MIL and allergies - when to say something?

[MoiraRoseIsMyQueen]

We’re staying with the in-laws for a couple of nights (no longer thank god), and I am dairy/soy/egg-free (breastfeeding my little one who is allergic). We arrived last night to a lasagna. MIL had already told me she’d made it, so I brought my own dinner. Today we’ve been presented with pizza and buttered rolls for lunch (every one had been buttered so none left for me).

Not once has she checked what I can eat, asked what I’m having, or apologised that I can’t eat what she’s cooked. Thank god we stopped at the supermarket on the way, because otherwise there would be literally no food for me (and they live in the middle of bloody nowhere so no popping out to the local shops). She knows about the allergies, it’s not a new thing, and we’ve stayed before (plus I texted a few days ago with a gentle reminder).

AIBU to think she’s doing it deliberately? I’ve been gritting my teeth and sorting myself out, but lunch felt like a bad joke - would you say something?

Do they enjoy spending time with their grandchild? I would stop going and just say you don’t want to risk the cross contamination

It really infuriates me when people say "In my day we didn't have allergies, we just got on with it" NO YOU DID HAVE ALLERGIES & INTOLERANCES, THEY JUST WEREN'T DIAGNOSED & CHILDREN SIMPLY DIED!

I'm pretty certain that many of the tragic deaths of children in the 'olden days' which were marked as TB, Plague, Influenza etc were likely severe allergies that weren't treatable as they weren't diagnosed. So sad

Bloody hell that's assault!! I would've had him arrested for that

I would just leave.
thanks for hosting us, but unfortunately we cannot stay as there is no food for my wife. You know how I’ll it could make our baby if she eats this.

I've had to bf with allergies for on and off 6 years now. Mil is fabulous and caters for us so well.and I feel confident leaving DC with her. Others in the family are awful and as a result we cannot leave DC with them even for 10 mins. The last time we visited they ordered pizza for everyone (no vegan options at the place they chose) so we had to leave.

So you need to think ahead, if you don't sort this now, either by deciding not to visit or telling her straight that's it's a problem, then she'll be slipping your DC ice cream and all sorts to 'prove you wrong' with disastrous consequences.

The simple answer here is that you stop visits like this.

we still see family, but we had to change the way we see our family because of my allergies. There was just no reasonable way for them to accommodate me in certain circumstances so I don’t see them in those circumstances anymore. In other situations they can make adjustments and they do. Do

in your situation, I would start saying visits are going to need to be at your house or at a neutral location so that you have access to food.

Sorry to hear this OP. My DD has allergies and I was dairy and soya free while breastfeeding her when she was younger. If my in-laws had acted like that I'd either not go round, or expect my husband to speak to them.
I would explain how dangerous it could be and how unwell the child could become. This has helped others understand when they've questioned the allergy. I agree with a previous suggestion about asking what there is for you to eat if those challenging situations.
I also often confirm ahead of time what food is going to be served so I can bring alternatives if needs be, it then also is a useful prompt for the allergies. I worry a bit about my father in law, he doesn't mean to and tries, but seems to be getting forgetful and have caught him nearly using same utensils etc for my DD previously. I therefore tend to hover in the kitchen when food is being prepared and offer to help my DDs food so I can be sure there's no cross contamination.
It is tough and sorry you've been put in such a horrible situation.

She's totally doing it on purpose.

I'd avoid any food she prepares as she doesn't sound trustworthy at all.

Simple - don’t visit again. If your DH wants to maintain a relationship with his father (who sounds like a dick) then he can visit in his own. It’s abominable- they are either deliberately making a breastfeeding woman go hungry or trying to poison a baby, either is despicable

She’s trying to catch you out so she can expose it all as nonsense.

DD is coeliac. SIL says she is gluten intolerant and yet eats loads of gluten (she doesn’t understand what it is) so MIL used her as an example that she was fine eating those chips/Chinese food/cake or whatever.

I went to school with a boy in the 1980s who was diagnosed as ‘failure to thrive’ he was very small and given special drinks to build him up. It was a food allergy that wasn’t diagnosed until he was an adult, he’s still small but very fit now.

Agree with pp’s she is doing it on purpose. Who butters all the rolls? That is so weird. She is trying to trip you up, god only knows why.

If your LO will continue to have a dairy allergy in the future, I wouldn’t let her near them if she keeps doing this. It’s highly likely she will give them dairy to prove some kind of point.

Talk to her. Explain again what you can't eat. Give her a written list that can't be misunderstood. Explain that the allergens are written in bold on the packaging. Explain that DC might have these allergies in future too.

DC may well be allergic to these in future. If she wants you to come when DC is older then she needs to put some effort into understanding the allergies now.

Suggest she sees her gp for her short term memory loss, mentioning someone's granny whose dementia started that way.

I'd be annoyed if my DH didn't stand up for me. I'd be really upset if he didn't stand up for our children.

This. Plus ‘failure to thrive’ which likely included coeliac disease and other non anaphylactic allergies. Allergies are more common these days but they certainly existed in the past too.

Also not helped by the many people who are selective about their intolerances eg relative of mine who is genuinely gluten and lactose intolerant (dose dependent) but will eat normal bread, pasta, yogurt etc if he fancies it. Yes he may have nasty after effects when he gets home but it reinforces to the older generation that it’s just fussiness not a real medical issue.

My mil did this but to the opposite extent in that she made it such a massive deal and kept saying what can SHE eat as if I was a pet. My dh was brilliant and made sure she was put straight but it was very, very uncomfortable. Her and her dh also used to deliberately ‘test’ her own mother’s lactose intolerance, which they now claim was made up as she’s passed away so can’t answer back.

I’d guess it’s a deliberate attempt to make you feel bad, I take all of my own food. Can you take a really long drive to get something you can eat - have a nice break from the situation? That’s what I did but luckily they live near a big sainsburys so it was like that spa day joke hurrah for gin produced a while back :)
I really hope your little one gets better and well done for doing what you are doing - it’s really hard without the allergy issue but you deserve far better support from family.

Does your DH want a relationship with his Dad? I regret encouraging my DHs relationship with his rather narcissistic controlling father - in the early days of our marriage - I couldn’t see the damage it was doing to DH until later. Let him take the lead. Don’t mention or encourage visits. I wish I hadn’t

I’d refuse to visit them in their home again as you can’t risk DC coming into contact with something she’s allergic to. Do you really see MIL improving as your child gets older?

your DH needs to step up and learn how to be there for you both in regards his parents.

worse case scenario they have a strop and don’t invite you all… win win.

Some older people really can’t fathom these things. What age is she? I’m not being ageist, I just know what DM & friends are like. It’s baffling.

You really are being ageist however much you don't think you are. How old is OP MIL even likely to be if OP has a young baby ? I'm 63 - my adult son is 38 - I am well aware that what you eat affects the baby if you breast feed - because I breast fed my babies and I'm not an idiot. My mother who was born in 1922 also breast fed her babies and was well aware of the link - I remember discussing it with her when I was feeding mine, I would guess her Mum -born it the 1880s - also knew.

If people don't know it is their ignorance not their age.

In any case op's MIL has been repeatedly told so is obviously doing it deliberately for some bizarre reason.

It’s interesting when people mock the older generation for saying allergies weren’t around in their day. I was a kid in the 80s and I neither remember anyone having an allergy nor children dying from undiagnosed allergies. Something must have changed.
My child has severe food allergies which could kill him as do many in his year - where have these allergies come from?

I was a kid in the 80s and I had quite a few friends who had 'special chocolate' so assume they actually had dairy allergies but it wasnt really discussed. There were kids at school with nut allergies and many children had severe eczema which looking back was probably allergy related.

They were there, just described as dying from Asthma instead.

My sister was repeatedly in hospital in the 50s and 60s and my mother was given a new council house in a different area in 1963 so that they weren't living so close to farms and lots of woodlands - her allergy tests showed that she was allergic to tree pollen, horses and hay (apparently) - she was also shown on the skin prick to be allergic to cats and dogs and dust - not that our mother paid attention to those at all.

Allergies did start being written about in the newspapers in the 1980s - it was the child health scare after food colourings as far as I can remember (my mother seized upon that as an explanation for why I 'went crazy after blue sweets' and I had multiple allergies of my own, along with undiagnosed celiac/lactose intolerance - she even pondered banning peanut butter in case I was allergic to that, but as there wasn't much else I would eat without being ill due to her insistence that cutting out milk or bread was ridiculous, I refused point blank there because I'd never had a reaction). You get invested in this stuff at an early age when it's you they're talking about...

Agree with the others, you should stop going and if asked just explain that you find it a lot of work to arrange food every time.

My MIL did not have a good understanding of allergies at first and I found it stressful. But by setting out our own boundaries and her showing willingness, we now trust her completely to cook for our DC with allergies. It has been rewarding for everyone involved and I appreciate that we all worked at it together.

There are 2 ways to think of this (1) she's one of those people who doesn't understand allergies (2) she is spiteful and doesn't want to accommodate you. My own MIL is the former (she once asked if I'd was over the allergies yet). I think there are 2 ways to go. You could refuse to go there again, DH can go if he wants. But it sounds like you want to support him and go. So I'd say just make sure the stays are short and you take stuff with you for you for each meal - and make sure you don't stay too long.