I shouted at MIL for leaving my baby to cry himself to sleep and now she is suicidal ?

[Anon199000000]

My son is 4 months old and he stayed the night at my MILs. This has been planned for weeks, prior to my son staying me and partner kept thanking MIL for offering to take our son for the night as he’s so young. MIL insisted we didn’t even need to thank her, she couldn’t wait to look after him for the night.

Now..bit of background, me and my partner have totally different views on parenting than my in laws. They often give unsolicited advice and brush off what we have to say as they say they have had two kids and know what they are doing. They have a bit of an old school approach I believe..they have often said they left my partner to cry as he had a temper as a baby and their own parents told them they needed to leave him to cry to “break him” (their own words) and show him who’s boss type thing..

Now..I never leave my son to cry. I’m really against it and so is my sons dad, which my in laws know. I was hesitant to leave my son with them because of this but my partner assured me his parents only
Did that to him as a baby and wouldn’t do that to our son.

Now Cut to Saturday night we decide to phone in laws to find out how they getting on at around 9 o clock. MIL answers and says “ he has some cry doesn’t he !!! Oh he reminds me just of you when you were a baby ! I thought that cry is just sheer temper ! So I put him in his cot and left him and checked in on him every 10 minutes and now he’s sleeping.” Me and my partner just stared at each other for a few seconds after she said this and he said “aw mum..please don’t leave him to cry” and she said “aw he’s fine ! He’s sleeping now” and I instantly burst in to tears..

I’m not being dramatic but I genuinely felt heartbroken that my little boy had been left there crying in his own..I know how upset he gets just being left crying for a few minutes while I’m at the toilet or I’m getting a bottle or
Something !

My partner wasn’t happy she had left him and decided to text his mum and ask her again please not to leave our son to cry and I was so upset. I started to feel really angry and He asked me to ohone his mum and I said no Because I will shout at her on the phone so I’m not going to speak to her the now. She then starts to phone my partner and he answers and blooming puts her on loudspeaker ! I couldn’t help myself and I shouted “don’t you dare ever leave my son to cry again !! How dare you !!” And my partner hung up the phone.

My partner then started to get messages from her and his dad saying how upset his mum was and she was in tears! He is a proper mummies boy and this immediately made him turn on me. He was shouting at me and saying things like his mum will always come before me and he can’t believe I’ve upset her and his mum is in tears etc and even that he doesn’t want to be with me he is totally finished with me ! His mum keeps messaging him that she is soo upset, in tears and then changes her tune completely and says that in fact she never left our baby to cry at all and she would never ! That he got lots of kisses and cuddles and lovely warm milk and yes he was crying but she sat with
Him the whole time stroking his head...so now my partner is even more angry at me because he has suddenly forgot what his mum said in the first place? Like what she said was pretty black and white to me..she definitely admitted to leaving him to cry ..my partner even said the same at the time and wasn’t happy either so what ?!

I’ve never argued with my in laws once and always gotten on well with them. They’ve treated me like a daughter and said numerous times I was the best thing to happen to their son and have now completely turned on me because of this I feel and I just find the whole thing crazy. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m shy and never stood up to them before so now they’re not happy..

The next day in laws were meant to drop my son off at our house but wouldn’t as his mum was still in tears apparently and his dad waited for me to go out before bringing my son home .. I tried phoning MIL twice and she never answered. I the. Messaged her apologising for shouting and thanking her for doing us a favour and she never replied..that night partner kicks off at me again. Apparently his mum had messaged him saying she is still crying and upset by everything and the next day she says she doesn’t feel she has anything to live for.. he’s telling me I need to phone her and I try explaining that I already have and she hasn’t
Answered or tried phoning back and he just gets angrier and angrier with me and says I need to keep trying.. and need to keep apologising to her.

I’m just really taken aback by the whole thing..it’s been days and my partner is still off with me and if I’m honest I can actually see this being the end of us ..I mean for godsake he thinks that ive made his mother suicidal. yes I shouldn’t have shouted at her and she was doing us a big favour but she shouldn’t have done that still and why is no one telling her she’s overreacting ! I’m just so shocked by this whole situation...please tell my I’m not being unreasonable

They are manipulating you. Mil sounds like a psycho and your partner is a spineless numpty.
I feel for you

You are overreacting. Get over yourself and stop being so dramatic

You all sound very dramatic.

Well if she's crying so much it's probably just a temper, has anyone tried locking her in a room, alone until she's cried so much she passes out with exhortation?

Why ever not? It was good enough for her grandson!

*@FrozenoutofCostco - Why^^ is an 18 month old child waking every 2/3 hours? They should be sleeping through the night from 6 weeks? *

You should ABSOLUTELY visit all the sleep related threads on here. Jesus Christ 😂😂😂

He asked me to phone his mum and I said no Because I will shout at her on the phone so I’m not going to speak to her the now. She then starts to phone my partner and he answers and blooming puts her on loudspeaker ! I couldn’t help myself and I shouted “don’t you dare ever leave my son to cry again !! How dare you !!” And my partner hung up the phone

Having gotten divorced from a mummy’s boy I knew this wasn’t going to end well when he wanted you to phone her. Mummies boys encourage you to have the conflict they are too scared to have themselves. In fact they actively shit stir.

What you might not know op is that mummies boys actually fucking hate their mummies. They often became that way via being manipulated, emotionally abused and being used as a surrogate spouse.

Mummies boys are spineless, two faced and often play the victim. They are frequently abusive. These families frequently engage in conflict seeking behaviours and are generally chaotic and full of drama.

Despite what he says, I suspect he’s secretly thrilled you are now having these issues with her. He gets to righteously abuse you plus display loyalty to your mil. Win win.

Get rid of this nasty little man.

My days you all are too much drama.

All of you.

To be fair he doesn’t wake every 2 hours but he does do shorter stints of sleep from around 4/5 am. Definitely quite normal for breastfed babies to wake up a few times in the night even as they get older - he’s used to nursing to get back to sleep, so still looks for me. I didn’t sleep train him and this is how it turned out. Not unhappy with the situation but thanks for your concern.

I'm sure that she felt that she was doing the absolute best for your baby and probably didn't just leave him to scream for ages alone, but she shouldn't have agreed to have him if she wouldn't adhere to your rules. That said, you should n't have let him go if you are very consistent and passionate with your routine/style of parenting. Of course, as a new mother, it is so hard for your to hear your own baby cry. For anyone other than the parents, it is less distressing and therefore they are less likely to adhere to the constant holding/rocking. You absolutely should n't have shouted. She is clearly very sensitive and now worried. You were right to try and apologize. However, your partner has caused a lot of the upset on both sides. This doesn't need to be made any more dramatic. You shouldn't be contemplating leaving your partner over this, however tired and fraught you are feeling. In another week things will have calmed down and things will start to return to normal, although no doubt you won't allow your baby any more over night visits for a long long time.

Yanbu at all. Well done for standing up for yourself and your son and stick to your guns. I wouldn’t trust them with him for a long time! Your partner needs to take responsibility for his family, my son’s dad genuinely would’ve been out the door to get DS before I’d had the chance to shout anything!

Which bit is odd? I just don’t feel like shouting at someone means that afterwards any behaviour is fair game. I think sometimes, if you are upset or disappointed, it’s ok to shout. Then I agree that it’s early to leave a child overnight if you don’t agree with their childcare approach. Finally I think the situation could be resolved if dh realised that he was massively in the wrong…

@Cosmos123

My days you all are too much drama.

All of you.

My thoughts exactly

Ignore, and never let her take care of him again. Don’t show that emotion to her again; she will feed off it. Keep her arms length and be blandly pleasant. Never mention it ever again.
I feel bad for your little boy, poor thing. I would have reacted exactly as you did.

🤣🤣 congratulations on your unicorn baby. Maybe take your blinkers off and pay attention to the fact that your child I the exception, not the rule. There is no such thing as "should be" when it comes to baby sleep but regular waking is indeed extremely common and in fact biologically normal.

Try to remember that they have the babies best interests at heart. The same way as you do. Now my children are older, I feel I was overreacting big time at the way the grandparents behaved when my children were younger, there was no need for me to care so much or to be so controlling over how the GP’s looked after our children, they loved them just like we did, nothing compares to that. Try to relax a bit, who knows the baby might even learn new habits. My son used to need feeding to sleep every night until one day I had to go out and my friends arrived and he wasn’t asleep and they said you need to sort that out. I resented them but they were right, a few weeks and the habit had been broken. My son is 15 now and everything is fine :) try to be open to others opinions as well as what you think is best - usually it is but on some occasions, I learnt that it is good to consider others opinions. Takes a village to bring up a baby and all that.

frozenoutofCostco and bluerecruit sorry was replying to you above but messed it up!

@cathyj87

🤣🤣 congratulations on your unicorn baby. Maybe take your blinkers off and pay attention to the fact that your child I the exception, not the rule. There is no such thing as "should be" when it comes to baby sleep but regular waking is indeed extremely common and in fact biologically normal.

Thank you cathyj87

Meant to quote @Frozenoutofcostco but ballsed it up 🤦‍♀️

@Pollywants

So it's okay for your wee baby to cry it out but MIL crying deserves special treatment? Maybe she should be left to cry it out!!

Yes indeed. Tell them all to grow up.

It wasn't a "huge" favour, she simply babysat her GC
She cant babysit again,
You H is being a dick, you have tried to speak to her she won't pick up.
You told him you didn't want to phone her, he did it anyway..
You should leave & go somewhere else for a while, tell them all when they've stopped the theatrics to let you know.
Or just get fuck off

You're not being unreasonable. They're wrong. You're right. End it , you'll be fine just you and your little one x

@RoSEbuds6

fgs I have now just seen *@SudokuWillNotSaveYou* post and hadn't seen that he'd said that his mum would always come first. God that's a low blow.

I know @RoSEbuds6. I’m sure we’ve all known mummies’ boys and women who have married mummies’ boys… and divorced them. And this kind of unequivocal statement is usually a sign you’ve married one you’re going to end up divorcing and his mother will be part of it.

It’s not just the MIL, though. I don’t know how long you’ve been married, @Anon199000000, but there’s research that can predict with 90% accuracy whether a couple (in their first five years of marriage) will end up divorcing, and it’s all based on how they fight. The Four Horsemen of Divorce are: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Think about what he said during him shouting at you. All. Night. Long. Your DH is showing all of them in this fight over MIL’s crocodile tears (and if he’s still acting “off” many days later, that would be the stonewalling). So…

And like many others, I find it both insane and ridiculous that MIL said DH’s tears as an infant were “pure temper,” considering that:

1. Obviously, that’s impossible with an infant.
2. Her tears (and claims of “life not worth living”) now ARE pure temper!

OMG. Well do you really want to be with him if he is going to defend his psycho mum in such an aggressive way?

Also if anyone left my baby to cry I would never speak to them again. Mil or no mil.

No wonder your husband has anger issues after being left alone to cry all night. Worse still your baby was away from home. What a bitch. Also I wouldn't leave a 4 month old overnight unless it was a medical emergency. That was a mistake too.

FlorenciaFlora hit the nail on the head.

And now you know how your MIL started training her son to put her feelings ahead of his. Don't let her do it to your child, and don't let your spineless partner enable her.

Ha, leave her to cry it out! She’s lied now, so I’d have no sympathy.

I personally think this is all over the top. Your reaction and her reaction. Apologize and don't let the woman have your child overnight again.