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.

In general it's good to build and maintain a good relationship with your dil. so that if and when they have kids your relationship is supportive and your presence welcome.

My MiL (who lived a long way away) used to do things like post me bars of chocolate, when my first was a nb, some days it would reduce me to tears to feel so loved, my FiL would send me cuttings from the paper of stories he thought would interest me. It doesn't take a lot of time of money to make someone feel cared for.

I still love that woman to bits...

You are massively unreasonable and you are going to harm the relationships between your children and their grandmother.

Stop being so bloody possessive and petty.

It is a good thing for children to have people who love them in their lives. The more the merrier.

OP, you need to set some boundaries with your husband. Then he needs to set boundaries with his relatives and enforce them. First and foremost, hosting his relatives is his job. He needs to do the cleaning in preparation for their visit and if they want to be waited on, it’s up to him to do it or disabuse them of that idea. He also needs to sort any meals/food or ask them to help with cooking and cleanup. They do not hold baby while you cook/clean/wait on them.

You and he need to work out a compromise so you can be comfortable and his family still gets to interact with and hold the baby. It seems like your two most important boundaries are not kissing or getting into baby’s face and not leaving your sight with the baby. It seems like your husband failed to enforce boundaries with his relatives so now you are feeling anxious and angry that this will be repeated. It also seems like your MIL has been critical of you and your husband has failed to stand up for you. If he ever wants there to be a good relationship between you and MIL, he needs to change.

If possible, I would recommend getting a marriage counselor and working this out with him in therapy. He then needs to communicate to his relatives that for the sake of protecting baby, no one will be getting in baby’s face or kissing baby’s face or hands. Our pediatrician stressed this with us. He told us that when a newborn gets ill, they do a spinal tap to test for meningitis. To lessen the possibility of this, no one should be kissing baby’s face or hands. Anyone holding baby should also be wearing clean clothes and have freshly washed hands.

Not wanting baby out of your sight is partially due to hormones. Not everyone has those feelings as strongly, but they are natural and shouldn’t be dismissed. It seems like you also feel that way because you can’t trust MIL not to go against your wishes with baby and your husband has a history of failing to intervene and dismissing your feelings. He needs to be a husband and father first and insist on what is best for baby and you. He needs to insist MIL stay in the room with you and him when holding baby, until she can prove that she will follow your and his wishes with baby.

You shouldn’t feel angry at the thought of your MIL holding your baby, provided she abides by reasonable boundaries. Marriage counseling can help you and him work out compromises so you can feel comfortable knowing he has your back and you are both happy with his relatives having a good visit with all of you.

I find it a bit off that a two week visit has been booked in when you haven't even given birth yet.

Is that what you're actually angry about?

🙄 Behave OP you sound very dramatic and overbearing yourself.

Isn't this what MILs do? Try and be helpful? If it comes from a good place just try and let it go. Are you sure she knows it makes you feel like a bad parent? I really doubt that's why she's doing it. You might have to spill the beans on what else she's supposedly done unless you want to be told YABU.

Poor MIL .

Probably because it's your kind of opinion they're saying to ignore.

She might be awful, I don't know, but the things you are complaining about here are perfectly normal and make you sound very unreasonable - she's travelling by train, visiting a city and looking forward to kissing her grandchild. I have no idea why you are angry about any of this.

She is also staying in a hotel, which I think is considerate.

Even the things she's said to make you angry - such as mentioning your 'small bump' - just don't sound bad to me at all.

So you say she is a nightmare and dp is a mummy's boy but I can't help wondering if she's just a normal mum (like all mums, even us ourselves, get it wrong sometimes) and dp loves her, and you are irrationally angry.

If I lived 8 hours from my son, and he'd just had a baby, I would be so excited about this trip yet you seem primed to spoil it.

i dont have any advice except to see her actions through a filter - eould you be cross if your mum said that? have you ever made a mistake? is it a cruel comment or a misunderstanding?

You call yourself a "mama bear" and your husband a "mummys boy".....maybe it's the "mama bears" that create mummys boys. 🤔

Yea , not to mention the hospital where baby was born and the midwife , surgeon , etc . Did they just magically appear in the hospital in a puff of smoke . The city excuse is pathetic.

The best way DH can have OP's back is ti teach her not to be so unreasonable, selfish and self-absorbed.

It is not a husband's role to facilitate poor behaviour in his wife.

' Mama Bear '. ffs

How wonderful.

The relationship between a mil & dil can be amazing but only if there is absolutely no JEALOUSY surrounding the relationship between
son & his mother from dil
from mil towards dil for being number 1 in sons life
from dil regading her child's reciprocated love for Dh mum,
from Dil mum towards her dil mil, from mil towards dil mum.

Now try working that one out 🤦‍♀️ but it's true,relationship JEALOUSY on both sides plays a huge part in disfunctional relationships between women & their in-laws.

And the prize for the most dumbass comment goes to . . .

It's so easy to tell the nightmare MILs on on threads like these

@pinkyredrose dont call my comment "dumbass" all because you dont agree... Dumbass.

Hahaha!!😂

I'm guessing you're not very old.

@pinkyredrose no im not as a matter of fact i just had a baby recently as well and i always had my in laws come and help me. Its difficult for me to fathom why anyone would hate their MIL this much, to this extent because whatever mine is like she has been very helpful i probably would have not managed without her or even worse maybe gone into severe depression without the help. I have made having my MIL around work to my advantage

@HoneyBunnii

That's great but can you not understand that not all Mil's are the same? Some are great, some are awful.

I think she's very much like you,which is why you're butting heads 🤦‍♀️

You're being very unreasonable to expect them to not go to a busy town centre the day before seeing you and the baby. You sound VERY difficult.

@pinkyredrose Im not saying mine is perfect and there have been times where she has said things that have really got on my nerves but i just let it slip because Its not like she will be with me forever and to be honest my relationship with the rest of my in laws in that family seems to be strong because of that.

The fact that the OP is angry at just the thought of her MIL holding her baby is probably going to lead her to act upon it or add to the friction she already has with her MIL and make things worse Which then in turn will become worser and worser over years as they meet over family holidays which then ultimately then cause problems between her and her partner/husband.

Therefore my suggestion would be to grin and bear while she is there, she will eventually leave in the end and then it will be just the mother and the baby.

@pinkyredrose "That's great but can you not understand that not all Mil's are the same? Some are great, some are awful."

Just like people. Who knew?

You need help.