Mother In Law Issues - HELP!

[newmamabear4]

I am struggling with my MIL so much!! We had our first baby in lockdown last year and sadly that meant she couldn’t see much of our son for the first 6 months. We were limited to walks only and despite telling us she missed him constantly here are some reasons she cancelled walks on me (please keep in mind her husband was WFH at the time) 1. The carpenter is coming. 2. I have to move some logs. 3. The gardener has lit a fire and I can’t leave it. 4. The electrician is coming. This was all after I had been diagnosed with PND too!! So fast forward to present day and no lockdowns and all that missed time. Have we ever been invited over for dinner? No!!! She claws at my son and tries to take over every time I see her. She even takes him out of the room away from me when he gets upset at being taken by her. He’s very attached to me after spending 6 months in lockdown with just me while his Dad was at work. I’m now back working PT and she very very generously offered to have my son 1.5 days a week. This is amazing BUT she ignores my every request. She doesn’t feed him when I ask, she refuses to put him down for a sleep when I say he needs to nap. He comes home covered in food and stains despite us asking a million times to use bibs and try and keep him as neat as possible. He drinks 4 x 5oz bottles a day for us at home, with her she struggles to get 1oz down him. So he’s missing out on 8oz of milk a day on the days he goes to her. Every little noise my son makes she’s rocking him to to sleep! He’s nearly 10 months old and she knows he has 2 naps a day, yet I pick him up and most days he’s had 4 sleeps with her! It is causing a real rift between me and my partner. He loves his Mum so defends her all the time. I wish I could afford nursery or a childminder but we just can’t. I am so stuck as to what to do!! These few little things I’ve written about are just the tip of the iceberg too! Am I being an over neurotic new Mum or is she out of line here? And how do I address it with her? My partner has spoken to her countless times and I have made it clear I’m not happy without confronting her and upsetting her. I’m at a loss and it’s causing me so much stress!

You're going to have to rethink the childcare. Could you afford it if you increased your hours? Don't forget your partner should be paying for half of it too.

Such a hard one. I had similar issues with my MIL providing free childcare 1 day per week and in the end I chose to suck it up and hire a nanny and pay as it was driving me insane and just giving her power and ammunition against me. Literally have no money now but I would say it's worth it. I agree with the above poster- is there any way you could increase your hours a little so that you could pay for 2-3 days with a childminder and not need the free childcare from her?

If you are going to use her for free childcare you are going to have to compromise in some issues.

You are going to have to make some compromises. So the food stains for instance, just get cheap clothes to send him there in and reuse those, doesn’t matter if they get stained then.

Milk, it depends on if he’s having enough solids and some other fluids. If he is and he’s not waking hungry at night then I’d just put up with it as he’s not going to starve.

Naps I wouldn’t want to compromise on. A 10 month old doesn’t need 4 naps a day.

The taking him away from you is annoying but if she’s going to look after him he needs to get used to her without you around.

I would focus on only raising the really important issues with your partner, rather than picking over little faults. Other than that, pay for childcare.

Is the sleeping more with her chasing problems for the sleep at night or is it something you can let go?

The milk maybe you need to spend a day with her to try and work out what's going on.

And the clothes just get some cheap off ebay. Then it doesn't matter.

Just send him in baby grows so doesn't matter if it gets mucky. Otherwise its get childcare or suck it up

I’d move it to 1 day a week. Doesn’t matter too much then on what’s he’s eaten and drunk. He’s got to create a strong bond with a grandparent and that’s great for your son.

I don’t think it’s her fault that he won’t take milk from her, she can’t force him to drink it. Babies often behave differently with other people. Why does he need to be ‘neat’? Can you just send him in clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty? It would probably be worse at nursery!
Is the sleep thing causing issues at night?
None of what you say sounds awful or dangerous… if you want to dictate exactly how the day goes then you’ll have to find a way to pay for childcare.

If she hadn't have offered to have him for free, what had been your plans for childcare?

She's clearly not listening to your partner and he can't force her to change. You need to figure out alternative childcare as she's not likely to change her ways.

Pay for childcare, take the financial hit, this will never get better. What were your plans if she became too ill to do it?

Look into ways to reduce your outgoings or increase your earnings to pay for a childminder which would be the cheapest option for you.

I think if someone else is looking after you child you can’t dictate how messy they get or when they sleep. Why doesn’t he drink his milk though? Does she feed him solids?
Don’t let her look after him it will drive you mad.

I think most of her excuses are valid tbh, she needed to be there to let workpeople in and couldn't leave a fire burning? I wouldn't take it personally. Not sure what you are getting at with this tbh.

Can you expand on the whole "won't" feed him and "won't" put him down for a nap? Presumably she's not starving him or keeping him up all day?

On the other things:

Babies often don't drink milk at nursery / childminder compared to parent at first. As long as she's offering. This is very normal though.

Clothes - babies can (and should imo once they can move) get mucky. Suggest you try to relax over that.

Naps - unless it affects sleep at night I would let it go. Maybe try to understand why this is happening.

Walking off with him - this would annoy me. I'd probably calmly go after and take him, although i do appreciate what another poster says about him having to get used to it if she's looking after him.

As someone who could count the days of free childcare we've had over the past 8 YEARS on my fingers and has paid in the high tens of thousands in nursery, nanny, childminder etc, I'd also be careful about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I am struggling with 'as neat as possible'. Is he sent with changes of clothes for a full day? Because I'm remembering my kids at that age quite cheerfully unending bowls of food on themselves whilst trying to simulate a hat. No bib would cope with that.

It does sound a little bit like six of one and half a dozen of the other.

*upending

I would agree that her excuses seem perfectly valid really. It's a shame her partner didn't step up and let the carpenter in or whatever, but why aren't you cross with him?

The bib thing is a non issue.

I think maybe you and your MIL are at cross-purposes. You think it's really generous she offered to take him for 1.5 days, but you feel she's 'taking over' when she comes around. I wonder if the reason she wants to take him and sit with him in another room is because she hopes it will make those full days easier? It may not be the right approach but I could see the logic to it.

The same with naps. You say she doesn't put him down for a nap when you ask, but you also say she lets him nap too much.

I think if you have someone else caring for your child for a substantial amount of time, you have to either let them do it their way, or (if you can't accept that), find an alternative arrangement. It would be the exact same with a nursery - they would not make up a whole different nap schedule for one child; they would expect that child to fit in. They wouldn't keep your child 'neat' for the sake of it; they would have a standard level of care and you'd have to accept the child might come home messy.

I absolutely get how weird and difficult it feels with in-laws who may not be on your wavelength, and how it feels to compromise about anything when it's your tiny baby, but I think probably this is a situation where you really need to pick your battles and work out what (if anything) in this situation is really important.

Do you find you have anxiety with your PND too? I was so anxious about any change in routine when mine was at it's worst so I'm just wondering if that might be coming in to play a little here too.

Thank you everyone for your responses!

I agree there are some things I could let go… but I just don’t understand why you would purposely ignore someone’s request to put a bib on your baby at mealtimes. We’ve explained it’s staining clothes etc and she has bibs but she just doesn’t us them. I agree a stain on a top or babygrow isn’t the end of the world, I think it’s more the intention to do the opposite of what we ask.

I made the decision to leave my extremely well paid job when I had my son as it wasn’t a job I could do part time. I now earn less than 25% of what I was earning this time last year. But I made that decision and financial sacrifice so I could be at home with my son 2.5 days a week. I feel I missed out on a lot having a baby in lockdown so my partner and I agreed for the first 12-18 months I would work PT and then go FT when LO was a bit older. So yes, I could go back full time and afford childcare but my boy would be in nursery 8am-6pm 5 days a week and I don’t want that. I want him home with me where possible.

The milk, I agree with some of your comments… can she really be to blame? I just don’t get it as he loves his milk with everyone else and my parents who have him 1 day a week. But he does eat a lot of solids so I know he isn’t being starved. I do think she tries once and then gives up though despite us asking her to try and offer the bottle again a little bit later on.

The naps are a big issue for us because he is in such a great routine that his naps are timed well so he is ready for bedtime at 7pm. Whenever he goes to her she throws the routine out of the window so when we collect him at 5pm he’s either been awake since midday and needs a sleep or he’s just woken up from a nap and won’t go down at 7pm. As I mentioned before, every little groan he makes her initial reaction is “oh you’re tired” and she rocks him to sleep. Then he wakes up after 15 mins and that cycle repeats all day some times. Even when she’s with me she’ll tell me he needs to sleep and says she doesn’t believe me that he’ll be able to wait until his ‘scheduled’ nap. We aren’t stupid about it, we know babies will have days when they are less tired and vis-a-versa and days when they eat less and more. The routine we have for him is fairly loose, we always say “ish” or “around that time”. It’s certainly not to the minute!! But it’s the blatant intent to ignore or go against our wishes that annoys me.

I think I have a lot of resentment for a lot of things that happened in the first 6 months of LO’s life. I feel both my in laws really let us down a number of times. The examples I’ve given seem trivial, I can see that. But when your child’s grandparents cancel on you every week for things that could be avoided or worked around it hurts. These walks with us were rarely rescheduled and they still saw their other 2 grandchildren every week without fail. I think because they were happy to break lock down rules and see people but we weren’t they took offence and so didn’t bother with us. I always allowed them to cuddle our baby, I just asked that it was outside and they wore a mask. They hated it and would pick him up without a mask and waltz into our house and make us feel stupid when we asked them not too.

Again, I appreciate all your responses. Def food for thought on my part. And I definitely need to work on picking my battles. Thank you again everyone.

How are things on the 1/2 day she has him? I assume sleep isn’t such an issue if she only has him for the morning. Is it possible for your partner to adjust his working hours so he can finish early and pick him up at lunchtime / early afternoon on your MIL full day?

I would just stop asking about bibs - she obviously isn’t going to do it. Just send him to her house in clothes that are already stained or that you don’t mind getting stained

In relation to her partner working from home and not being able to deal with whoever was scheduled to come round. He was working. If he’d been in the office he wouldn’t have been able to. I think people sometimes forget that wfh means working. Not getting chores done.

In terms of mil and childcare. Mr parents have ds and dd one day a week. They’re at nursery three days and with me the other.

When they’re at dparents they’re routine is completely different to the rest of the week. Dm
Gave up trying to get dd to sleep so she naps in the car if they go out. Not ideal. But we go with it.

@Cancellingadvice FIL owns the company my partner works for and is VERY ‘traditional’ lets say. My partner made a passing comment about him taking the full paternity leave as I was the main breadwinner when we fell pregnant and FIL said he would sack him if he asked to do that as a mans place it at work and a woman’s place is at home! FIL is waiting on hand and foot by MIL. Doesn’t even make himself a drink. When he was WFH he was always off out taking the other 2 grandchildren to the park etc so he absolutely would have been able to answer a door to a tradesman. He works very flexible hours as the company director and is really on hand to pick up new business calls and not much else. So sadly, due to the nature of his work set up, no my partner couldn’t adjust his hours. He’s requested to WFH a few days a week and this request has also been declined and it’s so tough to challenge when your Dad is your boss.

No matter what your differences are, your son is her grandchild and she loves him. A childminder, no matter how good, won't love him. If you have the opportunity to leave him with a loving family member it's got to be the best option.

It doesn't sound as if you like them very much. Is that right?

If so, you need to stop this arrangement (or chill out). It's not fair on anyone.

Your life seems very enmeshed with your in laws , unhealthily so . I'd concentrate on trying to break some ties so you are not so reliant on them socially and financially, simply Because it seems to be making you miserable.