Awkward situation with Father in laws wife

[Charchar19]

I am currently pregnant and we had our 12 week scan yesterday and all is well so we decided to go and tell our families this morning and show off the scan photos. My husbands parents are not together and he got re married about 5 years ago, he is very argumentative and treats my husband like a child and constantly dismisses him as stupid so we dont have the best relationship and see him and his wife maybe 3-4 times a year. I had already discussed with my OH what our child will call his wife however only briefly as we didn't think it would be mentioned already, whilst my OH thinks she's a lovely lady he doesn't see her as a step mum as he was in his mid twenties when they met and just haven't developed a relationship with her like that. OH was also concerned his mum would be upset if she was also called nanny and they have the same first name so could be confusing. Anyway today we went and told them straight away his dad's wife is like I'm going to be a granny a little while later his dad starts asking so can you confirm will there be 2 or 3 nans. My OH tried to change the subject but he kept speaking about it. Are we being unreasonable by thinking we won't call her nan or granny? The whole situation this morning was so full on and I wasn't expecting stuff like this to be brought up already! Has anyone else been in this situation?

Oh just tell him that the child will have two grandmothers .

This other woman is just trying to be involved X

Does she have any GC of her own? Its quite natural that the first thing that they all think of is will they be gran/granny/nanna etc. In telling them at the same time as the other "nice" parents you've put them on a par so they have assumed the same relationship. Your FIL sounds like a knob but you already say that you don't know his wife.

Don't overthink it and make it into an issue today. They'll be plenty of other things to fall out over yet!

Reply with, "3 nans is very confusing, I'm sure when DC is here everyone will be something unique! Got another 6 months to decide yet"

A bit of wishful thinking here but in five years when you need an emergency babysitter and step mil is retired and loving the kids, it won't even cross anyone's mind.

I would expect a person who has been married to 'Grandpa' for 5 years + to have a 'Granny' sort of name, yes. That will be her relationship with the child.
I would expect them to get '3rd choice' of name, but there are plenty of names out there to choose from .... Nan / Nana / Nanny / Gran / Granny / Grandma being the most mainstream.

Nor do I think it is unusual for 'names' to come into the conversation when telling people they are going to be Grandparents. From what I remember, that is how dh actually announced it to his parents.

3 nans isn’t “very confusing”, is it? Say her name is Dawn, then she’s “Nana Dawn” or “Nanny Dawn”.

I never understand these threads! When I was young I had 2 Grans, a great gran and a great great gran! I called them granny Henderson, granny Bruce etc ie by surname when talking about them and granny when with them! My kids have 3... one is granny alice, great gran is GG and one is granny with (insert cats name) lol!! No confusion.

It's literally just a name, honestly. It doesn't drive the relationship or make it stronger/weaker. My MIL married my FIL when DH was in his 30s. This man was adamant he didn't want to be called grandad (we wouldn't have minded) and felt it was more proper to be known as Uncle Name. DC adore him and have the same, if not better, relationship with him than other grandparents who are called grandma, granny, grandpa. It's just a name to them.

My grandad's wife was Auntie name and my nan's husband was Uncle name

Worked fine and actually Uncle Bob was way more of a grandad to me than my actual grandad.

Just noticed the bit about them having the same first name- awkward coincidence! So Nanny Smith and Nanny Jones? When I was little I had Grandma Smith, Grandma Barbara and Grandma-in-Wales (not real names or places)

You're over complicating this.

Your DH may not see her as his step mother (fair enough) but that's because he was much older when she married his dad.

That won't be the case for the baby, as she'll be in its life from birth.

The two with the same names - just call one 'Nanny so and so' and the other 'Granny so and so'.

In the grand scheme of things, this matters much more to the adults than it ever will to the child but it's nice this lady wants to get involved.

Why don't you have Granny, Grandma and nana. Problem solved

You are massively over thinking this. You only see her a few times a year. Whatever your baby ends up calling her isn't even going to matter.

Are you actually complaining about somebody being excited about your baby and being a part of its life?

Honestly it doesn't matter if your kid has 80 nannas if they all love the kid.

We called my grandad's wife by her first name. She was lovely and very kind to us. There was no animosity at all, but she wasn't my dads step mum, therefore wasn't our grandma.

You say she’s nice and seemingly get on with her. She’s excited and wants to be involved so don’t punish her because FIL is a bullying arse.

Just say your mum is going to be X, DHs mum is going to be Y so she can be Z if she likes

My MIL has been married to my OH’s Step Dad since 2002. My OH has never seen him as a step dad or a father figure.

Our daughter was born in 2006 and another in 2014. He assumed that our first would be calling him grandad and she was his granddaughter despite making it clear earlier on this wasn’t something we wanted. It was made clear again she would not be calling him grandad (even though my SILs children did). It didn’t go down well but that was his fault for the assumption that we would just go with it once she was born.

It didn’t come up again when our second daughter was born.

Make sure the real grandmothers get first pick of names.

If you rarely see this woman it seems odd she is so insistent on being given the honour of being called granny. I could understand if she was close to you, but it does sound more like a power trip than a genuine desire to be involved.

Also given she doesn’t know you both hat well, she should have asked rather than told.

I've been the child whose Parents tried to control my relationship and what I called the person who i considered to be my Grandad and it's heartbreaking.

Don't be that Parent.

I think it would be nice to call her some kind of Granny / Nanny name and it would be sad to exclude her.

My husbands son decided I'd be grandma. For the same reasons as outlined here I didn't want state a preference.

My grandchild has 5 grandmas. Doesn't seem to cause any problems.

Is this more about how your husband feels about his dad and his wife?

I agree with pps. Your FIL was being unreasonable to make a fuss about it, but you would be unreasonable too if you let it turn into an argument.

Just agree that she can be called something granny-like, third choice after the two bio grandmas but unique to her.

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

For your child they will be a 'grandparent' figure and tbh the more people who love your child the better.
I'm Memaw, my GC have nanny, nanny +place name and granny and grannyma. Don't overthink it unless you have a massive drop feed

You sound rather petty tbh.

Children tend to make up their own names for people anyway. I am known as Aunty Cake by my DNs

Just to add, my Grandad also didn't come into my Mother's life until she was in her 20's.

I think I would just say that it's too early to think about things like that but that you will need to wait and see what your actual mil wants to be called.