To be worn down with the pressure

[Craigscleaner]

I have a 13 week old baby and I’m under constant pressure by the in laws to leave him with them for the day or overnight.
I breastfeed and made it clear I’m not comfortable leaving him until he’s older, never mind the fact he needs me for milk as I struggle to pump. They ignore this fact and make comments like ‘when is he due a bottle we’ll give him it while you go shopping’. They know he doesn’t have bottles.
They are also always making digs about me being controlling or withholding time with my baby because I take him to feed in private.
MIL took delight in telling me she’d decorated her spare bedroom as a nursery so he can sleep over any time.
I politely shut down these comments with replies such as ‘thank you hell love that when he’s a lot older’ but they chose to ignore them even when DH says ‘one day but not yet’.
Im now posting because MIL text me to say she’ll have my baby this weekend because she bought a tub of cow and gate and some bottles so there’s no need to delay it. This really hurt me because it’s none of her business how I feed my baby and I didn’t make the decision to combi feed. I broke down to DH who has told her to stop and it’s caused a huge argument.
I’m not totally evil, I know they’re excited about a grandchild but they have to respect my wishes too and stop bullying me into feeding formula for their benefit.
It has made things awkward and I don’t feel like I could trust them to babysit one day after all this.
has anyone else had meddling in laws like this and how did you resolve it permanently? I intend to cut down contact time even temporarily, but ultimately my son deserves a relationship with his grandparents.

These will be the same grandparents that will give your 4 month old rice in a baby bottle and 'just a taste' of chocolate.

They'll stomp all over your boundaries, giving you back an exhausted/wired baby because they didn't follow your routine then complain they don't get to see their precious grandchild enough.

Treat them with caution and know that it's you putting boundaries in place for your family and that is your right. The consequences of not respecting you as mum is limited supervised visits and you're not the baddie for that.

I really feel for you. My inlaws could be similar, trying to impose "their way" on their grandchildren's upbringing. They didn't get it either. I think they thought that because they'd brought up 4 kids in the 70s that they were experts on childcare. They also bought all the nursery equipment, and used to refer to the grandkids as "our baby" etc. I used to watch them babysit our younger nieces and nephews before ours were born and cringe as they eg fed them a lump of cooked carrot before they were even on smooth baby food (and caused the baby to have a massive coughing fit), gave them all manner of sweet crap at all times of day even right before meal times then complain they didn't eat much of their main meal. The worst 2 were sneakily feeding a piece of chicken to one of the grandchildren who was being brought up as vegetarian, and on another occasion they cut the fringe of another grandchild without the parents' permission.

When our DS1 was born I did let them have him overnight when he was about about 7 months old then again a few months later but I was wary. The second time he stayed when we went to pick him up I was told he was upstairs having a nap. I couldn't hear him on the monitor (I'd taken it to their house for them to use) and they said to me "Oh, we don't use monitors, we never had them for ours". They live in a house where sound doesn't carry and there was no way you could hear DS crying from downstairs. I went up and there he was totally wide awake sitting up in his cot looking lonely and bewildered. I had no idea how long he'd been awake on his own shouting for someone and it made me sad to think he'd just been left. I also found out that she'd used pillows in the cot 😱with all the grandchildren! Buying him an Easter egg when he was 4 months old seemed minor in comparison (but then that probably didn't seem wierd to her considering she'd apparently fed her own son chocolate on the postnatal ward when he was hungry 😱)

So I didn't ask them to have the kids overnight again as I just didn't feel I could trust them. I was totally happy for my mum to have them from even a few weeks old as she is just more respectful of boundaries and she was very open to doing things "the modern way" as she knew all about SIDS and different ways of doing things compared to how things were done when we were brought up. I just trusted her completely to do the right thing. I was bottle feeding too which made things easier.

To be honest it was very hard to get DH, or any of his siblings, to speak up against things we weren't happy with as they were just brought up not to question their parents. It's not that they were scared of their parents, it just didn't cross their mind to say anything to their face, I don't think. Looking back, I just don't think the inlaws realised what they were doing.

I meant to add that your inlaws sound even worse than mine. Buying a box of formula when they KNOW your baby is breastfed is just totally bang out of order and really worrying, I just wouldn't be able to trust them with anything when they take that stance. YOu're in the right here, they are the ones in the wrong, so rather than get upset and feel bad about causing upset, channel your emotion into getting very stern with them. And get stern with DH too, you want to present a united front here so you need him to step up and speak WITH you.

This!

I would have hit the roof. She sounds AWFUL.

Your DH can be the go between now - if they approach you ask them to speak to DH. You focus on yourself and your baby.

Do NOT do anything you aren’t 100% comfortable with. You call the shots when it comes to your child!!

They sound like very toxic people and your DH getting firm and having a heated argument is probably what was needed.
What a disrespectful way to behave. They are pushing you away and limiting their chances of you trusting them with your son's care in future- and you need to tell them so! Because knowing they will respect your decisions and authority around his care as his parents will be paramount in you being able to trust them to care for him at all, even when older.

Coming from another grandparent, they are way overstepping boundaries.
Don't cave into their demands, and your DH should be on your side on this issue. He needs to talk them down.

Invite them over to yours for a visit, so you have control of the situation. Do you see them often?

You don't need to justify your actions. Just say no that doesn't work for us.