To set MiL Straight?

[Pregernaught]

NC’d.

I’m 19 weeks pregnant with the first grandchild on both sides, so naturally everyone is super excited and it’s all very lovely.

Yesterday, MiL let slip that she’s bought a next to me crib and a load of newborn baby stuff ‘for her house’ for when the baby arrives ... I quite pointedly said ‘oh that won’t be needed MiL, baby won’t be staying overnight with you until they’re too old to use a next to me, he/she will be in their own room by then’

She was taken aback and said I’d need a night off on the first few weeks at least. I said baby will be breast fed until 6 months at least hopefully so whether I want a night off or not, it won’t be happening. I also said that even if I couldn’t breast feed for any reason, I wouldn’t want baby away from me that early anyway.

She then got upset and said she would expect me to express so she could take her grandchild while they’re still a baby to have overnight and I’m cruel for not allowing this. DH stepped in at this point and said we wouldn’t be changing our plans to suit MiL, and he’d be very sad if she couldn’t accept that and made it difficult for us to see her when baby was born. She dropped it After he said that.

She’s also said some other weird stuff like weaning the baby from 3 months is normal, she doesn’t like the idea of breastfeeding and something about giving newborns water as well as milk? Pretty sure that’s not right? It’s making me really nervous about leaving baby with her at all until he or she is a bit more robust!

MiL has a sister who has a grandchild already, but she was born when her mum was only 16 and living at home, so naturally MiL’s sister was very involved from the start. DH and I are in our 30’s, totally independent, mortgage, the lot so it’s a totally different circumstance. I have a feeling MiL is comparing notes and wants to be as involved as her sister was, which obviously just won’t be happening.

I just want to check I’m not being cruel or unreasonable to lay boundaries with someone who is usually lovely and will absolutely dote on this kid?

I had a gf who had her mum take her baby once a week overnight from quite young. I was so jealous that she got that break.

Thanks all, my plan is this:

Keep it light as much as i can, bat away daft suggestions with 'im not sure that's the guidance they give anymore, I'll be following the current guidelines'

If she brings up having baby overnight again even after the other night im going to say 'It's unlikely we'll need you to have baby at your house so young but in the event we do need some help overnight we'll absolutely ask you to stay here for us and help out'

If she brings up breastfeeding being wrong again I'll let DH handle that one. I don't think I can stay polite for that so if she mentions it in my presence I'll shut it down and ask DH to follow up. She's really anti-breastfeeding to the point where she told us about her views before we were even pregnant with a sticky baby, she also talked her niece out of BFing which is really sad . MiL's sister has the same views.

Miscarriages: Thanks for all the kind words. I've gotten used to saying '14th pregnancy, 1st baby' to healthcare professionals to the point now where i don't even register that 13 losses is unusual or a lot. Mercifully, they've all been 6-7 weeks, all blighted ovums or very very early losses so I've not had to go through the physical trauma too much. No reason for the miscarriages has been found, it appears we've just been supremely unlucky. This baby was our 'we've stopped trying because it's not going to happen, so lets get drunk and have sex for fun for once' baby .

Someone said something which is totally true and i didn't even think about it: I find the idea of someone taking away my baby from me hugely triggering. It's not a panicked feeling, I think it's rage. The thought of it makes me feel really angry like I'm in danger or something. It must be miscarriage related, i probably need to deal with that at some point.

There's something else I haven't dealt with: We told DM about the pregnancy when i was 7 weeks and we'd seen a healthy heartbeat but didn't tell MiL because she has a habit of making a massive fuss about my miscarriages and 'grieves' very loudly and on facebook etc when we've expressed that we don't want it sharing. She puts up cryptic messages about grief and baby loss and when her friends ask her in the comments she always says the same thing: 'pregernaught lost another one'. That phrase absolutely tortures me, it gets stuck in my head now whenever I get a positive pregnancy test. Anyway, for this reason i didn't want her told until 12 weeks but I wanted my mum to know because if it did go wrong again I wanted my mum's support. When she found out she was obviously very happy about the baby but her first question was 'does Pregs mum know yet?' and DH tactically told her we'd told DM that morning (a lie, but a nice one to save her feelings). She got really upset that we hadn't told her first or earlier in the pregnancy which made me feel like it's not actually the baby she's excited about, it's how the baby gives her a status of being a parent/ grandparent if that makes sense.

I can't shake the feeling that she just sees me as a walking incubator.

Sorry OP, from your last comment she does see you as a walking incubator. I wouldn’t have been able to keep my cool if she had posted about my MC on Facebook when you’d asked her not too. That would have been the last time I had contact!
Congratulations again!

I never understand grandparents that think they are going to have young babies overnight. I love my mum and she helped loads with my first sd I had to go back to work but she never expected overnights. To be fair they’ve never stayed there overnight and they’re teenagers now!

She would expect you to express so she can have the baby overnight?

Bloody hell!

It's all about her!

I'd be so shocked at that I'd be wondering what benefit my child would get from seeing her!

Some of her ideas sound very dated-If you are in your 30s she might not be that much older than me & some of the stuff sounds what my mum may have done for me 50+yrs ago which I didn't consider for mine-let alone consider it for theirs!

That's also the thing, MiL lives round the corner so I can't see any reason why she'd have the baby overnight unless it was an emergency?

Breastfeed or not no baby needs water before 6 months. Only after 6 months and for reasons like constipation do you give a baby (cooled boiled water). Onto what you have said, well done for setting boundaries- a next to me cot for a grandmother is just weird and I am surprised your MIL feels no embarrassment of that.

You are wasting a lot of time and effort thinking about what ifs etc. Just say let’s see what happens when baby is born...!

@Pregernaught

That's also the thing, MiL lives round the corner so I can't see any reason why she'd have the baby overnight unless it was an emergency?

That's bizarre, fancy wanting the baby overnight when you only live round the corner?

You absolutely did the right thing shutting this stuff down now, she's overstepped.

I do think though that you're not going to really know how you'll feel until the baby is here/a few months old so don't put down rules for yourself about the baby being away overnight.
I know people who never have a night away from their babies but I know others who really appreciate that time.
It's ok if you want a night away. You might get invited to a wedding or party or want a night out where you can have a few drinks.
There is nothing wrong with that and I think it's actually healthy.
Equally, it's ok if you don't want to.

"I find the idea of someone taking away my baby from me hugely triggering. It's not a panicked feeling, I think it's rage. The thought of it makes me feel really angry like I'm in danger or something. It must be miscarriage related, i probably need to deal with that at some point."

Understandable.
I didn't have the MCs prior to having DS1 but I used to get very irritated to the point of anger if MIL was holding him for too long, or doing something I didn't like (like clapping him on the bum for reasons unspecified) - it was a REAL effort sometimes for me not to snap "oh just give him back to me now!"

If you already have these feelings before your baby is born, they may intensify enormously once the baby is here, so be aware of that. There's a level of normality to it, but it might be something that you could try to look at before baby arrives.

As a granny I don't know why grandmothers obsess about the overnights. I mean if you are lucky they sleep so not much fun there and if they don't sleep there isn't much fun there either. I've had GC overnight plenty of times, one when he was only a few weeks old as his other gran needed an emergency operation and his mum wanted to be with her, but I seriously don't think it is one of the highlights of being a grandmother. I couldn't careless if my DsIL breast or formula feed. I fed all mine, much to the disgust of the sister on the ward where my first was born, 1971 and she didn't approve as she liked to be able to measure what "her" babies were having. My mother wasn't overly supportive, particularly with the one who didn't want to wean till after his 3rd birthday but so what, granny can say what she likes but you don't have to do it. Some of my GC have been fed one way and some the other, they are all fine. I think everyone needs to chill and just let mothers get on with it.

A very wise midwife once said to me, "A mother's place is in the wrong, the sooner you accept it and shrug your shoulders the better." I was 17 and it gave me the confidence to do just that. So good luck to all new mums and their bundles of joy, don't agonise just do your best and love them because that is the most important bit.

I know you say you like her, OP, but she sounds fairly awful. Insensitive and intrusive. Reminds me of my MIL who, the first time she met my newborn, nearly elbowed me out of the way, only a couple of days post-CS, to get a photograph of her holding DS with an air of ‘MINE!!!’ as if she’d given birth to him herself, which was later framed with the caption ‘Granny’s New Arrival!’

Fortunately both DH and I are extremely blunt people. (And my own mother is just a different style of nuts...)

Sorry for your past losses — not in the least surprised that the idea of someone taking your baby against your will makes you feel violent — and very best wishes for the rest of the pregnancy.

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

but I used to get very irritated to the point of anger if MIL was holding him for too long,

Why?

Couldn’t you just ask to give baby back!

I feel for MILs, lots of people seem very irrational when it comes to their MIL

Honestly she’s mostly lovely, the miscarriage Facebook thing I understand, she has always enjoyed sympathy and attention (not in a bad way) and it was her way of processing what was happening by getting support from her friends. She just doesn’t understand that social media is a public place and I could see what she was writing. She knows that now though. However, I haven’t sent her scan pictures because I know they’d be on Facebook in minutes and we’ve really drilled it in to her that we want no mention on social media until the baby is born safely. She’s respected this so far.

The other batshit thing she’s decided is I can’t carry girls so this pregnancy must be a boy. DH pointed out to her that the chances of all 13 previous pregnancies being girls was vanishingly slim, but she’s adamant she’s decided this because HER mum apparently had miscarriages and couldn’t carry girls... despite having 2 girls and 2 boys for children . We don’t know the sex of any of our previous losses obviously, so where she’s got this from I will never know. I soooooo want this to be a girl now

My mother does an in-person version of the oversharing of other people’s gynaecological and baby-related details, including to people she barely knows. I was living in a different country when I had my baby, and when I visited with him when he was about three months old, I was being stopped on the street by total strangers enquiring intimately about my problematic placenta and tutting about how much blood I’d lost, and how breastfeeding hadn’t worked out.

I’m facing gynae surgery now and haven’t told her because she apparently can’t stop herself. She thinks it ‘looks snobby’ not to tell people! Aargh.

I soooooo want this to be a girl now Oh I sympathise, my MIL was always on about this one being a girl, a lovely pretty little girl. I felt insulted on behalf of my beautiful sons. One day I asked her how she'd feel if it was a girl who shaved her head, wore Doc Marten boots and a ring through her nose. She was so horrified she couldn't speak, a first I can tell you. It was lovely having a daughter but there was a bit of me that was annoyed that she got her way but my daughter wasn't the girly girl she wanted so I suppose it was a draw in the end.

My own experiences goes back a bit now but I think sometimes (though I'm absolutely not trying to generalise) the DM/DMIL relationship with the mother and baby can manifest quite differently.

Before I go further I've been really lucky in that both sets of GP's are utterly invested in their grandchildren and there's a mutual and strong bond. They've all absolutely come though in situations where children have been ill and DH/I struggled with work commitments etc

That said there was quite a distinct difference in behaviour when I was pregnant and in the "baby" period.

PIL's focus was all about "the baby" whereas my DP's were focused on me.

So phone calls about a scan for example were "tell me all about the baby, send us a scan photo" vs "how did the scan go? Were you comfortable? How did it feel seeing your baby on the monitor?".

After giving birth, visits by PIL started with a mad "grab" for DS virtually as a foot was put over the door mat. That was followed by hours of cuddles and cooing where I was expected to play bystander and host.

In contrast when my parents visited they'd ask how I was then be straight to kitchen to unpack a homemade cake, make a cup of tea to have with it, pop a homemade meal (eg cottage pie that I could just re-heat) in the fridge for dinner, then they'd sit down for a chat about how I was doing over a cuppa. My mum would ask if I needed anything doing (usually discreetly noting something like the pile of ironing) and crack on with that whilst my Dad did the washing up or similar.

Finally after they run around doing jobs for half an hour or more, chatting with me holding baby they'd sit down and have a cuddle.

There's no difference in the love both sets of GP's have for DS but I think my parents in those early months were just more attuned to my well being as their daughter.

As I said not all PIL follow this pattern but speaking to friends at the time I certainly wasn't alone in this regard.

Op you sound so kind & (imo) far more generous towards her than she deserves-especially re the FB thing.

Get her a reborn catalogue and tell her to crack on.

She'll be giving the baby liquidised rusk by the sounds of it, so, for safety's sake, don't leave the baby with her.

I really don't know what gets into these people.

Well done for standing your ground from the get go.

You are the babies Mum, you know best. Period.

I'll just gently point out that she sounds incredibly insensitive and the crusade against breastfeeding seems a shining example of her putting her arbitrary demands over and above everyone else. "pregernaught lost another one'." FFS.

Be prepared to maybe take a step back - I would be a bit more choosy about what I told her and when - and your DH might have to step up a bit. This is not how loving parents or grandparents behave. There is no obligation to see her daily or whatever it might end up being. Post-partum is a fragile time.
I'm really not encouraging 'GO NC' or anything but I just know what a whirlwind those early months can be like.

Yours sounds exactly like mine...

I was VERY firm from the outset and it's actually been better than expected. But because I don't trust her at all, she hasn't had our child to look after.

Sorry but it's just tough, my child not yours!

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@ThumbWitchesAbroad

but I used to get very irritated to the point of anger if MIL was holding him for too long,

Why?

Couldn’t you just ask to give baby back!

I feel for MILs, lots of people seem very irrational when it comes to their MIL[/quote]
Why? Because she'd get upset that I was constantly "taking the baby away from her".
It was irrational - she hadn't had DS that long when it started, so I used to fight the feelings.

We all have fucking irrational hormonal reactions at times - it's when you act on them that it becomes problematic.

@Fallada

My mother does an in-person version of the oversharing of other people’s gynaecological and baby-related details, including to people she barely knows. I was living in a different country when I had my baby, and when I visited with him when he was about three months old, I was being stopped on the street by total strangers enquiring intimately about my problematic placenta and tutting about how much blood I’d lost, and how breastfeeding hadn’t worked out.

I’m facing gynae surgery now and haven’t told her because she apparently can’t stop herself. She thinks it ‘looks snobby’ not to tell people! Aargh.

Ooof, yes. This is my MIL too - first time of meeting some people over here, they'd be sympathising about one of my MCs - which in all honesty I'd FAR rather they've never heard about at all!

I don't want that to be my defining feature on first meeting people!