MIL disagreeing with our parenting decisions.

[amelee]

My DS is almost 7 months old now and I’ve been back at work about a month. Myself and OH are pescatarian and have discussed at length and agreed that we would not give our DS meat. I plan all of his meals, cook them fresh at the weekend and freeze them. My MIL looks after DS while we are at work and we pay her to do so. I pack his food everyday so she does not have to cook for him. Anyway, she has said that she does not agree with us and thinks that we should feed him meat (disclaimer I don’t care if other people eat meat, that’s their decision). What I’m annoyed about is that she’s getting involved in the parenting decisions that we have made when she has no right to. I really like her and we get on well so I don’t want this to be an issue but I think if I found out that she has been feeding him meat etc I’d have to rethink childcare arrangements because I wouldn’t trust her to respect our decisions regarding our son.

My exmil told me that she would give my vegi dc meat when I wasn't around. She never had them unsupervised.
Our relationship with unsalvageable.

Doesn't fish contain protein?
DD hated any kind of meat texture when she was a baby/toddler and this was a concern for us. Her dieticians gave us a whole load of non meat recipes which had lots of protein.

Considering that in India it’s in the majority vegetarian (sometimes almost vegan the closer you get to the desert) areas of the Gujarat where people suffer from diseases associated with eating too much protein, this idea that kids can’t get protein from a vegetarian diet is bullshit. Of course they can — if you cook from scratch and eat proper food rather than ready made crap.

I’m not sure if she will give him meat or not. However I don’t particularly care if he grows up and decides to eat meat - that will be his decision when he is old enough and I will respect that choice. This post is not a post about what is best to feed kids etc, it’s a post asking advice about a mil that I broadly get on very will with suddenly causing issues by not respecting our decision. We haven’t asked her to stick to a certain routine or do specific things with him because we wanted her to decide what she does with him as she’s looking after him. The feeding was the only decision that we had asked her to follow.

Our two children have grown up as vegetarian and like you we didn't take the decision lightly. My MIL also looked after our two 1 day a week when they were pre-school. She didn't agree with our choice but respected it when coming here. However we had decided that when the children were older if they wanted to try meat/fish they could. Granny decided to give them meat and fish a couple of times at her house in hols (when we weren't there). She always was happy to take instructions on everything like sleep times etc. You need to be confident your MIL does what you want as you rightly say the parenting choices are yours. Note my 16 year old is still veggy and my 20 year old decided (totally without discussing with us) to go vegan several months ago. Both have not had any problems with protein/nuttition like MIL thought they would.

Your mil is entitled to her opinion. She isn't entitled to undermine you as parents though. I agree with the pp who said that paying for childcare is the only way. I would never have mil look after my kids as childcare. She is a brilliant, caring and loving grandma. But, she wouldn't follow our lead on anything, including food. For my two, this means she'd just give them anything they wanted and ignore the sensible food I want them to eat. The times when she gives my 2yo crisps, chedders, chocolate, a biscuit, and ice cream one after the other are limited to the few times she babysits! If she had her every day, she would feed her crap every day. She would also want to be able to come and go as she pleased, whereas I like being able to be early or later and collect my dd at a time convenient to me. I think, for our situation, it is better that she gets to be grandma, not the childcare provider. Same goes for my mum tbh.

Sparklybanana it really isn’t hard to get enough protein into children - whole continents manage it. OP is a pescatarian, so her child is eating fish anyway. But even if they weren’t, a baby that age is still going to be getting most of their nutrition from formula or breast milk. Older toddlers only need 1g/kg/day, which they can easily get from egg, cheese, yoghurt, pulses etc.

DS had a jacket potato with beans and cheese for tea yesterday, and that alone more than supplies his daily protein requirements (he had other stuff: milk with his breakfast cereal, yoghurt mid-morning, all perfectly normal toddler foods. He doesn’t live on kale and tofu). You need much less protein than you might imagine.

www.forbes.com/sites/michellemaisto/2012/02/16/toddlers-and-protein-how-much-is-enough/#68092e344ecb

Childcare is difficult for us as I work very very long hours (and unpredictable hours) and DS is only just turning 7 months next week so still very small. That’s why we went with the option of paying mil as we could be flexible on times and she lives close by and can spend 1 to 1 time with him. I think as he gets older we’d probably consider nursery on some days. So I just don’t know what to do about it.

The fact its food is a bit of a red herring, as you are just getting other people doing the same thing, judging your parenting decision.

I would say that if you use family childcare, you have to accept they are doing the parenting decisions when they have your child, so only use family for childcare if you are confident the choices they will make are similar enough to yours that you'll be happy with it. If you want someone to let you make the choices, you need to use paid for childcare. (The fact you pay your MIL complicates this further).

Nanny, childminder or nursery. Time with Granny for fun, not for childcare.

No problem with not eating mammal meat: we’re learning more and more just how dangerous processed meats in particular (containing nitrites and nitrates) are. Vegetarianism (guessing pescatarians are veggies plus fish?) is very healthy if it’s done right.
Please, please though make sure your little one is getting enough iron. I was seriously anaemic through much of childhood and it’s not pleasant. My mum’s a veggie (incredibly vital 80 year old) and I was a veggie for years but had to start on the steaks and spinach in pregnancy or be faced with blood transfusions (back in the mid 90s, think consultant obstetricians are a bit more clued up about nutrition now 😁). Evil man, I still love a big juicy steak once a week now.

If you can’t trust your MIL to comply with your wishes, you need to pay for professional childcare.

Well.. you are choosing a rather restricted diet for your young DC. And that's grand/your choice asing as you've thought it all through and making sure right nutrients which it sounds like you are.

I wouldn't be offended in that case that MIL or even my DM, expressed a different view and wanted to check any worries about vitamins and protein, through with me. As long as they stuck with what we, as parents decided and listened.

I think that aunties/uncles /grandparents, do get a right to express views once or twice, in a nice way, to check things out, as long as they aren't dictating nor undermining.

My lovely parents sometimes ask about my 'discussion' method when disciplining, rather than their 'punish and remove" method that 'worked' in their day with me and my sibling. Heyho. I'll explain why and this is how we do it (& am happy to have that discussion) but ultimately it's our call.
Same with nutrition choices.

If you find out she's going behind your back and breaking your parenting decisions, then that's different.

It's not wrong to ask a d say it worries me, to reassure herself. As long as she listens and respects your choices

Right. Have you explained to her what you are doing and reassured her that he is getting all the nutrition he needs? And has she accepted your explanation? She is allowed to question something like this if she doesn’t know about meat free diets and is therefore worried about him. A lot of people- including many mumsnetters-think you cannot have a healthy diet without meat.

But she has then to accept your explanation and go along with your dietary preferences.

At home our child will probably be mainly vegan with added fish.

So not vegan then? How can you be mainly vegan. You either are or you aren’t. FWIW I don’t see why people have to label their dietary choices, just eat what you like. But if you’re eating fish then vegan you ain’t.

My fil genuinely worried about his vegetarian grandchildren. He didn’t interfere but he worried so much about their health. It didn’t help that one of them was quite fragile -he longed to cook her a steak, or sit her down in front of a roast dinner!

Alexa, OP said right at the beginning she was a pescatarian .

I find protein relatively easy to get into DS - he and DP are not vegetarian, but I am, so most meals he has are.

Yesterday he had milk on his cereal, beans and soya mince in a chili, and a scrambled egg. BM, too. Eggs and dairy feature highly amongst his favourite foods.

If you can dig down to the source of her concerns (protein, iron, etc), you can easily and gently point her to the things DS can eat that are good sources of those

As other posters have already said, vast numbers of people over the world are vegan/vegetarian/pescatarian.

But the main thing is whether she will stick to using your food. If she can't or won't do that, then there'll be doubts about other things as well. And that's not what you need when someone else is caring for your child.

I grew up in the era when vegetarianism was barely known about. At least one meal a day had to contain meat, otherwise there'd be "dire consequences". I'm sure DH still thinks that, and I know there's no way I could convince him otherwise.

But, as a suggestion, could you print out a simple vegetarian recipe from, say, the BBC site, which gives details of protein and other things, which she could cook for your child? If she would be amenable to some food facts re protein from such a respected source, then she might fret less.

Agreed - will try to make her feel more comfortable with it first before just assuming she won’t listen/will give meet secretly. We did tell her straight away that it was the only thing we didn’t want her to do and explained why but will give it another chance.

Alexa, OP said right at the beginning she was a pescatarian.

Antonin. Yes, I’m aware of that but if you reread the comments you will see that I wasn’t responding to OP. I was in fact, quoting a comment by Coral13

You’re pushing your beliefs on your child. Children need red meat. I think you are being unreasonable. When your child is old enough to think for themselves then they can choose to be a pescatarian or not.

“Children need red meat.”

See? Mumsnet is full of people who believe this bullocks. Don’t be surprised that your mil does!

@ScreamScreamIceCream Why should she? The child's grandmother should respect the parent's wishes!!!!

@SkyBillingIssue in an ideal world she would but the world isn't ideal.

ihatehashtags at what age do you think you will be able to think (coherently) for yourself?