out of my hands.