In laws and baby's first steps

[Timeforsomecoffee]

First of all, there is a huge back story anyway.

But my question is, if you were a mil/fil, would you have done this?

Baby close to taking his first steps but hadn't done it yet. Mil and fil had been banging on for ages about how we needed to get him walking, he should be walking by now bla bla bla. Doing the arm dangling thing every time we saw them.

Baby was 13 months and standing independently so well on track with his development.

On a visit they decided to stand him between them, coaxing him between them (while I was gone to the toilet) then when I and back announced proudly that he'd taken his first steps.

Actually now I think of it, I read an interesting article that helped me a lot at the time, explaining how everyone’s roles in the family change when a grandchild comes along, and grandparents have to adjust to no longer being the ones in charge. It helped me understand that they weren’t necessarily undermining our parenting, but working out how to be a grandparent.

I’ve just read your subsequent posts. I can explain the 9 months toilet trained thing. Before disposable nappies it was quite a common practice to sit the baby on the potty after a meal ( and about 9 months was often when they were sitting strongly enough to do this) and keep them sitting there … and sitting there … until something emerged then dress them again until the next meal. So it may have helped to avoid using nappies ( which needed washing) but it wasn’t toilet training in the sense of a 9 month old announcing “ I think I feel one coming , I’ll just pop to the loo if you’ll excuse me.” If you live your life sitting on a potty it’s likely your last meal will end up landing in it. FIL sounds a proper pain in the arse.

I've only read the original OP but my immediate reaction was "what a pair of c"
They didn't do it out of interest in his development, they did it to prove their point. Look, we got him walking. Tiresome nonsense.

As a parent unless I witnessed it happening then it wouldn’t have been my babies first steps🤣 but I do understand how you feel, my mother used to always try to take away the first moments with my first baby who is now 16, but once out of the baby stage she lost all interest in him.

@Bananagirl23 but FIL seems to be undermining OP all the time. That is not learning to be a grandparent that is just being nasty

You should have been blunt and said ‘cheers for taking that experience away from me !’ . You need to make a point that you are aware of their pettiness. Yes most would ‘pretend’ it had not happened, it’s a shit thing to do x

This made me think of when my DCs were that age. My parents looked after them for a day or two each week while I worked. My mum said she really hoped they wouldn’t take their first steps when they were with them as she didn’t want me to miss it. She also said (much later) than even if they had she wouldn’t have told me so that DH and me could experience it with our babies.

That's thoughtless of them, I would've just kept quiet. I'm sure my ds must have taken his first steps at nursery but they never said a word and acted suitably surprised when we told them he had done so at home.

Well you might be very zen about that !!! but if my DSs’ DGPs had pulled a stunt like this I would have hit the bloody roof.

Ive had two DC in different nurseries and know loads of other families especially current colleagues with babies. Our former babysitter was a nursery worker. It’s standard practice to say ‘he’s almost there!!’ etc - not to say he’s taken his first steps.

Firsts matter- I might be more precious about them than others after years of infertility but I would have reacted very badly if my PIL had done this.

So the nattering nonsense is clearly irritating but I’d have smiled, said yes please and thank you for the generous offer of Clarkes shoes rather than interpret the gift as a way to weaponise a child’s shoes 😏

It’s a generous gift if it’s the money for you to spend on your child’s shoes. If it’s taking your DC for their first shoes without you involved, it’s out of order.

Yes, my MIL told me she did this, but has always said it wasn’t potty training as such, just luck- and done to reduce the number of dirty terry nappies to wash.

How are you sure? Based on what?

It's not like the OP was in toilet and the little one pulled themselves up and started walking, they purposely tried to get him to walk, there's a difference and it's spiteful.

A lot of this thread is an example of how odd everything is. You aren’t entitled as parents to witness first anything’s. Either you happen (by chance) to witness or you aren’t there at that moment in time. The fact that so many on here assume it’s an entitlement so much so that professional childcare should lie to them is as weird as hell. Show me Gov guidance re childcare stating please lie to parents over x,y,z because they can’t cope with the truth 🙄. Wow just wow!

That’s pretty much it. But OP’s FIL sounds to have played it up as something far grander! 🤣

As for those stating they ask childcare to lie to them. WTF?!?! Seriously some need to have a serious think.

I would do exactly the same as you. I would 'forget' to mention it 😊. Some things are very special to parents, especially with their first child. Why take away their joy?

This with bells on.

@catwithflowers why? Because healthcare professionals lose all credibility when they lie. It’s not ok to lie about things because subjectively it’s considered to be kind.

@Oaktree55 you sound pleasant.

Imagine visiting a professional of any sort be it childcare or healthcare to be told oh by the way we decide on what to tell you and what to lie about as we see fit. How many of you would honestly sign up?

@EricHebbornInItaly I’m shocked by how many seem to think it’s ok to be patronised and more importantly lied to. Nothing to do with personality.

@Oaktree55 I think if you turned up to collect your child from nursery and they said “Oh hi, he’s had a great day and he definitely didn’t take his first steps today!” that would be one thing. But just not mentioning it if it happens - I don’t know, to me that’s an omission rather than a lie.

(If a parent asks outright if it happened then I agree denying it would be lying, but in that situation presumably the parent would actually want to know.)

@ZebraDanios perhapd years ago you may have had a point. Not nowadays when EVERYTHING is supposedly recorded. Important developmental milestones not reported is a SERIOUS red flag.