about my mil

[mummylittle]

My mother in law is driving be mad, has only known a week that shes going to be a grandma and has already brought babygrows, booties, socks, moses basket, wet wipes and a blanket, the worse thing is its not for me its all for when the baby goes to her house!! She keeps saying "I cant wait to meet my baby" and I just wanna scream "its not your bloody baby"!!
Im pleased shes exciting but she just to overpowering. Shes now deciding what pram SHE wants!! She rings me everyday and asks what ive had to eat, and am i feeling ok. She wants us to run every name past her incase she doesnt like it!! Im going insane!!
Am I being unreasonable?

Oh and im new to this, can somebody please let me know what all the abreviations mean - DS? DD?
Thanx xxxxxxx

Fair enough then shoshable

You are right, and we will probably all drive our in-laws insane in some ways. But some of the MIL's described on here really do sound atrocious.

Cut her a little slack, she's excited.

Explain your position/feelings to her son and make him bring her down gently.

Muppetgirl - have to say I know how you feel. My in laws even take DS out of the room when I arrive. Needless to say have had ccountless issues which i wont bore you with, lets just say divorce was frequently on my mind and we had to move and i no longer go there under ANY circummstances, but send DS one day per week.

Have to say that your DH sounds quite supportive tho.

Not read whole post. But sympathise mummylittle and you are not unreasonable to be put out by this!

While its nice that she's so excited about being a granny (and if this can be harnessed she will be worth her weight in gold later when you want a break) she's being a bit overbearing.

Agree with the caller display and call screening. Agree with the setting of boundaries now and not discussing anything with her that you want to keep personal between you and dh.

Another suggestion (sorry if its already been made!!) is to buy her The Good Granny Guide by someone Fearnley-Wittingshall (or close to that anyway!). Its a fab book about how to behave as a Granny and even better you can buy it for her as a pressie because 'you know she's really excited'! Bought it for my mum and mil and apparently its full of the keep your distance, know your boundaries kind of advice. Dressed up as a present! Ace.

Hopefully it will calm down in a few weeks but if not you and / or your dh will need to sit her down and tell her that this behaviour is intrusive - while you welcome her excitement this is YOUR baby who will be named, dressed and brought up as you choose NOT as she chooses. If this isn't nipped in the bud now then think how much worse she will be once lo is born! Plus if its done before she's driven you mad it can be done as a rational conversation rather than you screaming at her!

Congratulations and Good luck!

Mummylittle, your post makes me feel so stressed because it sounds so familiar.

Don't tell your mil any names until it is absolutely official. My dh told my mil after ds was born that we were planning to give him my surname as his second name (not surname - this was partly to avoid having a hyphenated name and because it sounded nice with the first name we had chosen). She told us it was an unlucky name in her family - that 3 babies with that name had died. I didn't believe her, but stewed about it for a month and then decided she had ruined the name for me. I'm sure if we had told her the first name we'd chosen before it was official she would have ruined that somehow too. She just wanted us to name ds after her father.

Setting up a nursery sounds disturbing because she obviously thinks your baby will be staying with her. I don't think you need to say anything directly about this. Let her buy her stuff and when dc is born just keep saying that s/he is too young to stay. Whenever my mil suggests that my ds spend the night with her I treat it like a joke. I laugh and say 'oh wouldn't that be nice' but make it quite clear that I would never seriously allow it.

Good luck!