MIL only one not to say my baby looks like me

[TheAquaFawn]

My MIL never says my baby looks like me. Everyone else - friends, family, strangers, says he’s the spit of me but I noticed she stays quiet and only comments that he looks like her son / my DH and at a push, that he looks like both of us. It’s starting to annoy me, and wonder whether it’s a slight at me, am I being silly? DH isn’t insecure at all that people say he looks more like me and joins in.

I would say try not to overthink it but I do get it- my ex MIL not only insisted neither of my kids look anything like me or anyone in my family (they do) but every positive thing about them came from their dad’s side. They learnt something new? Clever like x. Nice to animals? Caring like y. Etc.

Anything negative like tantrums, being afraid of something, a bad sleeper, had to have come from my side as none of the children in her family ever behaved badly or were scared of anything ever 🙄

It was draining, it got on my nerves but in hindsight I wish I hadn’t let it bother me so much.

I went as far as asking for baby photos of us as keepsakes for my son when he's older.

He's the spit of me. Poor DH gets some low profile features like eyebrows and toes and fingernails.

MIL and her best friend insist he looks just like baby DH, but it's really, REALLY reaching. For starters, both DH and his brother were unlucky in the ear department as babies. Most of the photos of them at ILs are very zoomed in. Also DH was extremely premature, so has that sort of elfin look up until he was four.

Then the pictures of me are just complete lookalikes. But still the best MIL will say is "he's a real blend of the two of them".

🤣🤣🤣

A close friend's daughter's son (he's now 9) has been an astonishing clone of his father since he was tiny. His mum just beams when people remark on it - she loves her husband and is thrilled her son is the spitting image of him.

It sounds like she's annoyed and jealous that your baby looks like you instead of like her own precious genes!

Did you read this back to yourself before posting?

strange u would want her to.

Well that’s quite possible given op is annoyed about more or less the same thing - though in her case just the fact that one person won’t SAY it.

Good for gooses and all that …

Meh. Its a long game. The baby is half her precious genes aren't they? And they change a lot as they grow. My one former mini me DS is now a young version of his dad and adult DD does indeed have a look of MiL about her. Daft anyone getting jealous or smug over DCs looks when they are 50% of each, whether people like it or not.

I hate that reply "they look like themselves." It's rude and disingenuous. Babies mostly do look like their relatives, and it's all part of the fun of fussing over a baby to say oooh, Dbaby looks like x,y z family member. Also, I was out with a friend at lunch once with her young baby and made a comment that she looked like her, and I got a stand-offish "She looks like herself." 🙄

I personally can never see the resemblance of a baby to a particular parent because they’re a baby.

Me neither, they all look alike for at least 6 months, I couldn't have picked mine out of a police line-up!

One of the best posts I've ever read!

Because she's as sure as hell laughing at the OPs' obsession about her grandchild's looks!

Does she say she looks like someone else in the family?

We once knew a couple where the 8 year old boy looked the image of her husband, everyone commented on it, he wasn't the child's father though, she had been widowed when he was a baby and had married again when he was about 6, and No, she hadn't known the new husband earlier!

My eldest son was the absolute double of his dad as a baby and small child, nothing like me at all. My mil made sure I knew it! She was also quite petty and used to run me down but in a oh so funny way, she really didn’t like me. Thankfully she lived far enough away I didn’t have to see her much. Second son very much more like me. She didn’t like that. But hey ho, you reap what you sow I guess.

Definitely a long game. But MIL is annoyed at today's status quo! 😂

I learnt how long a game it is when my sister's baby looked just like his dad as a youngster and now, many years later, he's the image of his mum. Crazy. You wouldn't think it was the same young person.

One of the many unhinged my MIL did after my first son was born was corner me in a hallway with an envelope of photos of DH to PROVE to me that my son didn't look like me and only looked like DH because she was SICK of people suggesting that my son looked like me.

Funniest part is that I am dark and son is dark but DH is blonde hair blue eyes. It's a pretty obvious difference.

But only one in a very long list of unhinged things she did.

My eldest is the image of my MIL, and I couldn't be happier about it. She also has all the great traits of my MIL and one of MIL's sisters.

Why anyone should be offended because a MIL finds real or imagined similarities between the grandchild and her family, I really don't know.

I don't think it's that unhinged. Everyone said my firstborn looked like her dad (she did in many ways) so I cornered my in-laws with a photo of me as a baby to prove their were similarities. They agreed with me after seeing the photos. By the way, my DD is also dark like her dad whereas I have blue eyes and a pale complexion. This is part of the reason I wanted to show them a photo- to show their were similarities between us that go beyond skin and eye colour.

Mine were gaw-juss!! I’d have known them from back view!

But did you approach it that you were 'absolutely sick of people suggesting that he could possibly look like anything like you'

Or were you calm and reasonable?

HNRTFT but I think new born babies generally look like their father.Think it's nature's way to help with bonding.

Sounds like fairly typical behaviour for some mums of sons!

Shows massive insecurity, and desperation to claim the grandchild as part of HER family, and not the nasty daughter-in-law's family. 😆