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?

The sister in law was out of order - but likely does not have children herself to understand what a stupid idea this was.
BUT - they are going for two weeks - the wedding at best is one day - suggesting his family are not wanting to see DC or offloading them on wedding day in extreme.
As equally extreme as the OP than banning her child's extended Australian family from seeing them because her s'n'law is a numpty.

Think because OP wrote this:

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.

Option A if I’m interpreting it correctly is to try to get her daughter to take a bottle and leave her with the neighbour who is still a stranger.

Not all breastfed babies take to a bottle, nor can all breastfeeding women express milk and even if OP did, it could become quite uncomfortable for her to the point of leaking depending on how often her baby nurses even if she is eight months.

Do you have children ? Did you breastfeed ? Because if you did, you would know that it can take up to a week to transition to just dropping one feed a day to a bottle and that a baby who has been exclusively breastfed for eight months is unlikely to take to it straight away. No thought for the child from anyone concerned, except from the mother.

It's sad when family cuts people off.

My uncles wife completely stopped me and mu uncle from seeing each other.

She didn't even fall out with me. I was just collateral damage. My aunt fell out with my mother and my grandmother at different stages, and she then told my uncle to completey stop seeing me. Which he did.

The sad thing is me and my uncle were bery close before that.

We ended up not speaking for twenty years because of my aunt.

After my aunt died, my uncle tried to get back in contact with me. And I couldn't do it. I was so angry at him for being so weak. And I said some angry things to him. I said "you weren't there for my entire life, you missed everythingin my life, you can't choose to start being an uncle now".

He gave in to his wife. He cut off his whole family, for her. I hate weak men like that.

I've seen it too many times. The woman tell the man to cut people off. And he won't stand up to her. Then relationships are ruined for entire lifetimes

I gather she doesn't have kids?. How pathetic is she,?
Definitely do NOT go to the wedding.
Do NOT speak or engage with her again.
But DO enjoy time with your baby and rest of the holiday.

I have babysat for many babies that were breastfed. If the mothers were exclusively breastfeeding, they would leave me bottles of expressed breastfed milk to give to the baby.

However Most mothers that I babysat for didnt exclusively breastfeed, they used to mix between breastfeeding and formula. Amd I would then give the baby formula.

Not all breastfed babies take to expressed milk in bottles unfortunately. OP mentions the option getting her DD used to taking one, so maybe that’s the case here too.

I agree that you shouldn't go to the wedding. However, you have backed your DH and his whole family into a corner with your cutting them off, and I don't see what they have done terribly wrong, apart from one SIL who made a mistake which is now corrected (you don't go to wedding). No idea why you are blocking everyone, making it so hostile. My husband's family could be difficult and I saw it as my job to help him have the best relationship he could with them, given he wanted them. Same for him, he stood up for me but also made sure my family were welcome and we all had time together. This 'cutting off' is over nothing, literally nothing that I can see and it's such a shame for them, for your child, for him, the only one benefitting from hostilities that I can see is you!

Don't make a big drama out if it.
You're in a nice place with your family. Have it as a holiday, it's a bonus you don't have to spend the wedding day with the in-laws.
Stay, have a nice time, explore the sights.

Sil obvs an idiot, of course you won't leave your child with a random stranger.

If you sulk and refuse to enjoy the holiday that's on you. Don't let yourself ruin your time out of spite to your in laws. That would be foolish.

Some incidents & behaviour require a no further contact decisive action. This isn’t it

But that’s exactly what they want to do. Dsil presented the neighbour to op saying this woman is going to take care of your dc so that you can attend the wedding without her. As far as I can tell there has been no objection about this from pil and no support for op about this being a ridiculous idea. I would never leave my dc with a stranger. Particularly not when she is bf and likeky already unsettled from a long flight and change of routine. Considering dh is also upset it seems that dpil haven’t been in touch saying that they didn’t know about this cunning plan or that they agree it’s a stupid idea.

From my perspective, anyone who considered this to be a viable option isn’t the type of person I would particularly want around my dc unsupervised. I do however agree that op should reconsider her position as they are only there for two weeks and it might be nice for dpil to spend some time with dgd. But I can’t blame her at all for her initial reaction and there doesn’t seem to have been any apology or even an acknowledgement that they were misguided. And the dgc who was brought across the world for this big family event is still excluded from the wedding. The whole thing is absolutely batshit.

YANBU to be upset OP. I absolutely would be too. But I think you are overreacting out of anger and hatred for the in-laws.

Childfree people often have zero idea of the reality of babies, especially breastfed ones. My SIL earnestly told me when she was pregnant that they were going to leave the baby with my parents for a weekend to go to a wedding when he was 2 months old. She was planning to breastfeed. There was just no consideration that this might not be that easy - I think we can all guess how that worked out in reality!

@Kjones27

Tricked into coming.

Jesus it's not that hard to fly to Australia. My friend flys home four times a year from Australia

What your friend does is totally irrelevant to the OP and/or this post.

Makes no difference how easy you think getting there was, she was tricked as she said in her OP. SIL backtracked and said she could take DD to the wedding then waited till they had come and changed her mind (or said she had changed her mind, probably planned this all along).

You might think it's not hard to fly to the other side of the World, but many people would disagree especially with a baby (not to mention the cost). I have done a long haul flight with a baby and, believe me, it was blooming stressful.

No point splurging money on an new plane ticket. Stay in Aus, skip the wedding, enjoy the weather, have a great time.

The baby is not your property to use as a weapon.
Your husband can take the baby to see his family whenever he likes.
You sound like someone who acts like a dick and then plays the victim.

I may be the exception but can’t you do an hybrid and attend just some of the wedding? You could keep your baby with you for most of the day then use the babysitter so you can attend the wedding service itself (it’s fair enough that your SIL doesn’t want babies there) and maybe again for an hour or so so you can attend the wedding breakfast?

At 8 months you can easily feed your baby beforehand and wouldn’t need to worry about bottles or anything. The babysitter could even stay nearby so you can pop out easily if needed.

It’s a special family occasion (DH’s family is now your family too, remember) so I think it’s worth being flexible and amenable, especially since your sister-in-law has given you a bridesmaid role in the wedding which I do agree is an olive leaf.

It would be unnecessarily overdramatic to ‘cut ties’ or make a massive fuss. By the way, I’m not saying that they went about this all the right way (they absolutely didn’t) but for family I usually think it’s best to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just made a mistake and had no desire to hurt you.

Option B sounds the best and definitely wouldn’t want to waste money travelling all the way back.

Did SIL at least apologise or was it option A or nothing?

I was replying to people saying that op flew a long way.

Her inlaws did the exact same journey a couple months ago . They flew all that same way to be with op at Christmas. They flew from Australia to UK . Did they say how long a journey it was.

Everyone does long journeys.

I've read through the original post again to make sure that I haven't missed anything.

My understanding is that OP and her husband have flown to Australia with their baby to attend OP's sister-in-laws wedding next weekend, at which she is going to be a bridesmaid.

Although it's a bride's prerogative to say that she doesn't want to invite babies (and children, I assume) to her wedding, surely this is a situation where an exception could have been made.

As OP is a bridesmaid, could her husband not be given a seat at the end of a row where he could have held the baby during the part of the service involving the bridesmaids, with a bottle of pre-expressed breast milk ready just in case and a dummy too, perhaps.

OP would probably have been able to sit with him after the vows and have the baby on her lap.

I would like to think that she could feed the baby during the reception in a comfortable space.

There would be a time in the early evening when taking the baby back to where they are staying would be reasonable. She could then watch TV and relax while her OH spends an extra few hours at the wedding.

It seems very sad that this isn't a possibility.

Could the situation still be settled in a reasonable way for everyone?

It’s a shitty thing to do, but I also suspect that you would take the first chance you got to block them all. Because your reaction to block them is not normal op.

Option D. DH stands up for his family that he brought across the world to go to his sister’s wedding. Refuses to go unless they agree their SIL AND niece are welcome. Get them to admit how unreasonably they have behaved.

OP, if YOUR family had done this, would you be attending your sibling’s wedding without your DD, having been tricked into travelling across the world, then expected to leave your baby with a stranger? I’m sure you’d BOTH be refusing to attend the wedding along with DH and DD. I think your DH should be doing the same thing. Why on earth would he think it’s acceptable doing anything else?

Several grown adults doing long flights is not the same as doing long flights with a baby.

Maybe your baby didn’t struggle but others do.

The first time you posted this story upthread you started with the words ‘Just to talk about myself once and then I’ll leave it.’ And yet here you are telling the same story again - and for the second time insinuating that the OP is somehow in the role of the woman that supposedly hated your husbands’ family on sight and that her DH is too weak to stand up to her.

This is sad for you and your family, but entirely irrelevant to the OP. There’s a reason she doesn’t get on with her in laws. They blame her for taking away their son because they met while she was on an Australian holiday and he ended up marrying her and moving to the UK. Nowhere has she said she’s cutting off her DH from his family - quite the opposite. And if people would just stop and think how angry they would be if they were on the receiving end of what they did, they would realise that the stuff about cutting off contact with their granddaughter is probably just said in anger and won’t stand. However, if her in laws really do dislike her, then it’s not surprising she doesn’t want to spend time with them, and also not surprising that she doesn’t want her daughter to be exposed to their toxic behaviour and the possibility that they may try to alienate DD from her.

Flying anywhere is very tiring and difficult. No one enjoys it. Even flying from ireland to the UK is very tiring.

Im from the UK. I live in ireland at the moment. I have a lot of family in the UK.

I fly over to the UK for different family events several times a year.

The flight is only an hour. However you have to factor in driving time.

However, I live two hours drive from my nearest airport in ireland.

My family in the UK live two hours from their nearest airport in the UK.

I have to arrive at the airport two hours before flight time.
Amd then there are also nearly always train delays in the part of the UK that i go to. Last time they told me the train was delayed for some reason and that I had to take am alternative bus

When you add all that in. It takes nearly an entire day to get to the UK and I am always absolutely exhausted by the time I get to my cousins house in the UK.

She probably thinks it's easy for me to come over!