To not leave DD with batshit DM alone

[theymaynotmeantobuttheydo]

DM has no concept of danger and thinks nothing bad will ever happen to her. I often question how I survived my childhood with no physical injuries. Not a single broken bone or hospital visit...

There are (unconfirmed) rumours that she once gave my cousins 9 month old a sip of coke.

She lives localish to us and would have the kids DD6 and DD3 at the drop of the hat but I just don't trust her.. DH thinks I'm crazy as we could be off having a whale of the time but...

We use nursery for childcare.

I left DD3 for about 3 hours one morning as I had an adhoc work meeting and she put her in DS's forward facing booster seat for a non urgent car journey a mile away to collect something that could have waited. She "thought she was old enough to face forward now as she's big enough"

DD3 had a very minor scratch and I asked her to get some savlon and before i knew it she was applying some dodgy antibiotic cream to "take the redness away"
Oh when One DD was born she shoved some honey in her mouth at a few days old (some batshit cultural custom) before I could stop her. She has no boundaries. She can't be stopped or reasoned with. I had to insist she covered up her 6ft deep pond after she persisted with the fact I had never drowned in it as being a good enough reason to leave it.

My children need protecting from her. AIBU? I suspect not but DH thinks I am OTT!

Wow you have some real anxiety issues of life and your awareness around it. Your mother is not the problem. Please see a GP as everything in life is not dangerous and you are living in a very distorted world. Anxiety is a real issue.

Rear facing until 17 .... then they can get their own cars

Am I the only one reading this as a joke?! Batteries aside (although it's not that big a deal) everything else is ridiculous! You can't actually be serious

I wonder how many button battery incidents come about from supervising a child to find the correct size from a selection that is normally stored out of reach (and, being new batteries, they are probably wrapped in cardboard and plastic) and how many come about from parents leaving gadgets lying around the house which contain button batteries to be discovered by a curious child. And is a child who knows about button batteries, their uses and dangers, in more danger than one who just finds them?

I can't honestly get too worried about the batteries as I'd expect a 3 year old not to put them in their mouth. Or the coke rumour if it was just a sip.

I thought everyone knew that honey before 1 is a big no no because of the risk of botulism etc. All the advice is very clear on that one.

Pond sounds very dangerous.

The car seat totally agree, not sure why people are disagreeing but imagine it's because when their kids were of car seat age the advice was different. Extended RF is definitely safer proven by rigorous testing and well, it's just physics. Other European countries have tighter laws on it and much better safety stats and we're massively lagging behind.

I hate this well in my day we didnt have seatbelts, I smoked 60 a day, used lead paint blah blah and I'm fine. We learn new stuff that makes us safer and we change our behaviour accordingly (most of the time). I don't get the resistance to changing things that don't matter or inconvenience anyone or the anger at people who make safer choices where they can. But the biggest issue is that your DM knows your feelings on it and ignored them and did a totally unnecessary journey against your wishes in an unsafe seat that wasn't even fitted for that daughter.

She sounds normal and you sound neurotic.

So is this child never going to travel on a bus, train or taxi? I feel sorry for her, if this is the case. Yes, a rear facing seat is safer in a crash. No, this does not mean the child should never go anywhere unless their rear facing seat is available.

Find it odd that so many people think it's weird to RF an older child. It's becoming more the norm as it's recommended to keep them RF for as long as you can due to it being so much safer. Hence why all the car seat companies are now bringing out extended RF seats. It's far more common in Europe and we're a bit behind them in adopting their safety standards. Expect there will be many that find it ridiculous as it wasn't the norm when their kids were little. When I was little I was laid in a bassinet in the boot. That doesn't invalidate my choices to RF my child for longer - I'm taking advantage of the research and improved products that are recently now available to me! It's your choice, it's a very sensible one and your DM should follow your rules irrespective.
I would lose my shit about the battery too. It's not just an ordinary choking hazard like a clothes button ffs, those button batteries are pretty much a death sentence if one gets swallowed.
That alone would make me distrust her. I couldn't comfortably leave my child in her care without constant worry which isn't worth it. Please ignore the vipers that accuse you of being over-protective. All your examples would have my hackles up too.

It was a sip of coke and not a line??
Way over the top op. And your 3 year old won't just look squashed, she will be squashed with no where to put her legs.

Oh my god. Newsflash - KIDS HAVE KNEES Y'ALL!!!
I suspect those that think coca cola is OK for a 9 month old are the same brigade that think if a 4 week old doesn't sleep through the night it should be weaned off the boob and have a rusk dissolved in it's bottle and that slings for a 3 month old are ridiculous because 'they need to learn independence'

Oh no! Their poor legs. They're having to bend their knees! They'll end up in callipers! Ignore the current recommendations and guidelines, call SS pronto!

Going against the grain here. I don’t think you’re overreacting. Some of those issues sound cultural, some sound like undermining you, but the pond and the battery are really dangerous and I would be reluctant to hand my kids over... then again I am picky about who watches them.

How is it even physically possible for a 3 year old to be in a rear-facing car seat??? Their knees must be up round their ears somewhere!
For the love of all things holy, please put them in a forward facing seat!

Putting giant children in rear facing car seats is quite demeaning IMO. And it doesn’t look very comfortable for growing legs. No way would o do it.

• I

Maybe people with kids could keep using forward facing seats but go everywhere in reverse.

Or car manufacturers could start making cars with the passenger seats all facing rearwards... See how adults like facing backwards on car journeys! It is safer, after all.

I see people are ignoring the image I posted of 6 year olds comfortably RF because it just doesn't suit their scornful agenda. (And did OP declare her 3 year old to be a giant?) So many people on here will pour scorn on it as that research wasn't available to them when they raised kids and it wasn't 'the done thing'. Admitting that the car seat designers, stats and engineering science behind it might know a bit more than them would be recognising that what they once did then wouldn't be the best choice now. Fragile egos struggle with this concept. And anyone that uses the tired old 'snowflake' trope as a way to pour their scorn and dismissal of someone else's choices should be instantly disregarded as just generally being a plonker.

I also suspect a lot of posters on this thread are grandparents who like to justify why they ignore their off-spring's parenting choices, because 'it never did them any harm'. And are oblivious to the whole point of the OP. Don't give a toss what your DM (or internet vipers) thinks of your choices OP - they are yours and if she disregards them then she faces the consequence.

“I see people are ignoring the image I posted of 6 year olds comfortably RF because it just doesn't suit their scornful agenda”

It doesn’t look very comfortable.

Was it neosporin cream?

I'm not a grandparent, but I recognise that there is a difference between being batshit and not following best practice...

@StreetwiseHercules well... it is! Kids very rarely sit with their legs poker straight out in front of them, you know. They are bendy, fidgetty and not plagued by arthritic joints. When they can talk, they're also very good at expressing when they are not comfortable. If you've not tried it then you're not in a strong position to argue against it. That's like telling me I must be uncomfortable having hot baths because you don't like it. I can argue until I'm blue in the face that it's fine for me, but I bet you're the type to tell me IABU anyway.

Also I'm nearly 40 and often cross my legs or tuck them under me on my sofa. So I reckon my much more flexible kids can cope with a little bent knee for a car journey for their vastly improved safety.

Whilst I have read the research studies and accept that rear facing is safer than forward facing, I have literally never met a single person in RL who has/had their child in a rear facing car seat past the age of maybe 18m/2yo. I have seen a lot of MNers saying they use rear facing seats, but it's definitely not a 'thing' round here . So whilst it's more dangerous, I would not be annoyed if someone put my child in a FF seat, especially not for a shortish journey that wasn't a regular event. It's not like they didn't use a car seat at all! I've come across several grandparents who would just stick the child on a cushion with a normal seatbelt if it was a one off unforeseen journey (which I think may even be legal, not that it makes it right).