To have been honest with SIL about her DS5 months

[queasyjet]

I have a very upset SIL on my hands and want to know whether I was being unreasonable for being honest with her after all this time.

She has a 5, nearly 6 month old son. Since having him both her and my brother have been absolutely nuts for want of a better phrase.

No one was allowed to visit until he was 2 months old, my parents were heartbroken (although they were told they could spend £££ on food shopping and drop it off at their door every week of course)

Visits started when he hit 10 weeks, but no one was allowed to hold him, she has read some absolute bullshit online and thinks anyone who touches his cheek will break his face, if you tickle his feet it will cause some form of internal injury, she isn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp so believes any old shit she reads on Instagram.

I can count on one hand how many times my parents have cuddled him, I’ve been allowed to hold him once, my partner hasn’t been given that honour yet and we see them 2 times a week! My grandad was in tears last week as yet again he had been refused to have his great grandson on his lap for 2 minutes. He has held him once.

The family all have views on this but no one has said anything, but my SIL was asking me at a family event yesterday evening why people don’t seem bothered about interacting with my nephew anymore. I was honest and said it’s because no one has a bond with him since we’ve all been held at arms length. I personally no longer care about holding him, which is really sad, but I’ve given up hoping to one day have a nice cuddle or stroke his hair, play with his feet and sing this little piggy etc.

A friend had a child a month after my brother and SIL and my partner and I are so much closer to them as we actually get to bond with her, we are allowed to hold her for hours, feed her, take her out for walks etc. I find it wild how my SIL can’t see a correlation between not allowing anyone to bond with her son and people no longer caring.

she is now upset but in my view she asked and for once I was honest. I’m not sure based on this reaction whether she actually wanted people to chase after her in terms of begging for a crumb, and now people don’t even bother to ask to hold him she is getting out of shape about it.

Maybe she has legitimate reasons for feeling like this? Maybe she’s anxious?

Just want to add to get another perspective. I’ve got a SIL who is really callous and cold, I’m pregnant at the moment and I know she’ll take offence to not getting a cuddle from baby. But a) she’s never there for us anyway and b) we are not allowing cuddles except for immediate family (both sets of parents) till first vaccinations…DH feels the same, it’s as if now we are having a baby she can rock up and demand a hug from baby despite never having been there for us. Admittedly we only see her at Christmas so not frequently like OP. But a lot depends on the relationships and strength of them before baby

I think looking at it from SIL’s point of view might be worthwhile.
It’s clear how much OP dislikes her SIL and how she believes she isn’t good enough for the family. Despite OP admitting that her brother is “just as bad, if not worse” (I think were her words, or at least close to them), it’s SIL who is the target of her vitriol.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to believe that SIL is aware of OP’s feelings (in fact, we have had a poster believe she IS the SIL and indeed is aware) towards her and perhaps is subconsciously anxious about this being an issue with her child. Either the child feeling as rejected as she does or worried that child might see SIL as the OP’s family do.

The fact of the matter is, OP doesn’t have a bond with the baby because she has not bothered to form a bond with her SIL.
Mend that relationship with SIL and she may well make headway with the relationship with the baby.

She has her round for dinner twice a week! What more does she have to do for the women

And why is she being the same with the inlaws? Op hasn't said anything about them not liking her

Just because they see her often doesn’t mean they have a warm relationship with her.

How OP speaks about her is evidence of that.

Given that it is the SiL who is now upset by the lack of familial interaction with the baby, its for the SiL to fix, not the OP.

Has anyone asked SIL and DB why they don’t allow anyone else to touch the baby? Not in a group setting and not in a confrontational manner. Maybe your DM can invite them for tea and let them know that the family would love to cuddle baby. Ask them what the family can do to make them more comfortable with allowing others to touch and hold baby. I would limit it to holding and cuddling baby for now. Don’t even ask about tickling feet, feeding or taking baby for walks.

My oldest was a premie and her nervous system was underdeveloped at birth. She couldn’t self soothe or cry it out and would very quickly hit a point where nothing we could do would calm her and she would scream for hours, until she was so exhausted she would sleep. She only wanted to be held by me and would often get upset when others tried to touch her. It took over a year before her nervous system development caught up and she started to be comfortable with other people holding her. We had family and friends who were supportive and would interact with her by reading to her or talking to her while she was in my arms and she developed a great relationship with them and they were the first people she went to for cuddles when she became comfortable with it. We also had people who were critical of us and believed that baby must be made to get used to cuddles from them. We still did what we believed was right for our baby and limited contact with the unsupportive people.

We also had people who didn’t believe you should wash your hands before touching/holding a baby. Guess who wasn’t even allowed close to our baby. Some of them tried to see us while they were sick. These people said that exposing my premie to illness and germs was good for her. I’m not saying OP or her family refuse to wash their hands or try to expose baby to illness. Just pointing out that there might be simple things they can do to alleviate SIL’s reluctance to allow them to touch baby.

No one was criticising anyone for following covid guidelines, just saying damage was done. And it was - to many children. It was a side effect of an global pandemic and it is what it is. Intentionally isolating a child in 'normal times' is a totally different matter.

And so what if OP doesn't like SIL, it's hardly the point. The SIL is denying her family the opportunity for form a relationship with her kid, whether she lets OP or not she is doing something very cruel and unforgivable to GGF. OPs DB needs to get involved. Issues like this can cause lifelong rifts in families. I know the baby is young but if this continues the person most damaged is the innocent child.

OP’s brother is agreement with SIL. So why isn’t he getting the same level as vitriol from OP? It is his family after all.

They see the baby at least twice a week. They have loads of time with the baby.

they just don’t get to treat the baby like a toy

Do you tell thing cuddling and playing with a baby is "treating it like a toy" @LovePoppy? In most cultures, in most families in fact, that would be treating it as a baby.

For a mother to prevent close family holding a baby and bonding is strange. Bonding occurs with physical contact. For the mother in question to worry about the babies face being damaged by touch or their kidneys to be damaged because of touching the babies feet, she is frankly suffering from a mental health problem. Our families years ago used to share responsibility for bringing up children, it helps children to socialise. Once this child grows older, the mum is going to have difficulties letting go.

Oooh meow!

Exactly.

Especially at 6 months when they are really starting to show some personality and can be smiley, play with some toys and generally be more interactive.

It's a shame that the baby is missing out on those cuddles and playing.

It’s not SIL’s duty to hand over the baby to anyone who asks to “hold it for hours” or throws a strop (cries?) if not allowed to hold the baby whenever they want. Especially if the family doesn’t even seem to like SIL, judging by the OP posts.

Only letting a great grand father hold the child once is bloody weird and cruel. Only allowing close family to hold the child a few times in all these months even though they see them numerous times a week is also bloody weird

It's like she sees the baby as a possession

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to believe that SIL is aware of OP’s feelings (in fact, we have had a poster believe she IS the SIL and indeed is aware) towards her and perhaps is subconsciously anxious about this being an issue with her child. Either the child feeling as rejected as she does or worried that child might see SIL as the OP’s family do

So why would she care then that they don't have a strong bond and aren't I ingeracting as much with baby? If the OP is such a witch why would the sil have even brought it up to her? People are grasping here. Sometimes people are just fucking odd and it's not hard to believe that someone who thinks you can break a baby by touching its feet is fucking odd.

I get your point but I doubt that’s the way the SIL sees it, we only know what OP has said. Maybe SIL is actually making excuses about why she doesn’t want SIL too hold baby or maybe which I think is very likely OP is exaggerating SIL’s behaviour/reasoning…maybe it’s actually more simple like they don’t wash their hands and SIL doesn’t like it, or there is an underlying mistrust/dislike of her/other family members for unrelated reasons. I’m not saying OP has done anything to provoke this necessarily, SIL could be equally to blame but I think that’s what’s most likely - that they both have issues with each other that are underlying all this

Ridiculous in this day and age.

I think it's a mixture of SIL having first mum anxiety, with the extra pressure of over loading her brain due to SM and her not wanting you to have free reign over her baby tbh.
What you said about your friends baby isn't the norm either. So that may put SIL off.
I don't think you were unreasonable in speaking up when she asked though.
I think good communication and set boundaries would sort this out fairly quickly.