What's the worst thing someone did when you had a new baby?

[Cuddlyrottweiler]

Another thread reminded me of this, it's probably tame compared to some of yours though!

MIL called my DH in from another room and told him to take my newborn, crying baby off me and give him to her. After I'd refused several times, because I knew what he needed and couldn't do it. Luckily for our marriage he saw the look and my face and told her no.

Slightly different direction here but as the only female in The family that could not have children , we have been treated like lepers after pregnancy announcements or births. Like I automatically do not know what to do or can’t do whatever. Not given the chance to look after children or babies. Not needed at all to help with anything not expected to buy suitable or useful gifts. Just generally treated like shite and not given a chance to prove ourselves.

Came to stay. And stay. And stay.

@emmaluggs

My MIL said to my 2 week old, are you crying because you look like your mummy don’t worry you’ll get used to it

WTF

@Pasithea

Slightly different direction here but as the only female in The family that could not have children , we have been treated like lepers after pregnancy announcements or births. Like I automatically do not know what to do or can’t do whatever. Not given the chance to look after children or babies. Not needed at all to help with anything not expected to buy suitable or useful gifts. Just generally treated like shite and not given a chance to prove ourselves.

How awful

When my first child was born (I'm the eldest sibling, so was the first to have children), my mother and sister came to stay for a few days. I didn't see them terribly often as it was, as my family are all up in Scotland, and now ex husband and I were living down South.
One day, I was sitting with baby, mum and sister in the lounge. Sister (in her 20s at the time) started dropping heavy hints to our mum that she wanted to leave and go home.
Hardly the worst thing to have happened! But it left me feeling a bit shit anyway.

The Indian lady over the other side of the ward who'd just had her 5th girl.
The family was sitting round the bed looking like their world had ended and the mother in law and husband were crying because there was no grandson.

And for me a single mum in the 80's you were allowed flowers in the ward then. Mine was the only bed with no flowers and no visitors. Everyone else had vases of flowers and congratulatory balloons everywhere with lots of visitors.

I can’t believe how many nasty so-called health professionals there are out there! HVs, midwives, jeez!

I feel so sad for all of you who were treated cruelly at such vulnerable moments. I was lucky in many ways and the things that got to me were relatively small in comparison.
I was struggling with breastfeeding. DS was gaining weight nicely, we had him treated for tongue tie and I was doing all I can to get him to have a good latch, but it still hurt like hell no matter what I did. No matter who I turned to for help, from midwives to lactation consultants to my best friend, they all kept saying the same thing "if it hurts it means you're doing something wrong".
I know they only wanted to help but it made me feel so shit and inadequate, especially as I was doing everything I was supposed to and following all their advice.

It's only when I decided to stop listening to them that I was able to find what worked for us and went on to breastfeed for another 3 years.

One midwife refused to discharge me from hospital as I couldn't breastfeed. She then told me if I discharged myself and my baby got ill, they'd have to go on the main ward where there was a much higher risk they would contract Covid! Luckily, my husband was amazing and firmly told her once all tests had been done, he'd be returning back to the hospital to collect us. (He was only allowed a one hour visit)

Oh where do I start...

Going into the labour ward alone having signed a paper at the desk to say I was doing this on my own and due no visitors, my aunt managed to get past security, open the door with my uncle and shove a security disclaimer under my nose for me to sign to say it was ok for her to be there, then her and uncle sat and chatted as though they were visiting a cafe for a couple of hours before leaving. I was so drugged up I was incapable of thinking or refusing, I do remember the shocked looked on the face of the midwife by my bed. It only dawned on me how wrong it was when I told someone after the birth and their reaction was horror.

The lovely couple who had offered to take me home from the hospital because I was alone and didn't drive, rather than me take a taxi. Dropped me at my flat, the woman left to go to the car, the man hugged me and pushed his erect penis into me. I froze, he left fortunately.

The charity service that offered a volunteer to help me after months of being on a waiting list for any kind of support in my area. The volunteer, a grandmother herself was obsessed with wanting to take my baby away out of the house and just kept requesting. Eventually I gave in and said yes, for half an hour. She didn't return for an hour, I didn't know what to do. When I called the charity afterwards to question this behaviour, they cancelled the volunteer service to me, said I couldn't have another. Felt like a cover up at their end and I was desperate for the help, just felt so alone and punished for what the volunteer had done.

My DM and SD, who live a few streets away and persuaded me to live with them once DD was born. I thought they intended to help. They used to turn up on a Sunday afternoon, shove a box at me with a portion of food in it, wouldn't ever come in even just for a cup of tea. Then spent the whole afternoon in the pub at the end of my road drinking with their friends. Repeatedly asked me to bring my baby to the stinking shouty pub - I did it once, all the drunk friends just wanted to pass her round, shouting over her it was horrible. When I went NC with DM over this and a number of other things, it was all me and only gave her opportunity to tell everyone she knew how problematic I was and what a victim she was.

I could write about a hundred of these.

I have 2 incidents. I had just given birth to ds and he was very colicky, he was also in pain with a hernia which we didn't know yet. I was persuaded to visit the in laws even though I looked and felt like shit. Ds was 4 days old, went hours with feeding or sleeping and kept crying. I had extremely sore boobs and had broken out in huge cysts on my face. I asked dh to make me up a plate of food and went to sit in the lounge with ds while I attempted to feed him. He refused food again and was crying. The only way he would settle (even briefly) was on my knee, sat straight up with his chin in my hand. MIL walks in and tells me to be careful as holding him that way with my hand on his chin would cause him develop face sores like mine. Then to neatly round off the insult she says in an apologetic manner "Oh its (the seating position he was sat in) because your belly gets in the way. Just realised. Carry on." I kept it together to get in the car and drive away before bursting in to tears. Dh had no idea and rang her immediately upon getting home. He handed her arse to her and resisted all efforts to brush it off and the eventual tears and protests I was making it a bigger deal than it needed to be. I was so proud of him.

*live near them that should say, not with them

@TinyTroubleMaker
Fu*king hell - I'm struggling to top any of those...
Good for you for whatever steel got you through it all

@pasithea That’s really horrible. There’s no reason for them to treat you like that

Leaving the hospital with my perfect and long awaited first child who was two days old. Woman in the lift smiled at me and said kindly -oh you have a new grandchild too!

@FlumpyLump
Horrible for you. I want to hunt down the midwife and have 5 minutes alone with her. What a cow.

With my first baby MIL said she should be invited to the birth because it is her first grandchild.

Most disappointingly members of my own family. My mother, who announced I looked “very vulnerable” after suffering a trauma birth & crying on the sofa, telling her I didn’t think I could cope. Baby was 4 weeks old. I went on to have severe PND.

My sister, who came round with the good intention of cooking me a meal - she did a nice lasagne, used every pan/pot/dish & utensil I have - and then left the debris in the sink for me to tackle.

My father, who criticised me for not breastfeeding. I felt such guilt anyway that it wasn’t working out.

Bad times

A health visitor told me I didn't look like the type to bf. Dd1 and 1st baby.

A stranger tried to reach inside the stretchy wrap sling and touch the head of dd2. In asda. As one does

DD was a few months old and I was suicidal with severe PND and called the HV to ask for help. It took ages for me to work myself up to making the call, and she told me to call back in a few days once “this phase has passed”.

Crash csection. My son's clavicle broke as they got him out. So grateful we were both alive at the end of a traumatic Labour I had no quibbles about it. But exhausted.
Second evening there a new nurse came on for the evening shift. Looked at baby, looked at my notes. "Why is his shoulder broken?" I explained what happened and that it was just one of those things and it could have been so much worse etc.
She curled her lip at me. And narrowed her eyes and said that babies shoulders don't break like that. Had I dropped him? Then walked away.
I was distraught and she tipped me over into a breakdown.

My Ex-MIL gave my week old breastfed baby formula behind my back because she didn't agree with breastfeeding. I am certain she's the reason I never properly established breastfeeding as she kept doing it when I said no.

ExH (we were together at the time) just shrugged and said formula never did him or his sister any harm ugh.

3 day old pfb, first day home from hospital and struggling to establish breastfeeding. MIL turns around and says to me 'are you sure you're not damaging the baby's brain feeding so often?'
I burst into tears and my OH asked her to leave, when we spoke again months later she acted as though I'd made the whole thing up!

My grandmother took my camera out of my hospital bag. Apparently I wouldn’t be needing it!

2nd one was bad. I was attempting to breastfeed and my son had trouble latching on. My ex friend(male) started staring. I was a bit uncomfortable but carried on trying to get a latch. My ex friend grabbed my nipple. I think I switched to formula quite soon after.

The second incident was my own mum. Ds2 was 10 days old. Their birth was very difficult. I'd had over 100 stitches and also suffered a prolapse.
Dh had had to return to work. I had 2 older kids 5 and 3 to care for. All my kids have been sicky babies who needed baby gaviscon (this has nothing to do with my story. Just context about my babies, feeding difficulties and sleep or lack of it).
Luckily the school holidays had just started so we had 2 weeks before making that part of my routine. As a result me and the kids just stayed in pj's all day while they monopolised the TV. Also certain things like the laundry or washing up weren't getting done until dh came home from work. My mum is a teacher so couldn't spend any real time with us until now. I heard the door go and ds then 5 ran to answer it and ignored me telling him not to. My mum comes bustling in and tells me that he shouldn't be answering the door. I agree but she just kept piling on the guilt (I could have been a kidnapper or burglar or anything wah wah wah). When she runs the course with that attention turns to the state of the house. The state of the kids (they're in pyjamas not rags ffs) and then me. She told me I should go and get dressed. I shouldn't be letting my husband come home to me looking like that. Worse was yet to come. She takes ds who I'm trying to feed out of my arms and says to me "Here. Let me do that. You go and make me a brew and a sandwich." I told her to fuck off and went upstairs with ds.