So MIL always seemed a bit strange, but never thought she would do this.
We have a 5 month old DD and live 3 hours away from her so she's been complaining since DD was born that it's so unfair and why can't I change jobs and move to her town. The last few months she's been asking almost every day to have DD over for a whole weekend 'alone', which is tricky to arrange because we live so far. And I'm also still breastfeeding so haven't been able to leave her more than 3 hours.
I got tired of her asking and asking and finally agreed. I pumped every day for 2 weeks to get enough milk for a weekend and we booked a B&B near Mil's house so we'd be close if she had any problems.
I thought MIL would be ecstatic to get the 'girls' weekend with DD she'd been begging for, but she was furious we'd booked a B&B so close to her house, said we didn't trust her and should have booked somewhere at least 1 hour away.
To be honest I wasn't really comfortable leaving DD alone for that much time with ANYONE, but I felt so pressured to keep the peace.
We dropped her off just before lunchtime on Saturday and had a nice day alone just me and DH. I phoned MIL at 7 to ask how things were going and to say goodnight to DD but her phone went straight to voicemail. Phoned a few more times, no answer and forty minutes later I decided I needed to check everything was fine and went to MIL's house.
I found DD screaming being looked after by MIL's other granddaughter who is 12 (our DD's cousin). MIL is nowhere to be found.
Our niece explains she's been really interested in babies and MIL said she could get work experience looking after DD while MIL went to the cinema!! What the hell??
I was fuming, phoned my SIL shouting but SIL wasn't aware this had happened and was extremely apologetic, picked up her daughter straight away.
MIL finally got home after her movie night with friends and started shouting at us for checking up on DD, saying everything was under control and that our niece was perfectly capable of looking after a baby and we should be encouraging her skills and giving her the experience of looking after a baby herself.
I left in tears and we drove home straight away. MIL keeps calling but I'm refusing to talk to her.
I've told her she can never look after DD without us present again. Not keen on visiting her for a long time either. SIL and DH both say I'm overreacting a little bit and that it was bad, but not that bad!!?!