For taking my baby away from MIL

[firsttimemum990]

My DD is 2 weeks old. She's a terrible sleeper at night (as are most newborns from my understanding), and as a result, I've only been getting a few hours sleep at night. DD tends to sleep quite a lot throughout the day. MIL has basically blamed me for this and says that I need to keep DD awake in the day so that she sleeps at night, as it's not "normal". She's also suggested that I give her a bath every evening as this will "settle her" and "make her sleep through the night". I have been ignoring her advice so far, as I know that it is completely normal for newborns to wake during the night (especially since I BF and DD cluster feeds), and giving them a bath in the evening is unlikely to make any difference.

She visited yesterday, and of course, DD was asleep. I went to use the toilet shortly after she arrived, and on my return, saw that MIL had woken DD up and was lifting her in the air and telling her to "wake up". DD, who was obviously still tired, could barely keep her eyes open and her head was flopping all over the place as she was still half asleep. I immediately went over and took DD from her and told her it's perfectly normal for DD to be sleeping during the day and I don't want her woken up. She made a comment along the lines of "well don't moan at me when you're up all night"

DH is now angry with me as he thinks MIL was "just trying to help" and is now of the opinion that we should be keeping DD awake in the day. He's also accused me of treating her like an "outsider". They are making me feel unreasonable for wanting to just let my baby sleep. I am not going to spend my day waking up my newborn every time she falls asleep. I also read sleep is good for babies development, which I've told DH, but he thinks I'm talking rubbish.

Surely I wasn't being unreasonable for taking the baby from her?! I didn't think I was being unreasonable but I think I've let them get to my head!

Never leave your precious baby with her alone again. Interfering old witch.

Lots of good suggestions for website links to shove under your 'd'H's nose for him to educate himself (shame you have to do that as he should already be doing that himself).

Your baby's head wasn't wobbling around because she was tired; it was because her neck muscles aren't strong enough to support the weight of her head!! So dangerous to not support babies heads!!

It might be a good idea to start introducing a nighttime routine ie bath. But only when you feel that this might be suitable for you and baby.

DH is being a dick. I would tempted to show him this thread.

MIL is clearly out of order. Please be assertive with her & your DH.
I do remember strange things happening with newborns in the 70s. For example a 10lb baby at birth was being fed baby rice before he left hospital. Sugar was routinely added to water and formula. Something called Farex was also added to milk after a few weeks. Babies were left outside in prams for hours on end, as the fresh air was apparently good for them.
Not condoning her awful behaviour, but this may be where she gets it from.

My DMum was told by a Doctor that the only time to wake a sleeping baby was if there was a fire ! This was in the 1960s so things might have changed a bit .

My DD (DC2 ) was one of those mythical babies who slept right through and when she woke up was cheerful (usually because her brother made a beeline over to her)
As she drank quite a bit from 6am to noon, then slept again, my DM suggested she went onto solids at 4 weeks

I ignored her .(MiL not DD)

Your dh is ridiculous and needs to be told so. Perhaps your health visitor could do the honours !

If he can't support you in raising your child (and you're only two weeks in) then he's going to be no use whatsoever as a parent.

Has your DH attended any antenatal classes or done ANY reading or research before becoming a father? When I say research, I mean from sources backed up by research and professionals qualified in the field?

Honestly some people seem to do less preparation for having a child for the rest of their lives than they do for buying a new car or mobile phone!

Is it having a baby that makes women realise they have married a mummies boy?

Because that would be awful. Imagine marrying a great man, that was of equal partnership until the baby was born.
How do you ever come back from that?

No way can you keep a 2 week old awake during the day, ridiculous! Mine was asleep pretty much all the time, she just woke to be fed and then back snoozing 😴

It sounds like op doesn't know why her babies head was wobbling around. That is quite concerning in itself.

Tell your DP to Google when babies develop melatonin......until then your baby isn't going to know the difference between night and day so no zero reason to keep her awake during the day!

Whilst at it personally I would be saying to your DP that his mother needs to back off and not wake a sleeping baby and also to be careful of her head!
A small amount of newborns can have neck strength but definitely not many!

New born babies don’t have a pattern unfortunately. I kept it quite noisy and bright during the day and it did help me get five hours nap with breast feeding baby. Baby likes to smell milk so be very close to mum when going asleep. You have to get your Moses basket as close to you as possible. Do not bath your baby every night it strips the oil out of the babies skin x sending hugs I wouldn’t appreciate anyone waking my baby up during the day either! You’re in a bit of a no win situation as MIL thinks she knows best. Say you appreciate her advice but your health visitor says the opposite! You don’t mind her holding baby but only when awake.

Let him babysit mummy's way for a few hours see if he can tolerate the screams?

Tell her and your oh to fuck off!! 2 week old babies sleep most of the day, I have a 14 week old and he still sleeps a lot and can only stay awake for an hour or 2 during the day then needs another nap. I remember my mum telling me with my first baby that they should be able to go 4 hours between feeds, I wondered why she cried so much, now I know it's because she was hungry! She also said I shouldn't let them nap on my chest! This baby I haven't and won't listen to a word of her "advice"!! It is your baby, mummy knows best.

Two weeks old? Your MIL is batshit.
Tell your husband to get his ass in gear and start supporting you or he can go back to (his own) mummy.

This!!! Go out and have some time to yourself and see how they get on with a cranky overtired baby!

People easily forget what the first few weeks of baby life is like. They do sleep all day and stay awake at night but as time goes by many people forget how much this is the case.

Haven’t read the whole thread so apologies if repeating but well done for standing up to mil. Now you need to put some proper boundaries in place and you need your Dh on board otherwise this will be a DH problem (if not already) rather than mil as she will only do what he lets her and then gets ‘angry’ with you. He shouldn’t be getting angry unless he has an anger/control issues? If he’s decent to you otherwise that’s fine but if he usually puts her first or doesn’t respect your opinion then things won’t get better unless you both want things to get better.

He needs to realise the harm he's potentially allowing his mother to inflict.

This.

There is a reason why sleep deprivation is banned by the Geneva Convention - it is literally torture.

A tiny baby needs a LOT of sleep. Your little one will gradually find her own sleep pattern with your gentle help. At two weeks your baby will barely be uncurling herself from her accustomed foetal position.

And she may turn out to nee a bay who sleeps a lot (and that is fine) or one who just "catnaps" (also fine - for her, though much harder for you).

You could try waking your husband constantly when he is dog tired and see how he likes it - he's a mother-pecked idiot by the sounds of things.

From my experience the sleep thing gets better around 6 weeks if you’re still breastfeeding but I also co sleep which I believe helps too.

WTF is she on about. A two week old baby doesn’t wake in the night because they had too much sleep in the day, it’s because their tummy is the size of a ping pong ball and they wake to feed every couple of hours. They could be awake all day (nigh impossible for a 2 week old) but they would still wake every 2/3 hours during the night for a feed. You can’t force a 14 day old baby into a routine! It takes most babies several weeks/months before they start to get into a day/night routine. Tell MIL to back off and tell your husband that he needs to have your back and not his Mother’s - otherwise this is going to be an intolerable 18 years for you!

What an abusive woman. A defence tiny newborn and she's using military tactics of waking them up/keeping them awake.

She should be ashamed of herself. She waited until you were out of the room to abuse your baby. The protective safe mum.

I would probably take my baby and find somewhere to stay until the father of the baby saw sense. Suggest he speaks to the health visitor about how serious this women's actions are.

You are not being unreasonable. Continue to advocate for your baby.

Your MIL doesn’t know as much about babies as she thinks she does. She’s probably just forgotten as it’s been a long time she raised a baby. You can’t sleep train a baby that young- yours is a newborn fgs. They sleep, eat, whatever when they need to, that’s just how it is. Which you know. And as far as I know you’re right about them needing their sleep to help their development. Stand your ground.

Some bonehead waking my baby up “because it’s daytime” can get in the fucking sea. Mine were both inconsolable when woken up like that.

Apologies, I am very much aware that newborns don't have much strength in their neck muscles and it needs supporting - I had it drilled into my head on the many antenatal classes I went to while pregnant. Now I think back, her head was obviously flopping around due to MIL not holding her correctly, but everything is a bit of a blur as it all happened so fast and I feel so emotional about it which has led me to wrongly state that it was due to her being tired. Not doing a great job at portraying myself as a capable mum

Thank you to everyone who has offered useful suggestions. I think the HV is a good one and I think I'll be giving them a call this week as there have been other pieces of advice I've been given from MIL that are outdated/wrong (such as "put the baby to sleep on her front. She will choke on her back"). Yes DH is clearly very much a mummy's boy, which has become more apparent since having DD, but I'm going to continue to be assertive and say when I don't agree with something.

how is that helping -it doesnt work like that

tell him to back you up or he can go live with her

I was just pondering this, why so many women who became mums in the 70s seem to have very fixed ideas about babies being ‘infantilised’ and needing to be whipped into shape from day 1. Cry it out, bottle feeding schedules, early weaning and so on. They simply cannot accept we know more now about what is best for babies and their ‘knowledge’ is out of date and even harmful.

My husband’s mum is the same. I have a 3 week old, one of the first questions she asked was whether I was breastfeeding and when I said I was and it is going well she actually looked disappointed. I think she was secretly hoping I would say it hadn’t worked out.

I really think it’s projection because they’re a) too proud to admit their methods were potentially harmful and b) feeling a bit guilty about it.