MIL won't allow DS to bring teddy home

[Donnaslayer]

Hello mumsnetters. My MIL looks after our DS 2.5yrs old every Friday. She loves having him. Now we dress him in a nice outfits but as soon as she gets him to her house she changes him out of them and into clothes shes bought him. There's no difference in style or anything other than shes bought them. Today for example we dressed him in a tshirt, tracksuit and spiderman trainer's. Shes changed him into a tshirt and jogger bottoms and hey dugee trainers that shes bought him. Now all bought clothes are not allowed home and she changes him out of them again before we pick him up. We use to send spare clothes for accidents but she told us not to bother as she has absolutely heaps of stuff for him. I think its a bit weird to buy so many clothes and shoes that our DS only gets to wear 1 day a week and will probably grow out of pretty sharpish. It's not good economics but hey it's her money, her perogative I guess. My DS has 3 favorite teddies, he takes 1 to all 3 most places. My issue is she's now bought him a Sonic the Hedgehog teddy last week, he loves Sonic but she told him/us it's staying here! Hes not allowed to take it home! DS Uncle was there too and backed MIL up. My DP had words with them about it but they were adamant. He laughed and asked why what do you think we're going to do with it? All we got back was it's staying here and they took it away and hid it while DS was having his nappy changed. Fortunately DS didn't notice but if he had there would have been hell to play. We both think it's so unfair to give DS a beloved teddy to play with all day and then tell him a toddler you can't take it home with you, it will be here next week sigh. Im thinking I'll just go buy him the same Sonic teddy as I cba with this pointless power struggle every week. Am I being unreasonable?

When do you start saying no to a child then? All they need to do is cry and they get what they want.

And I don’t think the toy would be a problem if not for the clothes. It’s the context of her obviously playing mummy/trying to take control that colours the toy incident.

There are some astonishingly batshit posts on this thread. Having read them all I want to grab my daughter, hug her tight and tell her how much I appreciate her.

And next time my DGD visits me and heads straight to her selection of toys with excitement because they're special to her, I'll enjoy that even more.

But jeeze, I'll also appreciate that no-one present is going to interpret any of that as me pretending I'm her mother, and decide to go NC with me. I didn't realise how real the risk is that a different daughter would think that.

I don't think you can reasonably say that she is "obviously" doing that.

Why do people feel free to say such damaging things about others? I'd be mortified if someone did something I found mildly irritating and I put it here only to generate such uncalled for and excessive comment.

I assume she puts in him "her clothes" so she can let him get as dirty or messy as she wants without having to send him back in dirty clothes that a judgmental DIL might complain about on MN.

Me too. I don't need to worry about putting DGD in different clothes, because my DD won't turn a hair if DGD goes home muddy or with splashes of paint on her clothes. But one of my friends has a DIL who always comments at even the tineist mark. So she too has spare clothing that she puts her DGD in when she looks after her.

YABU to dress your child in a tracksuit

However she sounds beyond nuts. Is there more to her bizarre behaviour? It sounds like she's pretending to be 'Mummy!'
Personally I'd have stopped her having him alone after discovering how many clothes she's bought - that is straight up WEIRD.

Keep your antennae on high alert 📡

YABU to dress your child in a tracksuit

Why?

She's his grandmother ffs, what is wrong with you?

The clothes thing is weird but the teddy thing is OK - if he went to nursery and wanted to take a toy home from nursery would that be OK? he needs to learn boundaries and its OK for toys to stay at m'n'laws.

It used to drive me mad when my mum bought toys that DS1 couldn't take away with him, but tbh I now see it makes sense.

Your MIL now knows that whenever he is there she is equipped with toys, that he knows what to expect to find there.

The clothes thing does seem a bit weird, but again she knows what she's got for him.

It seems weird to you, but once / if you have more kids (assuming this is your PFB), or life just gets more hectic as he's older, it may make more sense.

Also grandparents are mental but that's the cost of the childcare, and she clearly means well, so best to just suck it up.

I wish I could have the time back that I spent being annoyed with my DM about this issue.

How could she help/support without interfering? Obviously the parents aren’t bothered by those things. We take our granddaughter out in a stroller that’s so filthy I’m embarrassed to be seen with it but it’s not my circus. I’m certainly not going to help/support and be accused of sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted.

My sister has two of her grandkids on different days each week. She too changes their clothing on arrival. In her case it is because she is allergic to cats and both grandchildren have a cat in their home. She changes child immediately in utility room. Clothing goes into a bag and stays in utility until they go home. Then changes child back to go home. It seems a bit over the top but she feels unwell if cat hair on child clothing. Perhaps mil thinks you could lose Sonic teddy or wants something for dgs to associate with her and her house. I can't see why it would be a problem if he has other favourite teddies. My Mum used to keep a box of toys at her house that all of her dgc played with but had to stay there when they left. My son used to get annoyed he spent hours making a Lego monster then when he returned another dgc had broken it up to make something else. We made it into a guessing game 'what will Nannies Lego turn into next'?

My MIL is exactly like this! I think its all part of the fantasy she is playing out that my daughter is actually hers. I actually once heard her say 'smile for mummy' when taking her picture 🙄 I used to get really wound up by it but really trying to just let it wash over me now!

Blimey I'm really surprised at the vitriol towards grandmothers on this thread.

Just giving a shout out to all the nanas who keep toys at your house for grandkids to play with.

You're not weird. Carry on.

I've found myself almost calling myself mummy, a few times. I think that when we're caring for tiny people that we love immeasurably, our brains retain a kind of muscle memory that finds us talking in the same way that we did when our own children were that age. I've got as far as "Mu..." on several occasions. Fortunately when no-one was in earshot.

It's not just grandmas. We used to keep a fairly comprehensive wardrobe for my nephew at our house as he was regularly dropped off in clothes suitable for California, where he lived for 3/4 of the year, rather than Yorkshire where we live. And he used to get in trouble if his rather expensive clothes/shoes got stained or dirty. Easier to just have some bits in than constantly be phoning his dad trying to negotiate a jumper or waterproof being dropped off or frantically washing stuff before he went home.

It depends
Is it a gift for ds, then it goes home with him
Or
Is it a toy that stays at grandma's...

Be clear what will happen with her birthday gifts!

And send him in pjs!

But presumably you don’t make your grandchild change their entire outfit every time they come to your home? Because that’s weird.

It would be weird for me, because I have an easy going DD. But it's not weird for my friend whose DIL makes a huge fuss if DGD and DGS come home with even the slightest mark on their clothes. So yes, my friend puts different clothes on them so that she can let them play in the garden/paint/whatever, and puts their pristine ones on back on them to go home to tricky DIL. I imagine that my friend also has that odd moment when "Mu..." comes out of her mouth God forbid that DIL's ever around when it happens.

Thank you. I do have a good relationship with them and they have always spent so much time with us. I've never said no to having them, sometimes for 2 weeks at a time and also taking them on holiday with us. Buying them the clothes saved such alot of upset and meant they were happy so that's all that matters in the end. Of course as they got older it wasn't an issue but hard to make sure a 2 or 3 year old doesn't get into a mess sometimes.

"My MIL looks after our DS 2.5yrs old every Friday."

Does she have to? Could you arrange childcare elsewhere? Since you "cba with this pointless power struggle every week". I'd be looking to remove the struggle completely.

I can assure you I didn't buy clothes for GC so I could pretend I was their mummy, self preservation so I didn't get shouted at because they got a mark on their expensive stuff. I had supermarket or primark things that I didn't mind them mucking up.

I've brought up 4 of my own and have no desire to play mummy.

Jeez this thread is peak MN. Tell her she has to keep him in the clothes he arrived in and we'll wait for your post in a month complaining that your 2.5 year old always comes back dirty. As for the teddy, does your DC not have enough at your house?

My mil did it with toys. It started to escalate and I had to be careful sending things with him or she kept those there too. So I'd know what he took and made sure he had it when we left, and nothing too precious!

My kids had toys at their grandparents house and they stayed there. Even as toddlers they understood that they had a toy box of toys that was kept at granny's house.

They didn't really have toys but had pretty much everything else so we don't need to take much when they went to stay.