MIL said my breast milk isn't good enough for my baby

[goldenroses95]

I have a newborn who is feeding extremely often and my MIL claims that my baby is feeding so often because she's not getting enough nutrients from my breast milk. She says I need to change my diet (this is based on her seeing me eat 1 pizza takeaway on the weekend!) and even said "do you not love your child?"

I have told her that babies cluster feed and you feed breast fed babies on demand but MIL is having none of it. DH has not once backed me on this and her constant interfering is stressing me out. This incident is just one of a long list of things she's said/done.

Not an aibu as such but posting to see if anyone can advise me on how to navigate this situation!

This worked for me (albeit over 20 years ago):
'I'm all over the place with my hormones right now so please forgive me if I may be interpreting your advice as criticism but the midwife and the health visitor tell me that everything is going really well and our feeding pattern is working so well for X's development. I am tired to be honest but X is doing so far above average we are thrilled. What was it you were worried about?'
Get your DH onside and shut down the negativity. If you are ok and baby is ok then no other opinion matter.

My MIL made some outrageously nasty comments throughout my pregnancy. I cut her out of my life for over a year and when I let her back in it was very gradual and on my terms. It was more than she deserved really.

I've kept her at arms length over the past several years and have never allowed her to look after our child on her own. She's an extremely opinionated, bitchy woman who I don't trust and she's missed out as a result. But that's what you get for being a dick quite frankly!

Honestly you need to put your foot down. Her comments are disgraceful and she wouldn't be crossing the threshold of my house again until she had learned to keep her mouth shut. Sadly old habits die hard and it's not likely that she will see the error of her ways, so you need to set the boundaries here and decide how much you want her in your life.

Practice the phrase
“When I want your opinion I will ask for it, thank you!”
I suspect this is not the last time you are going to need it OP.

Interesting comments. I wondered what was going on with some women when it came to breast-feeding.

I breastfed both of mine and I was breastfed by my mother. I'm almost 70 and my mum was born in the late 1920's. So, no woman in my family, on both sides, ever used formula. My oldest child is almost 50 and I was the only woman in the hospital who was breast-feeding. I was 21 yrs old and nobody instructed me how to hold the baby, or stuff about latch or how often to feed. The only woman who'd seen anyone breastfeed before was my British midwife. I was living abroad away from my family. I just fed him whenever he wanted to. With no outdated advice we did great.

My daughter-in-law was bottle-feed and so was everyone in living memory in her family. Thankfully she is breastfeeding her new baby and loves how easy it is. She got a bit of negative feed back about breast-feeding from her family, who live very far away. They thought it was a gimmick and you still needed to have formula, bottles and some sort of bottle sterilizing machine. Her dad even said he'd come over here to help her with the night feeds and when she needed to 'get away' from her darling little baby. He was told to stay away.

Good on you for standing up for yourself. You're absolutley right and your MIL is full of nonsense.

Don’t let this person ruin your confidence regardless of who she is. Limit interactions with her as much as possible and tell DH if he can’t keep her in line you’ll just have to see less and less of her and don’t accept any excuses. If you do have to see her be clear that she shouldn’t be saying this stuff to you in whatever way you feel best (be direct, laugh and pretend she’s joking,
leave the room, death stare whatever works for you). You don’t have to put up with it.

Wow tell her to shut the fuck up and just stay home from now on. You know exactly what you're doing she will never do any care tasks for your baby.

I'd tell her she is ill informed, and her ideas are well out of date. And I'd insist that DH backs you up on this. He really shouldn't allow her to be so rude to you, child or not.

What does not in the spirit mean?
Genuine question.

Thats a nasty thing to say!
Hopefully its coming kind of with a good intention backed up by old-fashioned opinions and she cant do any better.
Of course your milk is the very best for your baby by far!

Love this!

Tell her to go fuck herself

It’s not easy to ignore such comments. They’re really not necessary. You continue what you’re doing, you’re doing great. Create space between you and MIL.

My MIL has an issue and continued to make BF comments. There was a time I went to run errands for an hour and left baby with husband while she was visiting. MIL told DH to give baby formula because he was hungry. DH did to show that baby wasn’t interested in formula and baby got more agitated. I had fed baby before I left, he wasn’t hungry, he was missing his mum.

You are baby’s mum. It’s your choice/opinions that matter, not hers.

100% this...
Why are you putting up with her?
Can you imagine in a few years if she says again ' Dont you love your child? about spmething else BUT your child is old enpugh to understand what was said to you by their grandmother???

Your DH is also a big problem

My mother thought that me choosing to bf dd1 was a criticism of her. She could never get past it. Sadly I had be trained to not stand up for myself. Dh did that with dd2

My HV told me exactly this! I adore my MIL but she made me feel so paranoid when I was in the first few weeks of feeding about my milk not ‘being enough,’ especially because he was up in the night feeding 4-5 times every night until he was about 6 months old. I felt so triumphant every time he was weighed and had gained weight 🤣

Give her a confused look and say "Knowledge has moved on a lot since your day. I'm surprised you don't know that... as a nurse"

Your MIL is correct that you should do your best to eat nutritional food, take breastfeeding supplements etc but the way that she has gone about it is cruel. If she feels you’re going for junk meals (which loads of us did in the utterly exhausting early stages of having a baby) then she should be there cooking you meals and bringing you nutrient-rich food — or telling your DH to do so!

She is most likely suffering empty nest syndrome and is jealous that you’re her grandchild’s mum and not her, so is picking holes.

I think you should work on your DH here, rather than her. Talk to your health visitor about breastfeeding in front of him, or send him videos, articles etc about cluster feeding, so that he is knowledgeable on the topic (which he should have done already, to be honest).

Babies can also breastfeed simply for comfort. Your baby is craving being close to you all the time because they’re teeny and still feel part of you.

You should also be forthcoming with DH about how your MIL’s comments have made you feel, and he needs to tell her that he finds her comments towards you unkind and unhelpful.

You’re a new mum who is trying to get used to so much, so the burden to sort this out needs to be on him, not you. Make that clear. He needs to honour your feelings and look after you now more than ever.

Enjoy your lovely little baby - wishing you all the best 💐

She is itching to get your dc to herself isn't she?

She’s bonkers. “Thanks for your advice but we’ll have to agree to disagree” say that every time she says someone stupid and shitty and rude.

Sounds like you’re doing a great job OP, keep going.

Your MIL is correct that you should do your best to eat nutritional food ....

A pizza is not not nutritional food. It has carbs, possibly vitamins added to the wheat flour, lycopene in the processed tomato topping, and all the nutrients that are in dairy products. If it has a sourdough base, might have some probiotics.

And op did not even say she's regularly eating pizza, just a once a week or whatever.

And new Mums need plenty of energy from carbs etc.

Mil is clearly crackers.

Weight stability/gain is what is important re feeding the baby. That's up to op and her health professionals to guage and strategise on.

If you even bothered engaging with this mad woman who wants to take the baby away ...n I'd ask for what breast feeding education and experience she had, what training, what courses, what books and other info, web sites she had read etc etc. Where is the breadth feeding knowledge and expertise she feels she had coming from.

Though she'll probably just bullshit about common sense yada yada.

My mil told me the same thing. My breast milk was apparently such poor quality it was the reason my son had colic. She was shocked when I decided to breastfeed my second child too.

Midwife and health visitor gave me the worst advice on practical things. Best advice came from other new mums.

Yeah it's interesting that she's said she wants to take the baby (because neither of its parents in her view can look after it properly... while I'm sure you're doing no worse than the vast majority of new parents) and coincidentally wants you to stop doing the thing that most obstructs her taking the baby or having the baby for any length of time.

I’d probably tell her she’s not a good enough grandmother.