To not have anyone babysit my daughter?

[Mamabird2022]

Backstory: I was told a few years ago that I probably couldn’t have children as I had severe endometriosis. I was lucky to fall pregnant and now have a 9m old daughter. I had a traumatic birth and my midwife was practically prepping us on the way to theatre that my daughter could have been very sick when she was born. Thankfully she wasn’t but I was diagnosed with PTSD after the birth.
I was at playgroup this week and the other parents were discussing how they look forward to weekends so their parents/parents in law have their children and I was the only one at group who has never had my daughter babysat by anyone. My MIL has offered to have her overnight or to have her for a few hours through the day however I have refused. She said I’m being unreasonable and need to cut ties now otherwise my DD will be attached only to me and I’m going to hinder her having other relationships apart from me and her dad. My DD and MIL have a good relationship however I don’t feel comfortable being away from her for long periods of time. I suffer with anxiety attacks when I’m away from her for longer that half an hour and my DD cries and cries until she sees me again. My MIL said that she should be left to cry it out and she will be fine afterwards and I just need to leave her for the day to stop her being so reliant on me. I actually find this quite distressing to think about. I spoke to my neighbour about this as she had a baby 4 weeks ago and she said that her mother babysits her DS the past two Saturdays so she and her partner could go out for a date and she was shocked that I’ve not left her for the past 9 months.
Am I being unreasonable by not letting my MIL have my daughter?

Do what’s right for you. don’t be pressurised into having people can’t sit until you feel ready.

OP listen to your instincts, they are good instincts! Your MIL who shouts at crying babies is not somebody I would trust to look after my budgie, never mind a small child. I'm not surprised you were upset when you saw how your daughter was crying. You don't need to and shouldn't put her through that just because your MIL has some idea about her being spoilt.

Babies vary quite a lot in what they can cope with - they all have their own personalities even at a young age. I had twins and they were very different in this - DD1 was totally freaked out if she couldn't see me or her dad or if a stranger got too close to her, she would shriek like a car alarm, it was... so loud. When she went to nursery we were really lucky that she hit it off with her key worker, she was the kind of kid who really could only be comfortable being looked after by someone she was bonded with, and that was me, DH, her key worker and my MIL. It didn't hold her back any, she's a confident 11yo now who goes to overnight trips with school and all sorts. This is the age when kids benefit from being away from their parents for a while and developing their independence- starting at about 10 and 11, not at 9 months!

My DD is 3 and I've never left her overnight apart from with my DH a few times. Though she has been on holiday with grandparents we have all gone together. We will be trying a sleep over during the school holidays this summer.

She is baby sat during the day regularly while I am at work and occasionally on weekend by my parents and MIL, very happy to stay with them, had a rough patch with this at around 2 years old but fine now.

She was a lockdown baby (first month) and due to this was rarely baby sat in the 1st year. Handful of times.

She's extremely sociable, has lots of friends in school and a lovely relationship with all grandparents. Do what you want to do xx

It’s not ‘lucky’ to make yourself economically dependent on someone else.

Surely you leave your child with her father?

I didn't leave my children with anyone. If you don't need childcare, don't do it. Stick with how you want to parent. I find it very odd that so many people are pushy about taking someone's baby. I believe in most cases, babies are better off with their primary carer. See family, but they don't need to have your baby solo.

@Mooshamoo my daughter sees her nanny every week for 5 hours however she drives and will never come to my house to see her. It’s always me having to take her

@ZekeZeke we do plan on getting married however we just haven’t gotten around to it. Even though he works and provides for us both it’s my name that’s on the house and all the bills so if he left he would also have nothing

I assume you leave them with their father?

Hello
I so understand your post - I had a traumatic birth, I have diagnosed PTSD due to this and had terrible Post Natal Anxiety. I still suffer from anxiety.
I came on to say, my daughter is now 6 and it does get easier, but like others have said - your baby your rules. I have never left my daughter with a babysitter, or overnight. But that's my decision. It hasn't in any way affected my relationship with my partner - we do things as a family and that's how we like it.
My mum looks after her now for a couple of hours if needed or she will spend time with her Auntie when she visits.

But, what made a difference was when my little one started pre-school? I slowly built the sessions up. Our pre-school were great and worked with me and my anxiety.
I did find that the anxiety raised its head again when she started school - but again I was open with the school and they were wonderful.
You make it work for you - it's your family. It's ok. Xx

Having anxiety attacks after 30 minutes apart isn’t healthy and you probably know this. However, your MIL isn’t the right person to be leaving her with because she adds to the stress and lacks understanding. It sounds like you need another option of a more suitable person to gradually leave her with until you and your daughter can be comfortably apart.

Your daughter is still only a baby but obviously you don’t want this level of stress occurring when she’s a toddler and more aware as it will just get even more difficult. I’m thinking of when she starts nursery or infants. I’m a teacher and I’ve seen a number of parents make it really difficult for themselves and their children when it comes to anxiety about school trips / sleepovers / going to uni if they don’t grow up treating separation from their parents as something routine, normal and healthy.

YANBU at all.

With my first, I couldn’t even bear my husband being out with the baby for the first 3-4 months, not even for a quick walk around the park. My primitive/protective urge to have my baby in my vision at all times was immense.

I first left him when he was 10 months old and I was going to a works Christmas party. He was home with my husband and so was obviously fine but I felt anxious all night.

The first I left him with someone other than my husband was when I went back I work and he had to start going to a childminders house. It was soooo hard! I spent many weeks crying and feeling so guilty for not being with him. He was absolutely fine though.

The first overnight sleepover he has was when he was about 3.5 years old.

Things were very different with my second son and I felt so much more ease leaving him with other people, but not until he was about 7ish months old and only for short periods.

But yes, with my first baby, my desire to have him with me was absolutely overwhelming. I think it may be good to start considering leaving her with someone else other than you or your DH, even if only for 20 minutes to begin with, but you absolutely don’t need to start thinking about having extended periods of time without them. Especially with you not having to go back to work.

Just take it slowly and put having sleepovers completely out of your mind for at least a few years.

My DD is 15 months and no one apart from my dh - who is her dad - has ever had her. 9 months is still so young, there is no rush. Go easy on yourself.

My daughter has time away from me with her dad and she is fine with him but he does add to my anxiety. This is gonna sound OTT but i just feel like no one we know is capable of looking after her right. Her dad works late shifts so spends time with her through the day but it’s like I have to tell him how to look after her. I went back to bed last week as she had been awake most of the night teething. I told him he would need to give her breakfast at 6 when he got up so I could go back to bed. I got up at 11 and he had given her a little baby yogurt and water. I asked if she had breakfast apart from a little yogurt and he said no and she was crying before I came down stairs and as soon as I made her a slice of toast she stopped crying. His response was “I thought she was tired” he also tried to take her to meet his entire family at three days old without me so I could “rest” but at the time I was trying to breastfeed which was the first time I had a anxiety attack and when I told him no he said that he was her father and I needed to chill out and then stormed out the house and went to see his family on his own. I can say he wasn’t very supportive at the beginning and was quite critical towards me but as she has gotten older he has gotten better. When we go to my MIL I do step back and my MIL spends time with her while I have a cup of tea and she does try and comfort her when she cries but after 30 second she hands her back to me and tells me she’s spoilt 🤷🏻‍♀️. My daughter does see her cousins and plays with other baby’s at playgroup while I sit with the mums and have a coffee but my dd is only a couple of steps away from me but she is left to play independently with the other babies her age. I am currently receiving treatment for my PTSD and anxiety however I do feel once she is able to talk I might feel better as she can tell me of anything was to happen

I had a traumatic birth followed by PTSD (as it was called then, this was nearly 30 years ago!). I didn't leave the house for 14 months unless it was the baby's medical appointments. At one point I wore the same pyjamas for six weeks because I was so busy 'caring and protecting and watching over' my baby. After 14 months the GP said I would either have to be admitted to a mental health facility or would have to engage fully with my local crisis team. I chose the latter. But they had to come to me, which they did for 2 years. Only then could I go out to my counselling appointments leaving baby - not so much a baby by then - behind.
Please don't let this happen to you. It really messed up my life, my baby's life, my dh's life, my marriage, my wider extended family, my friendships, my experience of motherhood. It still affects me to this day. I have great difficulty socially and forming meaningful friendships.

I think you should engage in some counselling/therapy at the earliest opportunity. Gently and slowly begin to trust a few people, remembering that they love your baby and they love you. Let the people around you in, so that they know what you're going through, and what you need from them going forward. (Such as 'I promise you that if he is still crying in 20 minutes I will call you back to him. Now enjoy your coffee'.) baby steps.

Thank you for sharing this experience and delivering your post with so much honesty and compassion. I really admire you for it.

Honestly? Looking back now several years after having children that age. You need to learn to trust a few people to look after your daughter. It's good for her and good for you. It might save your sanity.
I was maybe forced I to it a bit as had to go back to work after 6 months as needed the money.

Your baby is 9 months, she doesn’t need to go anywhere.

However long term you need to get help for our anxiety and not project it onto your child. She’ll go to nursery, school and be away from you, she’ll want to go on play dates and school residentials overnight! Don’t let your anxiety hold her back from doing normal things.

Please please let your Daughter experience time alone with others. It'll end up being an issue further down the line.

My DN is now 8 and as a family we're all trying to support and encourage her in having sleepovers at Grandparents, mine, best friends house, school friends houses. Not spending a night away from her Mum has now gone on so long she's ending up in floods of tears every time, and friends parents are having to drive her home at 1am because she's never stayed elsewhere. Then she's getting extra upset she's missing out on the sleepover. It should have been sorted years ago but her DM felt like you. All my friends who's DCs stayed with Grandparents from being very young don't have this problem. They were used to it before they even knew what was going on.

@Mamabird2022 It sounds like you have lots of anxiety around this, maybe a good starting point would be looking at ways YOU can manage being away from HER, rather than how she is, if that makes sense?

After the massive drip feed about MIL being bipolar and not always medicated @Mamabird2022 ive changed my voting to YANBU.

I do however feel you are holding yourself and daughter back if you don’t get treatment for your anxiety. I’m not suggesting you get it so you can leaver her with MIL - just so that your anxiety doesn’t worsen over the years. At some point she’ll be in nursery, go to school etc. Your daughter will learn behaviour from you and develop anxieties herself based on your example. This could impact her social skills, creating friendships etc. so please get help now and you’ll be an even better mother than you already are and hopefully a happier stronger person dealing with DP and MIL.

also wouldn’t rush to get married without protecting your assets please.

@FarmGirl78
You don't actually know that she would have been fine with sleepovers if she'd done them from younger though do you? My dd would have cried to the point of vomiting if I had left her with someone else overnight as a baby. Are you suggesting I should have done that repeatedly just so she could have sleepovers when older?
You can only parent the child you have. And all children are different. Maybe your dn just needs her mum more than most kids.
Sometimes you have to parent differently because your child is different, your child isn't different because of your parenting.

My apology’s about the drip feed I had realised after I had posted that I hadn’t really given the full spectrum and I’m quite new to MN I barely use it. I do just want to say again that I am getting help with my anxiety and PTSD and my daughter does have friends that she plays with. I don’t stop her doing anything. We get invited over to coffee mornings and we have good relationships with people who are in her life I just do not feel comfortable leaving her with any of them. Like stated in an above post I left her for half an hour with my MIL to just go to the shop. I didn’t make a big deal out of it I said bye and left and my DD screamed and screamed. I still left and that’s when I had the anxiety attack. It was away from her and she didn’t see it but when I came back from the shop she was still screaming like full blown sobs to the point she was gasping with each cry and my MIL said she was spoilt. She is the same when she is with her dad and he’s had her since she was born to give me a break. I’ve tried just leaving without saying anything and she cries I’ve tried saying bye to her and telling her I won’t be long and she cries but because SIL left her baby with my MIL so early she expects the same from me and when I have said no she says I’m just spoiling her and stunting her from making other relationships without me and I’m “making a rod for my own back”. Myself and DD are very social. We go out and do things with our local church and she does have the freedom to go off and play in the baby corner with children her age while I watch on from a distance so it’s not like I’m not “sharing” her and we are with each other 24/7

huge hugs

So you can leave her with dad? That is a good start. I would ask about PPA/ and recovery from PTSD. This is not because you do not want to leave her - especially overnight - but to make sure you are getting the support you need for your health after having a traumatic birth.

It sounds like your MIL has been quite pushy, especially with her parenting opinions, which is likely making you feel more anxious about leaving your child with her. Have a chat with your DH and say that you MIL being pushy is making it a lot harder for you to deal with your postpartum mental health. He needs to ask her to back off. When she insists/ or tells you that you must let your baby cry it out then that is yet more time before you will feel happy letting her babysit.

The most important thing here for you is getting help with your mental health. Baby sitting opportunities, and people other than you or your husband looking after your little one needs to be secondary to that.

Also to note, around 9 months is a key time for babies to suffer separation anxiety.

I suffer with anxiety attacks when I’m away from her for longer that half an hour

This really doesn't sound healthy at all. What will happen when she goes to nursery or school? Your baby will pick up on your anxiety

Haven't rtft but I'm so surprised at the poll results.

Your little one is still very little at 9mths. If you're at sahm and happy with your set up then there's no reason to leave her with anyone despite being pressured to.

She certainly isn't spoilt and shouldn't be left to cry it out at being separated. That won't do either of you any good.