The thought of letting MIL hold my baby angers me

[livelovelasagne]

Okay so I'm going to be completely blunt with this. My MIL is a complete know it all, and DH is a total mummy's boy. Our baby is due in early jan and his family are visiting from 8 hours away, travelling via trains, for two weeks (in a hotel of course).
I'm very much a mama bear, we have DS who is 3 and I was just totally on edge letting anyone hold him as a newborn but I managed and was always polite. Currently pregnant with our second, I just can't shake the anger of letting my MIL hold the baby. Because I know for a fact she'll be a total baby hog and do things without my permission while she has me doing everything for her. I have my reasons to dislike her, I've always stood by the no kissing the baby rule. She keeps saying things such as 'I can't wait to kiss the baby's face' as if she's trying to anger me on purpose. She also planned a trip for her, FIL and SIL (both of who are lovely and I can't wait for them to meet baby) in a busy city the day before they come. I just don't think it's safe for them to be in this packed city and travelling the day before they meet the baby, god knows what germs could be picked up. She thinks she knows everything and gives me unsolicited advice all the time and she knows it makes me feel like a bad parent. She's made comments during this pregnancy like 'your bump is tiny I don't know why you complain about being uncomfortabe'. I know I sound totally angry and bitter, but I'm just done and at my wits end with her. The thought of letting her hold my newborn when they visit just shakes me to my core! I've spoken to DH about this and he just thinks I'm being hormonal. But I already know she'll think she owns the baby and gaslight DH into thinking I'm being horrible if I don't let her do certain things such as kiss the baby/ take baby out of my sight. I just want to know if I'm being unreasonable for feeling this way and for any ideas of how I'll be able to combat these negative feelings when she visits.

There is obviously a lot of history here, which is contributing to how you feel. Just going from what your posts says though, I would try not to get worked up. Yes she sounds like a pain in the arse MIL, but the beauty of it is that she lives far away. So, I'm going to say YABU for getting angry about her holding the baby. But, don't let her take over, it's your baby and certainly don't run round after her. It's supposed to be the other way round! Make your plans for how you are going to behave i.e Taking the baby back when you want to and not waiting on your MIL. But let her hold her new grandchild in peace. Just enjoy having your new baby and don't let your emotions about MIL, ruin it for you.

She'll only take the baby off you if you let her.
And when it's feeding time go on the bedroom and lock the door.
If your not happy with what she says or does..SAY SOMETHING

@livelovelasagne what difference does it make? What is it that you are fearing? Are you scared she might harm the baby?

My point is the way you feel protective over your baby is the way any mother feels over her kids but you are going extreme as though your MIL is some kinda psychopath or has some twisted history around children..

You mentioned "this is a newborn baby".. what disastrous thing can your MIL possibly do to your newborn baby that you cant stand? At the end of the day the baby will be going back to you. I would be more than glad if my close family came to hold my newborn while i can do other things for a change.

You need to just calm down

@livelovelasagne also, who knows? Maybe one day after many years when your kid grows up you might be the pain in the arse MIL for his wife (or her husband) you never know how you are going to turn out many years from now.. at that time you might be saying annoying things just like your own MIL now and not realise that you are peeing your daughter/son in law off.. but you would surely want to be involved with the newborn and not want to be pushed away by them 🤷🏻‍♀️

Then you might be back on here complaining that you arent allowed to be close to your grandchild or hold them due to issues with daughter/son in law! 😄

Bloodyhell 🙄

I think the people who are telling you to get a grip, have not dealt with manipulative MIL and little babies.

And for the record... no, people should not kiss newborns on the face. Grandma or not. I've just known a three week old healthy baby be in intensive care for a week due to RSV. Poor little girls lungs were not strong enough to cough up the mucus on her lungs so couldn't breath and was turning blue.
It's not over dramatic to protect a newborn baby from that.

Exactly 👍

I feel like I've left out a lot of things shes said/ done which is causing me to get the YABU response

In other words I am annoyed that people are not agreeing with me…. 🙄

Maybe it's your hormones but you sound worse than your MIL

I posted & I'm definitely not a disgruntled mil. I have an amazing dil who treats both sets of grandparents exactly the same. In fact she and my son make sure as paternal grandparents we see as much of our grandchildren as the maternal grandparents helped by the fact we all stay fairly close to each other. Both sets also do the same amount of childcare. I would never expect to be put on the same level to my dil as her own mum but safe to say we have a great relationship. My son also has a great relationship with his parents in law. The biggest factor is there is absolutely no jealousy on either side. We love our grandchildren as much as our own children. Again as my mother used to say, until your children produce children it's hard to understand.

I kind of get it. i suspect you’re both quite “strong” women and she knows she’s winding you up.

What I would say however is that I wasn’t very well after my eldest was born. My parents lived far away and I missed my mum and I was defensive about MIL having a closer relationship with my baby than my own mum.

i took it out on my MIL (who is good and kind, just not my own mum). I held her at arms length and pushed her away when she tried to help. I was angry all the time.

I wish now that I hadn’t done that. She’s close to my children but her and I are not so close.

I know it’s not the same set of circumstances, your MIL sounds pretty horrible, but everything is heightened when there are new babies involved.

@livelovelasagne i agree and you sound reasonable. Until people have been there with a relative like this they won’t understand the constant beating down and how one small things is the final straw and seems huge but to others it is insignificant and they think you are focusing on one thing that is fine, but it’s the culmination.
2 weeks is too long.
No one should be taking your baby from you, you have an inbuilt desire to bond and hold them.
If you want no one holding them for the first 4 weeks that’s also ok!

Right but it’s the parents of the baby who facilitate relationships with grandparents isn’t it. You can stomp your foot and demand equal importance all you like. Again, the person responsible for making you feel ‘important’ is your son.

In reality one side of the family sometimes does take precedence over the other for loads of reasons. Proximity, personalities, closeness of relationships or lack of, past trauma.

i purposely made sure my mil was as involved as my parents when i had both my kids

its for that reason i only had dh at birth and not my mum (plus i was 28 when i had my first so obviously didn’t need mum there)

equal visits etc

whilst you as mother may want more time with your mum, the child should be shared with all extended family. Your mil has as mum right as your mum to spend time with the child. If you want more time with your mum, why not let your dh take baby round to the in-laws to visit whilst you have catch up? all this just stinks of making sure the in laws are kept on the outside

i see it all the time

frankly mothers who exclude in laws are downright nasty and i hope one day are bitten on the arse when their precious sons have kids of their own

Self-described "mama bear" marries a mummy's boy....

You both sound mental.

Feel like you are getting a lot of negativity here, potentially due to the age group (MIL age).
You should compromise - it’s understandable that family members want to hold your baby. However, the ‘no kissing’ rule is totally fair. Newborns are fragile and prone to infection. My baby got RSV and was hospitalised for several
days. Was very relieved he was several months old at time and fairly strong.
Talk about some sensible rules with your partner e.g. no holding if ill, wash hands first and make sure he backs you up.
Some firm boundaries should hopefully allow you to relax a bit more :-)

Ignore the posters telling you you're ott for not wanting people to visit and start planting kisses all over your newborn. Of course that may increase risk of passing germs on.

I'm sure you're rational enough to realise even if they followed your no kissing baby request, they may still pass germs on through breathing etc.

I had a csection with my youngest and 7 days later caught covid as my dh went out to a wedding of his close friend and got sick, which then passed to me. Let me tell you, covid 7 days postpartum, caring for a newborn and after a csection - fucking horrendous 2 weeks and made dh useless on paternity leave as he got it worse than me!

At home I had a no kissing baby rule and a washing hands before rule, none of my family or friends minded as they saw it as a simple way to help prevent spreading germs.

I'd advise investing in a decent air purifier and set some boundaries with your dh so he can manage MIL if she chooses to ignore your requests when visiting.

We're mostly DIL age on here. The evil MIL is a MN trope. If you're a DIL and people on here think you're not being decent to your MIL, that's actually quite unusual and suggests you may indeed be being a bit unfair.

It's not stereotyping to point out a pattern.
As I said, there's plenty who get on fine. But as you can see from this thread there's a certain kind of attitude and entitlement that causes issues.
There's not the same trend with SILs because generally MILs don't seem to go on a power trip with them to the scale it happens to mums.

Likely a biological cause, but it doesn't make it any more pleasant to deal with.
its like how most violent crimes are committed by males. Statistics about human behaviour are facts, that doesn't mean it applies to everyone, but it does mean there are patterns ot behaviour that recur often.

@QueenOfMOHO

why on earth would the baby’s grandma holding them compromise the bond baby has with its mother?! Don’t be ridiculous!

How come I get the rage every time I see a post that starts "Ignore the posters..."

Just remember you might be a mother in law one day?

People can't behave exactly as you want.

At least she's interested.

YABU

There aren't many typical 'Grandmas' nowadays with many in their 50s, 60s & 7Os fashionable fit & active with some looking more like the mother. It's just a thought but it went through my mind if Grandma was more like days of old would mil be more accepted as a Grandmother if she was the little old grey haired lady in twinset & pearls sitting quietly in the corner. 🤔