Why do MIL and FIL demand 'alone time' with a baby?

[SilverBirchTree]

Since DS was born over a year ago, my MIL and FIL have been obsessed with having 'alone' time with him. Spending time with their son and myself as well is no good, apparently.

It started from when DS was a newborn, MIL constantly walking off with him in her arms, or shooing me off to go have a sleep or a haircut even when I said I was not tired etc.

As he has gotten older they have gotten more demanding about their 'alone time', and are now throwing an enormous tantrum (literally screaming and crying and my FIL even dropped himself onto the floor in anguish twice. I wish I was exaggerating) because we wont allow them to babysit DS all day while we are at work. Apparently we are denying them their 'rights' as grandparents.

I've seen other threads about the same thing- grandparents demanding or expecting sleep overs, being able to take the baby out of the house without asking, MIL walking out of the maternity ward with the baby...

My question is Why? Why do they need to be alone with a baby? What are they planning to do that they don't want to do in front of us?

Their reaction to being told "no" would put me off tbh.

They are behaving like toddlers so treat them like toddlers.
I videoed my DD, then 3, throwing a wobbly shouting at me and refusing to do as she was asked. I played it back to her and DH and, even at 3, she was mortified that it was on record.

Don't know how you feel about a similar approach. If nothing else, enjoy imagining filmimg them and their reaction to you showing it to them.

I found the best way to stop this madness was the terrible twos and another baby quite soon after the first.

Two toddlers is no fun for long periods, I am amused how quickly MIL changed her tune after caring for both of them. I have to beg her to look after them now

Alone time normally evolves in normal families by building on a foundation of trust.

It's not normal to demand 'alone time' like it was formalised as a schedule that you have to live up to. Alone time is a privilege not a right.

Not fair that OP's parents look after the grandchild? They're not batshit crazy and look after their grandson with due care.

The IL's have not only built an extension to their belfry but added several rubber-lined side rooms to go with it. No place there to look after a child properly.

MUMW: excellent plan! Might make them cop on a bit and is always useful to keep...

“I videoed my DD, then 3, throwing a wobbly shouting at me and refusing to do as she was asked. I played it back to her and DH and, even at 3, she was mortified that it was on record”

That would be a fantastic thing to do to the OP’s in laws. Utterly vile thing to do to a 3 year old, though.

“Alone time normally evolves in normal families by building on a foundation of trust”

Agreed. But in normal families, surely trust is assumed? I didn’t expect my mum or my pils to pass some sort of test!
*OP’s in laws are obviously not “normal”.

It is not their right - they have to demonstrate to you that they are capable of looking after your child in the way that you instruct before they can be trusted. I think that you probably need to sit them down and explain, with examples, why you do not feel comfortable leaving your son with them. I would suggest to them that they take you up on the offers to spend time with you all and tell them that if they are able to show that they can be trusted to treat DS in the way that you, as his parents, wish, then maybe they might be trusted to have more time with him.

Remember gps don't actually have any rights.
They are lucky they see your dc at all imo. Must be very embarrassing having to witness such dramatics.

They tantrum? Seriously? That would tell me loud and clear they aren't fit to be alone with a baby. Immature, manipulative and irresponsible.

@QuintadiMalago please can you be my MiL and my Stepmum? Please? You sound awesome

I would not be leaving my child with a man who flings himself on the floor in anguish.
Although I am pruriently curious. What did he do then? Just get up and carry on?

That is nuts! I actually really like my MIL, and when the time comes for me to go back to work will be happy for her to have DS for a day a week (she has offered we haven't asked or assumed) . Like a PP she was fairly young when she has DH and worked long hours, she's now retired so will enjoy spending some of that time with DS and being helpful by saving us some nursery fees. My DM was a bit OTT with DN and wanted to decorate a nursery etc, I reigned her in a bit when I could see SIL getting freaked out but not saying anything. On the flip side they've left DN1 with my parents regularly since she was a few weeks old and have started the same with DN2 since she was about eight weeks old. An acquaintance and a colleague have both recently had babies and have been leaving them with their grandmother overnight from about 6-8 weeks, with GPs posting about 'time with granny' on FB. So for lots of people they want to have that time without DCs and GPs facilitate that.

As much as DS is exhausting at times and it's nice to have a bath without him, or for DH to go for a walk or into town with him for an hour or so, I have no need to not have him with me, although I know either set of GPs would jump at the chance to have him alone or overnight they don't even ask let alone push the topic or throw tantrums!!

If you left your child with them, it would be like leaving him with toddlers.

When my ds was born, his sister wanted to look after him alone sometimes. Of course that couldn't happen because she was only 6. She didn't throw a tantrum or fall to the floor in anguish when we said no.

How did your husband manage to grow up? Did he have capable grandparents who had to take over?

diddl Perhaps you have to be a GP to get it?
I'm a GP and I don't get it either.
I love my kids, I love their partners, I love my grandkids.
I'd walk through fire for them.
I have never had the desire for "alone time" and I definitely wouldn't demand it if I had.

Quickest way to lose them is to do as op's inlaws are doing.
The more demanding they become, the further away they push their beloved family.

They have issues. They apparently can't see it in themselves or each other. I would not leave a baby/toddler/young child with them.

My mum has always loved time on her own with my kids. I think it's good and important for them to have a relationship and bond that is unmediated by me. BUT my mum's offers to look after the kids were always - genuinely made on the basis of her wanting to help me - emphatically not because she felt that she had a "right" to it.

I can see why OPs IL's noses might have been put out of joint a little when they hired a nanny despite their offer to care for the child . But it is OP and her partner's choice and their lack of respect for that, and dreadful behaviour otherwise proves it was probably the right one.

I think it's perfectly normal to want alone time, and there's nothing sinister or unusual about it at all.

But equally, given how weird they seem to be, I wouldn't be giving unsupervised access to your I'm laws either!

Alone time is necessary imo to develop strong bonds. I treasured alone time with my grandparents as a child; it would have felt suffocating with my parents around.

This is for older children, however. Tapping a foot while waiting for you to finish breastfeeding is VVVUB so I can understand your larger point, even though I think you can understand why they want to spend time alone with their grandchild.

Also, do they come from a different cultural background? Not to go into detail, but I have some bad experience in this way with Chinese in-laws; there is a cultural assumption that THEY are in control (and you’ll go right along with it, particularly if you are DIL) and throwing yourself on the ground and begging for this/that is not terribly uncommon (but obviously meant to be an incredibly humbling gesture).

I’m wondering if there are some cultural differences that might be behind this.

There is nothing wrong with them wanting alone time IMO. It's nice to have one on one time with grandparents/children. But the way they are acting is nuts and would have alarm bells ringing all over for me and not a chance would I allow them after those reactions. Wow

I have nothing useful to add other than - does your nanny know how you feel about the in-laws? Just in case they were to drop by whilst you and your dh were at work to, say, collect your Ds for a trip to the park as 'previously arranged' with you, only you must have forgotten to tell her about it etc. They do sound batshit enough to do this sort of thing and if I were you I'd be briefing the nanny on how to deal with this situation should it arise.

I think we definitely need a new "flinging yourself to the floor in a tantrum" emoji on MN.

I'd leave the pair of them to their silly hysterics and get on with my life util they calm down enough to have a sensible conversation tbh.

JasonGideon because some do. In the time it took me to nip to the loo, my MIL was trying to give my 3 month old CMPI baby a custard pot. Even DP is in wholehearted agreement that she doesn't ever get unsupervised access to our DC.

Although I think their hysterics are clearly ridiculous, the one thing I'm not fully understanding is what makes you distrust them to look after DS in the first place (not in place of a nanny, but just for the odd hour or so to let him build a relationship with them?). The jiggling after BF is annoying, but hardly the end of the world?

Don't get me wrong, the tantrums sound deranged. But I can't quite get my head around why you and DH are so resistant to them having time with your ds that then led to these tantrums.

Reading your opening post my first response to your question ‘what do they plan to do when we are not there’ was ‘relax with GS’. Could it be that simple... that like a stroppy kid they have backed themselves into a corner because they are cross, hurt and saying stupid things.

I can totally see how you’ve tried and they won’t back down. Not much you can do unfortunately.

Presumably your DH doesn’t say that there was anything to be concerned about in their parenting of him so it really is unlikely to be that they have ‘sinister intent’.

They have a spectacular lack of respect though.

You acknowledge that you get why they are hurt. You & their son are saying you don’t trust them. That’s hard for anyone to hear but you don’t so all you can do is help them come to terms with it by moving on. Your DH has to say - ‘Dad stop. Respect our decisions or don’t but I’m not talking about it anymore. How about we all go to the zoo on x day’ Dad rants, DH talks over him...’Dad I’m going to end the conversation. I’m not talking about this any more. Call me back if you fancy the zoo. ‘

One of the best thing my husband ever did was go no contact with his parents after they wouldn’t support his choice on something. Just like your in laws they not only wouldn’t support his choice - far enough they thought he was wrong - but they also wouldn’t shut up about it. It was hard but he was so fed up. Depends if your DH still wants to appease or has finally realised that on some things there are no middle ground.