Help! I can’t stand MIL over excitement about our pregnancy

[MumDaisy1980]

I m already in month 9 and had already a few times felt like bottleneck as MIL just too excited about the grandkid. Pouring all the labour stories, asking every single details about our baby preparation, self invite herself to check our baby set up. She also has a tendency like to spread things around in family, as in feel like is her mission to make sure everyone is informed about everything. Like by now I know my sis in law her history of her preg (how’s her labour, during preg what she did) or my DH’s bro’s partner medical records. I have been keeping my discomfort to myself, didn’t share with DH.

now, I m close to my due date , would say 3 weeks away. And I felt irritated when got a message from MIL asking if the baby is out yet. I felt like can she just leave us alone. If it happened for sure we will share? We won’t hide it or anything. And I also got the feeling as in she want to be the first one to find out then can break the news, rather than us.

although yes she was being friendly or caring. But because the contrast between before and after preg just too much. As in before preg , hubby n I are quite independent from the fam. We meet the fam during bdays etc and occasional basis . Also won’t have much contact If not necessary. After preg, just message as freq as my midwife appointment as of she is part of the journey. There were times I didn’t reply her (she message on watsapp group with me and hubby). So maybe she sense I don’t want to be disturbed, then she would call hubby to find out all the details.

last night during dinner, I don’t want to be offensive but also really want to let my DH knows in advance. I did say when baby born I want to 100% follow my gut feeling. But I am afraid I can’t handle his fam excitement, like want to visit or ask everything about the baby - while I think the focus should be on bonding among DH , me and baby. My DH reaction was positive and said sure. He seems respected my thoughts but I arent sure if it will be the case when it actually happen. At least I communicated.

i wonder if anyone got similar experience?! Or advice to keep sane in situation like this - like the in laws obviously try to help and care and happy for us. But just felt too much.

thanks!!

I didn’t need the ‘experience’ (often outdated advice) from older women when caring for my newborn. New mothers are perfectly capable of following their own instincts.

OP, you don’t have to do anything you aren’t comfortable with. Do whatever is necessary to grant yourself respite from her hassling you, mute her WhatsApp messages and send all contact through your partner. She’s at risk of permanently damaging the relationship between you two with her demanding behaviour.

Thank you very much for all your comments!! It's the first time I posted in AIBU and didn't know MIL is such a common thread! A lot of your comments are encouraging and restore my confidence to stick to my instinct!!

My Mum was indeed behaved over the line also when first announced the preg news. Never-ending giving advice and yes - outdated! But because it's my mum, I could say more direct how upset I am and irritated without any reserve. My mum then calm down and have no issue since then.

A little update - indeed I passed my reply to DH to handle, which I felt he is supportive (or I could tell he tried every effort not to irritate me, which ended up he suffer from my drama 😆).

We turned down a fam lunch invite today, and it's DH to reply to the fam watsaapp group. MIL immediately sent me a direct message to ask me how am I feeling. What I meant is she now stepped further to directly message me rather than in the past message in me, DH and her watsapp group. 😓

Ha well. I would indeed consider muting to keep myself sane in this fragile moment when all the hormones running everywhere.

Thanks everyone again for your feedback!

You know the advice you are following now will become outdated too. And not everyone followed/follows the current trend. I was never happy with putting my babies to sleep on their front, they seemed more comfortable on their backs. MiL
successfully reared her children, why not have a chat about her ideas rather than dismissing them out of hand?

Poor mil. If she wasn't interested that wouldn't be alright either.
How does she get it just right for you.

Please treat her properly while she's here on this earth, she is on your side.

I get it and unfortunately there are too many stories on here about grannies who want to have the baby overnight when it’s sitll very young or who want to whip the baby away at every chance or are down on breastfeeding because they want a turn feeding the baby or who refer to the grandchild as “my baby” 😮…. It sounds like you may have one of those on your hands…

So yes correct to set some expectations down with your husband now and hopefully he will back you up. It’s not that you want to exclude MIL completely, you just don’t want her breathing down your neck at every stage!

Also… looking at thread title… it’s not OUR pregnancy… It’s YOUR pregnancy! Sounds petty but this is important, it is your body.

Yabu you might be a mil one day excited about a grandchild.

YABU.

Is there a particular reason you try and keep family at a distance and only see them on birthdays and special occasions (like a chore)?

I feel really sad (and a little bit disgusted actually if I am honest) reading this. She sounds like she's got just a slightly more than normal interest and you're completely overreacting!

Think about the wider network of your child's life, do you want to sacrifice a close bond with their grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins on their behalf? Do you want them to turn up to these occasional get togethers and be the odd one out that doesn't really know anyone else and feels like the black sheep - who just never feels quite part of things because their parents insist on keeping family contact to a minimum?

Whatever you do though, just be consistent. There's nothing worse than stubbornly/selfishly refusing visitors then coming crying once you need help for childcare.

Thanks again for your comments.

Now that I have given birth, I had anticipated the overwhelming messages from my husband’s side after we shared the news.

which beforehand DH and I had agreed what to say and I even said that DH to deal with all the messages from his fam. Just say I am recovering if asked why not heard from me.

i am in the DH’s fam Watsapp group , so as expected there were messages directed to me. The fam is overexcited and tons of watsapp as soon as we shared the news.

on top of that MIL also had sent me direct messages.

and on top of the MIL also sent a message to a watsapp group to me and DH , 3 of us.

then on top of that DH’s aunties also sent me direct messages (but not to DH).

because DH and I shared the news at the same time to our fam , then of course my fam and friends similarly replied with tons of watsapp. And the difference is my fam and friends won’t message my DH and congrats and/or ask how he is doing. The vol of response required between DH and I is drastically different.

at the moment I still not read or respond to any of in-laws msg . I am at the moment following my gut to read or reply as I desired. Just that as I replied then she will reply back and ask all the details. And definitely the first pregnancy experience is overwhelming and am still figuring things out. I would much prefer to talk when meet up rather than ‘talk’ over watsapp. but she seems can’t wait for that and want to know.

at The moment I am exhausted and will have to take a nap between feeds. MIL called DH asking what do we need - in terms materialistic things we are fine and in terms of support we still learning ourselves so not even know what we need. I already got the feeling another self invite is upcoming, as in she bought us sth and happy to drop round kind of things.

could anyone advice how I can keep myself sane?? Or as some posters had pointed out before, i am overthinking again?!

thank you!

Your lucky my MIL wasn't interested in my pregnancies and has never been interested in my children either

If you go onto the MIL’s not recent direct message, you can lock the correspondence so it no longer appears in your live or archived messages. You will however be flagged when a message is delivered but you won’t actually see it. Discovering this little gem has paid dividends in the past two weeks: is check it out if I were you

Let your husband casually mention that your due date has been pushed back ten days. That will give you the breathing space you deserve. Good luck 💐

Congratulations on your baby. Ignore all the messages that you don't want to respond to. Have DH manage replies and protect you and baby from visitors etc.

It is absolutely fine to strictly limit visitors and comms in the first 6 weeks after birth so you have time to bond with and enjoy your baby.

Also, I'd start a new thread or you'll find 50% of posters reply only to your OP and not your update.

Hold those boundaries! Turn your phone off. DH can field his mum's pestering.

Congratulations OP. Is your baby a boy? I really hope so.

Congratulations on your new baby! Hoping everything went okay.

It’s very normal to get a flurry of congratulatory messages once you’ve announced the baby’s arrival. Don’t feel pressured into responding straight away, everyone will understand and most will be simply offering support if you need it. Your MIL sounds very excited (I sympathise- mine was/is the same) and although well meaning and lovely can also be very overwhelming.

Most family calm down once they’ve been allowed a visit and a cuddle so once you feel a little more human, I’d invite your mum/MIL over to meet the baby. You don’t need to go into the nitty gritty details of your birth and most people will be distracted by the baby anyway. You will definitely get loads of well meaning advice but I would simply take it graciously and then do whatever you want instead.

Another post failing to understand that GPs need to chill a bit since it's not their child and they need to give the parents space.
The MiL here seems overinvolved, nosy and I bet most mums would not enjoy someone breathing down their neck to briadcasting the news like some blooming radio.

And people wonder why sons are not wanted lol

Frankly I don’t understand how you have time to list and analyse all your MiL’s comments but be too busy and exhausted to reply to her. Maybe send her some photos and a nit of news about the baby rather than posting long complaints on here.

Bit * of news

Nah, it’s Mumsnet. People can come here to vent.

OP, I would copy and paste a generic reply to all the WhatsApp messages finishing with a line about staying in the bubble so won’t be on my phone much for the next few weeks.

So how is your DH handling those messages from his family?

Before long you could be grateful that someone is still interested in your offspring. If you haven’t alienated her by then, of course. Most people are not that interested in
other people’s children.

You could have replied to their messages in the time it took you to write this post! Your mil sounds over excited but at least she cares!

Just mute it all. Archive the WhatsApp messages untill you’re ready to deal with them. Stick to your plan. Dh messages his side and you, yours.

Rest and heal. Congratulations on the arrival.

The messages from most will slow / stop as the majority will just be the generic congratulations type and wishing you all well.

When your upto it invite visitors but again don’t worry about offending if you need / want to go off upstairs to lay down and feed baby after even half an hour. This is a new tiny human you made and birthed your allowed to be tired and babies allowed to be a clingy little feeding machine.

It's normal to receive a load of messages congratulating you, it's normal for a parent to ask what you need.