To want to fly home with our DD?

[HomeWard93]

Backstory:
DD is 8 months old had started solids but is still breastfed.
I have very, very little to do with DHs side of the family. I don’t get on with them, I don’t like them and vice versa so I don’t believe in spending parts of my short time on this earth with them unless it’s a big occasion/will cause fuss if I don’t. Before anyone starts saying “LTB” over my DH- it affects about 5% of our relationship, the other 95% is all good so I’m not leaving my partner over wanting to spend time with his family

SIL announced at Christmas time she was getting married. It was DDs first Christmas so PIL and SIL came over from Australia, stayed in a hotel and I only had to deal with them for a couple of hours on Xmas day.

SIL asked me to be a bridesmaid which took me massively by surprise. I thought it was her way of trying to build bridges so I accepted. Then she said babies weren’t welcome at the wedding- I then pointed out it wouldn’t be feesable as I physically couldn’t leave my child for 2 weeks (which would of been the minimum we would of gone to the other side of the world for- those who have been will understand you need the first 4/5 days to get over the jet lag) as she relied on me for nutrition and I wasn’t comfortable leaving her for a prolonged period of time. Not to mention my parents are in their 80s and couldn’t cope with a near toddler for 2 weeks.

SIL at first caused a fuss, couple of days later ran and agreed DD as her niece would be welcome. Great- or so I thought.

Me and DH arrived here yesterday, the wedding is next weekend. We went round to PIL for dinner and to meet SILs fiancée, and she introduced me to a neighbour who “would look after DD while we were at the wedding”. I was gobsmacked.

Ask what she meant and she said DD would stay with this complete stranger I had only just met for the day while I was at the wedding. I believe my precise words in reply were “you can fuck right off”.

SIL is refusing to have DD at the wedding so I have three choices- a) try and get my DD used to a bottle while we are in a strange country, surrounded by people she doesn’t know and is struggling with jet lag b) I refuse to go to the wedding and let DH go (which of course I’m fine with) but enjoy the rest of our holiday with DH or c) I book me and DD flights home on our credit card and leave DH here to holiday alone, again which I’m fine with.

Apparently I’m unreasonable if I do anything other than option A. Couldn’t give a shit what the out laws think and DH is upset too and agrees I’ve been blind sided but understand he wants to spend time with his family.

AIBU to want to go home?

You don't think the op telling the grandparents they can never see the baby again (without even consulting her husband about it) is abusive and controlling?

What if your husband said to you "your parents will never see our baby again"

So the moral of the story is what ? That the OP is the one doing the hating ? That she should just ignore the way she’s being treated and play nice ?

Lucky her. She can clearly afford it. I couldn't do it once - and do we know if the OP has £ to spare?
Oh and is your friend carting an 8mth old around?

It would depend on what they had done to elicit that response. This is a public forum, and by its very nature we never get the whole story from both sides. There is clearly history with the OP and her in laws, and the way SiL has behaved, clearly there is controlling behaviour. Where does OP say she didn’t consult her husband - he passed it on, and I can’t see that happening without some discussion at least. And as I and other posters have pointed out, this is possibly a knee jerk reaction in anger over what SiL did, so maybe not the set in stone decision people are assuming it to be.

And to be honest, the grandparents haven’t given much thought to their grandchilds’ welfare from the start if they were prepared to condone or even collude in a plan to subject her to a long unnecessary journey and then leave her with a complete stranger. The child has been the last concern here. SiL getting what she wanted was the first priority.

They expected OP to leave her baby, their grandchild and niece to come all the way there for the wedding. OP told them upfront that she couldn’t leave her baby and why and instead of respecting her decision or even asking if she would be comfortable with the arrangement they were proposing, they chose to blindside her and tell her that someone was going to watch her baby.

You don’t do such things if you have any respect for someone as a person and as a mother. SIL could have chosen someone else and it seems odd she chose OP to begin with knowing they don’t get on and if it was about mending bridges, they wouldn’t have pulled such a stunt in the first place.

If I'd flown 24 hours, literally half way round the world, with a baby to go to this event (I mean the horrors of the flight are enough!) To then be presented with a random stranger I hadn't picked or spoken to and TOLD I'd be leaving my baby with them as if it was a fait accompli I'd tell them to fuck right off too! Had they not lied OP could have stayed home with her baby and not endured the expense, flight, how the time change will mess with babies sleep. You don't do that to somebody and expect them to play nice after.

OP is well within her rights to be PISSED. I wouldn't want to see them at the moment either! And I'd certainly not be sat alone seperated from my baby so I could ship her off to the 'family' that demanded my baby be left with a random person too. The DH can spend time with his family. She isn't stopping him. OP can have a lovely time exploring Australia with her baby. What they should have done is be honest from outset. They knew she wouldn't come if baby wasn't invited, if they wanted to see baby that much they would make an exception for baby to attend the wedding. They can't have even met the baby before and they wanted baby left back in UK. Clearly baby doesn't mean all that much to them. I really hope her DH rips them a new one.

She's not the only person in history to have had a baby!

Jesus. I remember my mother bringing me on long flights to visit family when I was very young.

You do it to visit family.

You said the child has been the last concern here.

When the op said she is going to cut her child off from grandparents, is that in the child's best interests?

Grandparents are an important part of a child's life.

The baby is their family! Family they can't have even met if the last time they saw the DH was pre-covid! They had a golden oppertunity to meet their niece/grandchild and they wanted her left behind in UK for the 2 weeks?!? Yeah, real family of the year. Huge loss.

Oh whatever I think it's usual female drama of "she did this to me, she did this to me"

And it gets blown up into huge proportions until no one speaks to each other for the rest of their life.

If op wants to do that fine.

I don't think op made much effort to go and see them in Australia either, did she?

Completely missing the point that they didn’t want the baby there in the first place. They wanted the OP to leave her at home, and when she wouldn’t they lied to get her there. Thousands of miles, a lot of expense, and still excluded from the wedding. If they want her to ‘do it for family’ then they should behave like family.

They saw the baby at Christmas- they flew over and saw them.

That is not the point nor does it matter what your mum did.

Many women, breastfeeding or not, would not want to leave their baby for two weeks to go to a wedding. SIL agreed to let OP bring the baby only to tell her no and here is some random person who can watch her instead. That is wrong and you can’t say that it isn’t. Family don’t get a pass to do what they like just because they’re family.

SIL planned this and could have asked OP which would have been the obvious, normal, right thing to do instead of having her fly halfway across the world.

It’s utterly ridiculous for them to expect op to leave her baby with a stranger for the day. It’s not even possible from the practical point of view (the baby is breastfed) even if she could trust someone she had never met. I would stay but not attend the wedding.

i would be extremely angry too op. They basically lied about the arrangements and then tried to railroad you when you arrived.

No breastfed baby has to be breastfed from the breast though does it. Breastfed milk can be expressed and ready in bottles, to give to the baby.

I don't get the impression his family asked her to leave the baby for two weeks - OP equated the baby not being invited to the wedding meant that she was only able to go to the wedding if the baby was left in the UK.
In fact I suspect the opposite - the SIL invited her to be part of the wedding party to encourage her to come to Australia so they could all meet the baby.
There is a this huge focus on this wedding - but no mention that maybe her hubby's family wanted to meet their grandchild/niece?
Some parents do take their baby to their home country to meet their family without needing to be going due to a wedding. So this trip could just easily have been this.

Why are people saying “they” trick her? I sounds like SIL did, so why are PIL banned from seeing their grandchild?

If I take my dc halfway across the world to see family then I expect the family to actually want to see my dc. Not expect me to offload dc into the nearest willing random. For me, holidays are about spending time with dh and the kids. I wouldn’t be interested in a babysitter full stop. Had they raised this as an option upfront, op would have been able to take this into account when making the decision to attend. They didn’t, because they wanted to blindside her. Imho it’s appalling manners to expect an entire family to fly across the world to attend a special occasion then actively exclude some members of said family from the event. It’s even more despicable to lie about this to ensure that they come.

I do agree op’s reaction could have been more measured (although I’m not sure that mine would have been had I just been presented with that after a long flight) but what they did was shitty. Perhaps she shouldn’t have said they couldn’t see the baby until she was older but given the disregard with which they have treated this child I can understand it. It very much comes across that they don’t actually give a toss about their dgd/dn who lives on the other side of the world that they don’t see much of. If they did they wouldn’t be treating her as an inconvenience. They would want to spend every possible second with her and this wouldn’t even be an issue.

Again, where has she said that ? I’d say taking an 8 month old on a long haul flight and dealing with the attendant problems of the flight and jet lag, was making a massive effort considering they don’t like each other and don’t get on. And look how she’s been rewarded for the effort - they’re still insisting the wedding is child free and they expect her to leave the baby with a stranger. If they thought that was even remotely reasonable, why didn’t they discuss it with her beforehand ? Because they knew she’d say no. So they lied. Toxic.

Why are you being such a goady twerp? Are you still high from last night?

You’ve stated your opinion but because some random person online doesn’t agree with you 100%, you have to keep pushing and poking.

What a weirdo! 😂

While I agree with this - and it did infact happen to us where my Canadian s'n'law tobe sent me a link to a national data base and suggested I hire a stranger from the internet to look after our children after we had booked flights from the UK for their wedding
....I think people without children just don't get this. Now my brother and my s'n'law have a child of there own there is no hope in hell of them leaving her with just anyone let alone a stranger from the internet.

So while as mothers we are all shock horror at this s'n'law's cheek - I suspect you will find quite a few people without children not even blink an eye at the thought.

What does being breastfed even have to do with anything. The mother doesn't have to be there to breastfeed the child.

The baby can be given expressed breastmilk from a bottle for a day.

Whilst it's really quite refreshing to hear about an OP who's prepared to stand up for themselves and their child, I do think the whole 'No DC until they are old enough to choose' thing is OTT.

Also, that's not your choice to make. It's also DH's. If he wants to take DC round to see his family wile there, that's his choice. The child isn't in danger from them and is unlikely to see them again for years anyway.

There is an element of 'picking your battles' here, even though, granted, your main battle was sprung on you.

This.