Or is she mum shaming me.....?

[Inmyownwords10]

I’ve always gotten on well with my sister in law (Hubbys brothers wife)
This year we both became first time mums.
Our children are 6 weeks apart (my son is 9 months old)

My sister in law recently seems to be extremely critical of everything I’m doing and it’s starting to grate on me.

We’re both currently weaning our babies and she’s always telling me how her daughter only eats fresh organic food and nothing processed.

Now I completely respect this by she’s making comments about the fact that I have given my son bread.
I’m really careful with salt and sugar but she insisted on telling me how bad it is for him and that I should make my own.

I feel like my son has a good diet, lots of fruit and veg, very little salt and sugar but whenever I tell her what he’s eaten, she tells me an alternative that I should’ve given to him.

For instance I told her we’d had some hummus with veg sticks and she Insisted I should’ve made my own as shop bought hummus isn’t good for him.

We did a family FaceTime over the weekend and we got talking about nurseries, I told her the one we’ve picked for my son and she shot it down saying they’d been to look around and they had concerns.

I asked her what they were and she said “oh it doesn’t matter, you’ve already decided there now but I’m surprised”

The thing is the nursery we’ve picked had an outstanding offsted report, the one they’ve picked is rated good.
I haven’t thought to say anything about this as I completely respect we’re all different and all look for different things.

She’s really making me start to doubt my choices now and I’m starting to feel like a rubbish mum.

My husband has told me to ignore her and not take any notice but she messages me several times a day and prior to the babies we always got along well.

I can’t help but feel she is purposely trying to make me feel bad.

Oh OP you have 2 choices I’m afraid

1- Don’t let it bother you, water off a ducks back and maybe stop telling her anything/ reduce contact.

2- Learn to turn it around. The only way to deal with a competitive parent is to beat them at their own game and drain all the fun for them.

They have their baby in 5 different baby groups

‘oh gosh how very brave of you I’d be so concerned about the unessesary covid risk.’

Their child can walk first
‘oh fabulous, you know what they say, the moment they’re walking all your baby weight drops straight back off ’

When she told you which nursery they picked I’d have been straight back in with a ‘Oh really? Well I suppose it’s how you feel about a place that matters. I mean I wouldn’t choose somewhere with less than outstanding ratings but good for you, their staff need wages paying too’

Second the “ fuck off” suggestion.
She’ll keep doing it if you let her away.
Your poor BIL probably not been laid in months if she’s got time to dick about making hummus

Your baby your choices
Personally.
Is your child hungry? No? Parenting win
Is your child clean and happy? Yes? Parenting win
Is your child loved? Yes? Parenting win

Excellent job done. Keep it up for the remainder of your days on earth.

@FippertyGibbett

Tell her to fuck off.

This! Cheeky bitch.

@Mollyboom

She sounds a dick to me. Who has time with a newborn to make hummous and bread. Totally precious first born. Wait until the others come along and it will be space raiders and capri suns at dawn

This. @mollyboom Thanks for making me laugh!

She's probably so utterly convinced that her over-the-top supermum habits are worth all the effort that she has to convince you too. Like a newly-converted vegan. Otherwise, she would have to admit that perhaps she's gone a bit far. I doubt she's being deliberately nasty, if you got along well before, it's just insensitivity and slight arrogance.

Unfortunately some people turn into nobs when they have kids... I found that very quickly with my first DD

@fudgebrownie2019 best suggestion of them all. Smother her with sarcasm 🤣

Seriously egg her on or tell her to get off her high horse and shut up. Can’t stand people that judge others for their perfectly reasonable parenting skills. None of her business. This is like an alternative for shaming women for bottle feeding babies instead of BF. Just so ridiculous!

Ask her to do you a meal plan complete with recipes so that you can give your baby the exact same food as she gives her baby. Then use it to lie about what your baby has eaten.

Ignore all her comments. Hate that I’m a better mum sh*t bet her kid sleeps really well too but she lets her kid cry to sleep for hours as she read it in a book.

Tell her he had a happy meal and a bottle of coke for lunch. Watch her eye pop out of her head and then laugh.

Take no notice of her. What you’re doing is absolutely fine. Unfortunately as you’re related you’re likely to have this for their whole childhood. I start having some fun with it now.

She sounds incredibly anxious to me, there’s no way anyone with a baby can have the time to be making hummous and home made bread.

You carry on as you are, you’re doing great.

Your baby - you know best! IGNORE her shes needy and insecure

@FippertyGibbett

Tell her to fuck off.

This!

Start standing up for your choices and maybe add a little sarcasm into your replies when she is critical of your weaning skills. Your life is too busy for cooking from scratch and you have better things to do. Don’t consult her on your decisions. She sounds like a bull shitter who makes stuff up and for all you know she maybe couldn’t afford your nursery choice. Be pleased you don’t have to see her on the nursery drop off.

Tell her to go and take a flying a fuck to herself :) I’m sorry but I don’t understand who some people think they are, she can worry about her child, u can worry about yours, it’s none of her business!

I think competitive people in general only do this with people they see as threatening, so take that as a wierd compliment for starters.

They're such mood hoovers though.

Op's SIL: blahdeblah showing off words that mean "Amn't I so perfect, do look shameful and below me so I can feel good at your expense".

OP: silence

OP's SIL: "hello? Can't hear you etc"

OP: "Still here...just a bit worried about you. You seem so distracted by trying to do things perfectly..are you ok?"

OP'S SIL: "blahdeblah only doing what any Mum should do etc."

OP: silence... "hmmm...just make sure you're getting quality time with baby so you can all relax eh?"

Do you ever talk about stuff other than babies? Can you direct the conversation away from the children and ignore/give vague answers?

Making your own bread? HAHAHAHAHA if that isn't peak PFB-ism in a nutshell.

Do you think she might be feeling insecure? Fwiw i made bread, my own peanut butter, hummus you name it - cooked everything organically from scratch. Obsessed over nursery choice. All stemmed from the guilt of the delivery (severe preeclampsia and a csection) and babies failure to thrive on my breastmilk so formula fed. I got so much better when I let go of the guilt over this...
Of course she might just be a bit of a witch...
Oh, and when the baby hit 2 she consumed only beige food for about 12 months 😂

My SIL did exactly the same to me with the same age gap, up until I fell pregnant we were great friends and I loved her company.
As soon as I fell pregnant everything I did was wrong or was met with a raised eyebrow. It really got me down and I dreaded seeing her and having to put up with the constant digs at my choices, it caused me to constantly question my parenting ( unnecessarily).
Luckily we moved away and only saw her by facetime for years and I was able to avoid her remarks.
As hard as it may be, try to ignore, its all about her and nothing to do with you, she's trying to make herself feel better by putting you down, don't let it affect you if you can.
If there was only one was to raise a child we'd all be doing it, but there isn't, we all make our own choices.
Both our children are lovely happy teenagers now, it's a real shame she chose to be horrible as we don't have much of a relationship now due to her comments.

@Respectabitch

Making your own bread? HAHAHAHAHA if that isn't peak PFB-ism in a nutshell.

😂...In defence of the bread makers out there..... making bread doesn't actually take very long. And if you are blessed with a baby that sleeps there is plenty of time for baking.

however.... I consider myself a pretty competent baker. And despite a year of trying with my first baby I do not believe it is actually possible to make bread without salt that doesn't take terrible. So if that's your only motivation, it's totally pointless.

My sil was like this even before she had her DD who is a year older than my youngest. Now that she has DD I never hear the end of it but as we rarely see each other now due to covid I have reverted back to smile, nod and a hmm sort of sound!
My oh and I were always of the opinion that you never criticize someone in regards to their parenting until you've passed that point of parenting yourself so we found her constant reproach a bit tiring but I always just smiled and nodded which she then told me off about and said I was acting like I was too good for them. I honestly didn't think this but she would have been quite shocked if I'd told her what I actually thought of her constant unwanted criticism.

In defence of the bread makers out there..... making bread doesn't actually take very long. And if you are blessed with a baby that sleeps there is plenty of time for baking.

I mean if you just enjoy making bread by all means crack on. DH baked the hell out of lockdown #1 and his bagels were to die for. But making bread specifically for your baby because they were too pwecious for shop-bought is just...

Don’t discuss child rearing with her again if that’s how she makes you feel