Am I being precious?

[Bananananasaretasty]

Mil takes DD aged 1 once week for childcare. On this day she usually takes DD to meet her former work colleague who also has a daughter aged 3.

I have met this person a few times, and they aren’t the kind of person i would usually spend time with and have different ideas about parenting. For example she has her DD wearing makeup, nail polish etc, I would feel funny about my DD doing this at 13 never mind 3. She has her DD in a high back booster whereas I want to rear face our DD for as long as possible. She sleep trained her daughter whereas we co sleep. We are still Breastfeeding and plan to for the foreseeable, whereas she FF her daughter. She had her daughter going to dance classes from when she could walk, we prefer to do other things as a family at the weekend.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with this, she has chosen how she wants to bring up her daughter and us ours. But the problem is MiL is constantly comparing us, and this increases every time she sees this friend. It’s like she trusts her friends parenting more than ours. Last week it was ‘Mary was saying there’s a space in the toddler dance class Amy used to go to, you should get DD down for that.’ (Not real names). A few months ago it was ‘Mary put Amy to her mums to weekend when she was DDs age which helped her sleep through the night.’

Feel like I am constantly having to reinforce boundaries. I can’t dictate to MiL what she does with DD when she has her once a week, but I wish i could tell her to stop seeing this woman as I feel like it’s open season on my parenting. DH agrees with me on the parenting decisions, but he also feels like we can’t tell his mum what to do. And we can’t afford the childminder that extra day.

YABU - suck it up, people will always have opinions on your parenting

YANBU - tell MiL that I don’t want hear her friends opinions of my decisions.

You do sound judgemental though. I breastfed both of mine and sleep trained them both. Because it was knackering to be woken up several times a night when they didn't actually need to be fed. Not sure if that makes me a chav? Ultimately we all do what we think is best for our individual family. It might not be what you would do, but that happens all the time about lots of things.

This unspoken element in this thread is about class (and not just dancing class). Lots of MC parents parent differently from WC parents and feel their way is obviously superior.
But the thing is, WC parents can feel exactly the same way, viz -- 'that poor kid, her mum won't even let her go to ballet and little girls love ballet/trying out a bit of nail polish,' etc.
So the snobbery (for that is what is is) can go both ways. It's the unfavourable comparison of one way with the other that is the problem. And both the OP and her MIL are doing this, I'm afraid.
As the OP has accepted -- just smile, ignore and move on. Sometimes hard to do but necessary given her circumstances

You are being unreasonable to suggest your MIL and your daughter should not spend time visiting this woman and her daughter. You are not being unreasonable to be annoyed by the constant comparisons and implied criticism (if indeed this is what it is). You need to deal with this by telling your MIL you'd rather not hear the comparisons. But you shouldn't need to be negative about your MILs friend to do this.

Make up and nail polish at 13 is likely to happen!

Missing the point

Ok I’m drip feeding. It’s the sleep thing, DD has never slept through, believe me I want her to. I’ve spent ages reading about it, paid for a sleep consultant, tried gentle sleep training and none of it is working. I refuse to let her ‘cry it out’, we are co sleeping now and it is working for us and we are all getting more sleep than we ever had. So yes I am quite sensitive about the sleep subject, I maybe need to work on that. Yes I am pissed off a MiL suggesting that she can fix it by following her friends suggestion.

I only mentioned the car seat thing because MiL said that Amy was forward facing at DDs age, which started quite a big argument which has only recently died down with us buying another car seat for MiLs car.

Maybe I am being judgemental about this other woman, which I don’t mean to be. I want to make it clear that I don’t have an issue with my daughter playing with her daughter, it’s MiL and the mum comparing them which is getting to me.

Your Mum is of an age (probably) where co-sleeping is thought to be a bit ‘odd’, she may be thinking ‘what’s wrong with the wain sleeping in her own cot at night’. Same with extended bf. Did you co sleep with your parents?

You ought to be grateful to your MiL for her involvement and free childcare. Is she really being critical of how you raise your DD or are you just being too sensitive? She can mention things her friend does without meaning you are wrong for doing differently, not everyone is as judgemental as you are. Just say "That's nice but not how we want to do things".

I think if the woman is actually giving her opinion on your parenting you'd not be unreasonable to tell MIL you'd rather she didn't share it with you. If it's more that MIL is drawing implicit (and annoying) comparisons, maybe shrugging them off or ignoring them is the better approach.

I think a few people are wilfully mistinterpreting OP's dilemma - which is about the comparisons coming from MIL rather than "Mary's" choices - for sport, but whatever.

I think you just have to say, re for example, the breastfeeding/bottle-feeding/overnight stay thing, 'Sorry, Mil, we want to keep breastfeeding for the time being/as long as possible'. Repeat for each thing. "Sorry, DD is doing Tae Kwondo not dancing" etc etc.

People will ALWAYS have an opinion on your parenting. Be patient OP. It's wearing though.

Smile and nod, there will always be comparisons but I don’t think your mil intends for it to be nasty. (This said from a ff mum, who takes her toddler to a toddler dance class as she enjoys it!)

It’s the sleep thing, DD has never slept through, believe me I want her to.

Is MIL perhaps not trying to be helpful rather than unfavourably comparing? Your way of getting your toddler to sleep clearly isn’t working, so she’s suggesting something which has worked for another parent. When you’re a new parent in the thick of things and all this minutiae about everything you do seems like the most important thing in the world, I can see why you’d be sensitive about it; but to somebody who’s just looking at it pragmatically from a distance and offering information, they aren’t going to automatically think of it as something you’ll feel they’re overstepping on.

I think the issue is that you would like your mil to be proud of the way you and dh parent her dgd.
The constant comparison with friend’s dd is doing the opposite.
Rather than you judging, which you are a bit, you feel very judged.
It’s as if you gave your mil an organic dgd and she prefers the ( I’m exaggerating here) junk food version.

Ignore your mil.
My mil hated me breast feeding, she hated my gentle parenting( said I was making our ds soft), hated our fresh, home cooked meals and our refusal to allow smoking near our dc. She ranted because I wouldn’t drink alcohol whilst pregnant.
I just knew I was happy with our decisions and smiled and nodded and ignored.

As someone who is probably your MIL's age, sleep training worked instantly with my DS 😁He's 25 now, and perhaps he does harbour a secret grudge...

🤣

You never know, other mum might be judging you for being one of those working mum types who palms the kid off to MIL and expects free childcare

I think she was trying (misguidedly) to help with the sleep suggestion.

She doesn't sound that bad, it's only one day a week.

This! Who cares what the other parent choses to do. And good luck stopping a 13 year old wearing make up. Open your mind that others may make choices that are different and no worse than yours. You can't dictate what your MIL does when she's providing you with free childcare.

My first was formula fed and second is breastfeeding. Does my 1st born need to leave the room when my superior 2nd born enters the room incase he catches formula off her.

Re the sleep training, I resisted for some while, until I was totally knackered. It took one night when the oldest hollered for about 5 minutes to get him to sleep through the night. I did it with the second before we got to the me being knackered stage. I know some parents don't like it, I know it doesn't always work, but honestly all of us, including the baby felt happy when we were getting sleep. BTW I'm probably old enough to be your mum, these sort of discussions have been going on forever. It's your choice. Others make their choices.

Yes! This was the age when mine went through the less clothing is more stage!

I had to learn just to suck it up with my MIL. She did childcare for us too and would often have opinions on how we handled sleep, food and also had the who car seat debate.at the end of the day, she was helping us out loads, had everyone’s best interests at heart and my kids had a great time with her. It’s just that they are of a different generation and did things differently to us. If it’s not malicious, just keep drawing your boundary and standing your ground and don’t give it any more headspace.

You are paying far too much attention to what your MIL tells you about this other family, taking it far too personally and making so many comparisons that at best are making you unhappy and at worse make you seem unpleasant. Stop paying attention, treat it as her just making child related conversation chat with you, with no meaning. Say no thank you to anything you don't want her to do like sleep overs or say thank you for her advice even if you don't want it or disagree, especially when its unsolicited and keep going with family life. Drop the emotion out of it all if all you use her for is childcare and don't like her.
Stop comparing your parenting too, only a year in you've got a much longer road ahead of you. Dont listen to her, but be glad of her. Comparison is the thief of joy.
Smile and nod, oh, right, yeah, great, thanks for having her today, chat some bobbins, change the subject then take your DD home and do it all over again the week after. The other family and their lives are none of your business, start treating it that way.

Neither your MIL or her friend are “comparing” or “judging” your parenting decisions - at no point was a direct comparison made (never mind a negative one) in the examples you offered. Your MIL has made flat statements of fact detailing her Friend’s choices which are different from yours.

You sound a bit judgy TBH. If you don’t want to hear about the friend’s parenting choices just tell your MIL you aren’t interested (in the detail of her day spent providing free childcare). Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with a front facing car seat for 3yo (can they be rear facing at that age?) or dancing classes - good exercise and social. Nail polish? meh, harmless! You need to unclench.

Presumably your MiL brought your husband up to be a decent human being?So maybe just cut her some slack.
I think you need to suck it up it’s the price of ‘free’ child care.

🤣