Not giving me my hungry baby back

[Apricottrot]

My DS is coming up for 11 weeks old and is breastfed.

Today MIL and SIL were over visiting and were taking turns of holding baby. He became unsettled and they both tried to settle him however after a couple of minutes I could tell he was hungry. I kept saying ‘oh he must be hungry’ and eventually said outright that he needs fed. They still didn’t give me him back. This has happened quite a few times, not just with them but with my own mum and friends too.

I understand that they’d like a chance to soothe my baby however I find it distressing knowing that my baby is hungry and his needs aren’t being met.

I eventually ended up just taking baby from MILs lap and fed him.

Is there anything else I could say to nip it in the bud straight away without having to take my baby from people to feed him? I don’t want to be confrontational and don’t want to be getting to the point where both baby and I are distressed.

I don’t understand why someone would keep hold of a baby who is clearly needing fed by his mum, but maybe it’s my post partum hormones…

So you'd be proactive if someone said "oh he's hungry" about their baby but you're no proactive when yours does. Makes no sense

O/p has said the baby is breastfed. Why would she introduce bottles just because mil won’t give the baby over to be fed?

I kept saying ‘oh he must be hungry’ and eventually said outright that he needs fed. They still didn’t give me him back.

If you repeatedly said this to me but didn't get up and cross the room I would assume you weren't ready to take the baby yet. A lot of women prefer to go for a wee, get a drink/snack, get their phone, set up a clean nappy station before getting the baby. So I would be waiting for you to come to me, not the other way round.

Some people are askers and some people are guessers.
Askers find guessers passive aggressive and guessers find askers too direct and rude

Sounds like you're a guesser OP, and you are expecting that by making a general comment (baby is hungry) everyone knows that you actually mean please hand the baby back now.

Whereas askers who expect people to say things directly (like @IReallyCouldntThinkOfAUsername ) will be left wondering what the guesser actually wants.

I'm an asker and my DH is a guesser so we get this a lot. For example while packing up after a camping holiday, DH said 'it's going to rain soon' and then went to put things in the car leaving me with the tent. When he returned he was surprised I hadn't started packing the tent down as obviously his comment about the rain meant 'start packing away the tent before it rains please'.

Did your mil bottle feed?

i found bottle feeders quite opinionated on feeding frequency. I was often told I was spoiling him and he couldn’t possibly need another feed already. So they’d hang on to the baby and try to settle them because it couldn’t be hunger.

that and this obsession with feeding babies and they tried to make be give in and let them feed a bottle, rather than selfishly bf.

i also found lots of people seemed to take it as a personal failing when baby wouldn’t settle.

This seems a bit much. I’m almost 100% certain that @Wife2b doesnt mean that OP should introduce a bottle for the MIL.

Just take the baby as you say it and keep the conversation going if you feel it seems awkward.

Funnily enough grandparents always seem to hand baby back when nappy needs doing!

OP I feel this to my core!! And in my experience it gets worse. Like you my comments, “think baby is hungry/think it’s time for a feed” you know, trying to be polite and all that was ignored. Then I started getting push back from ILs like, no I think he just wants a cuddle (as he was wriggling to get away from said cuddle) to physically dragging him away from me as he’s crawling to me for a feed when he got older, to the latest telling FIL to go fetch him some water as he approaches me for a feed. It’s beyond infuriating and I completely empathise.

Like others have said just actually getting up and physically taking LO away as you say time for a feed is the only thing that worked for me. I hope it settles down for you and they start to respect your and your baby’s needs more. Sadly for me it’s an ongoing battle.

I started a series recently that was full of guess-ers. People kept doing things without an actual discussion to agree, then getting annoyed at the "wrong" thing being done. It was so immensely frustrating that I wanted to shake all of them. I stopped watching obviously!

Here come the MIL bashers ( I’m not a Mil or a grandmother) 3,2,1…..

Just in case it is helpful, I was in the situation you describe this weekend, only I was the MIL/SIL. I was bobbing already-whingy DNiece about for Dsis, and was reluctant to ask her if she wanted to take baby back and try boob because it would have felt a bit like I was giving up and saying 'You do it'. Dsis deals with 2 under 2 day in, day out, so I wanted to try and deal with at least one episode of baby whinging so she didn't have to. Is it at all possible your MIL/SIL had the same impulse? Obv fair enough if you don't think so!

This isn’t intended to be a MIL bashing post @oakleaffy, hence why I included that it has happened with other people aside from MIL. I have a good relationship with MIL and SIL.

@Crunchybanana sorry to hear you’ve experienced the same (and more!). I definitely need to nip it in the bud and be more direct and assertive next time as it’s clear from people’s replies that they may well have continued to try and settle my baby as they were waiting on me coming and taking him off them

OP I totally get it.
But this is the first of many times you will need to assert yourself a bit. If you’re not the confrontational type, it can be uncomfortable but remember you are advocating for your baby.
It can/should be done in a nice way eg ‘ah poor baby is hungry, let me feed them and then back to grandma/Aunty when I’m done’. Keep it breezy.

@PrettyParrot thank you for sharing your perspective from a MIL point of view. That is helpful!

I don't understand why you are expecting them to "hand baby back". Maybe they are just confused by the fact that you are saying he needs a feed but yet don't seem to do anything about it? It would seem natural to me that whilst saying this you get up to pick up the baby.

It's particularly odd when you say several people have done that. It never happened to me, and I have never observed this with my friends, mums' groups or family either.

I had this problem too (yes, older frmale family members). They should cover it in ante-natal classes so mums are confident in taking babies back.

They may be wondering why you keep repeating it and then doing nothing about feeding him.

If you are finding that everyone is doing it they are probably waiting for you to take him back rather than not giving him back.

I would find it a bit odd really if a new mum was saying their baby was hungry while I was holding them, but wasn't making any moves whatsoever to actually come and take and feed the baby! I would personally pass the baby back, but I can imagine some people just thinking oh I'll try be helpful/give her a break by holding the baby until she's ready to feed him. Might need to go get a bottle for example.

You can't mess around with things like this really, when you want your baby back in your arms you don't need permission. You simply go over and move to pick up your baby.

Just pick him up and walk him straight into your room, shut the door and feed him in there, saying “Lock the door on your way out. This is going to be a while!”

I wouldn't recommend being this rude, it's not necessary.

I had the compagny of a 8 week old beautiful girl the other day. Such a joy.

Hungry? Her mum had her back in 2 seconds.

I did walk around with her untill she settled for sleep and mum had her dinner - but I asked if she was happy to let me. Not my baby, and yes we have had 3 but this isn't mine.

I don't get why people take over babies. Enjoy and return!

Be assertive and go and get the baby for a feed. When he's done, hand him back to Granny.

Once she's confident that she won't completely miss out on cuddles, she'll probably be more willing to hand him over so he can briefly have his needs met.

You need to speak with authority - they are not used to seeing you as the grown-up. Talk as if you expect to be listened to, and like other posters have said, just take your baby as you are saying "I'm going to feed him now".
They ( and you) have to get used to the idea you are the one in charge of the baby, what you say goes, and you don't need permission. Their opinion on whether he needs feeding or not is neither here nor there. You are his mother, you know best.

@westcountrywoman I do believe this is part of the reason why they didn’t hand hom back to be fed straight away. They live quite far away but only pop in for an hour or so and the last two times he has spent half the time feeding so they don’t get long to cuddle him!

It’s good you have a plan on what to do in the future OP. As for them not handing back the baby, I think reading the room, they couldn’t see any signs of you actually getting prepared to take baby or getting what you need to feed him, so in the meantime they continued trying to settle 🤷🏻‍♀️

You seem to be expecting them to get up and put him in your lap for you to feed, but actually I've always just gone over and put my hands out/ reached over to take them. If you say "he's getting hungry" but just sit there, they aren't getting the cue that you're wanting to feed him