My partners cousin is obsessed with my baby

[Mummyme12345]

I’m not sure if this is a red flag or I’m being over sensitive here… my OH cousin is obsessed with my daughter. My daughter is 1 YO and is a dream to have… not to brag but she hardly cries and sleeps though the night and in general a happy healthy baby.

she has my LO quite a lot when I am at work or have breaks to see friends and so on.

things have been said recently, such as…”when you die she will be my baby” and “I’m scared to have a baby just in case I don’t love her as much as I love her” aswell as “I don’t want my own baby I want this one”. the worst was “it makes me upset that you are her mum and I’m not”

these comments have been said over the course of a few months. The rest of the family are justifying these comments saying she loves her so much and I should be happy she has someone else who loves her like their own and that the comments are harmless.

Myself and my OH are having her christened next month and she has made comments to family members that she should be a god mum and feels entitled to be so.

she has a lot to say about who has my LO and when… she has recently offered to have her overnight so that nobody else can have her. She’s becoming jealous of mine and my daughter’s relationship and my daughter’s relationship to my friends and family. She gets upset when I allow my friends and family to look after her and will cause drama so that they don’t want to watch my little one because it’s “not worth it the drama that comes with it”

my OH thinks it’s strange behaviour but we are not sure how to go about it.

just some advise please it’s keeping me up at night.

Their gaslighting is horrible and the cousin sounds very strange.
Stop her and anyone else looking after your baby away from you and DH. Choose some phrases and anything they say just repeat the same phrases. Don’t vary, don’t get into any discussions. After a while they’ll realise you make the decisions, not them.
You’ve made the right choice varying your work hours and if you heed child care at home iI the evenings you’d be better off employing a babysitter/ mother’s help than relying on his family.

I think you are massively overthinking here. The young cousin has clearly bonded with the baby ie maternal hormones have fired up. This is not unusual with new babies: my mother was very upfront about the fact that her maternal hormones fired up when her GCs were born (she was around for all births and helped out a lot in the early years) and that she bonded very deeply with her GCs. There's nothing wrong with this if it works for the parents and baby concerned. But in the OP's case it doesn't work and it needs to stop and the only way to do that is for the OP to create a cold turkey situation for the cousin so that her hormones subside.

he works for me so he will just step up and run the show for a while.. he couldn’t do so when I had the baby as we both had time off to spend with LO

The nursery charges £77 for half a day and £107 for a full day. We have a child minder that costs £68 for 4 hours of an evening but she’s not always available so we use his cousin once or twice a week in the evenings. She is paid what we pay the child minder

There's your excuse right there, if you don't feel able to challenge her directly. Say you don't have the finances right now and will be caring for her yourself.

Those comments would make me uneasy. Don't let the pack of wolves steer you away from your intuition.

OP. Read this excellent post from Mirabai again. Then take a step back and start again. Keep the baby's needs to have qualified or experienced care (eg that a grandparent babysitting for an evening might provide).

Personally I wouldn't address the issues given the over involvement of family members in all this. Just a simple "no thanks". If it means you have to temporarily reduce the amount of child free time you get, I'm sure you'll cope for a while.

I hear what you're saying but you have complete control over your situation. If you're uncomfortable just pull back a bit and reduce the amount of time she has your baby. It should be easy to do this.

On the other hand, unless she is known for other unhinged behavior she might just be emphasizing how much so loves your child (albeit in a weird way) esp if she has her to help you out a lot (like you said) and there is no harm meant, or actual danger, at all.

So let them turn.

You must trust your gut.

Protect your child.

So she will ask me daily how the baby is and where she is, if I am found lying or not telling her than I’m being dishonest and rude. She will then message who has the baby and say that I am being cheeky because she wasn’t offered her

I think that it might be possible for the OP to have this kind of conversation with the cousin AFTER she has removed her child from the cousin's ambit and set the boudaries going forward. I would be being less "kind" to the rest of the family though!!

She sounds like a psycho. 😳

Tell her she can't be alone with the baby because she's acting like a lunatic.

Also tell her she can't see the child if she kicks off about others minding her.

Why are you putting up with this?

Part of the new boundaries is refusing to answer.

Honestly op, you need to grow a backbone here. Limit the time she's spending with baby and if she objects tough. Any more of these comments, tell her she's being a weirdo and that she needs to back off. And if OHs family have a problem with this, again tough luck. And that's for OH to deal with. You need to start sticking up for yourself of you are going to have years of this.

she has my LO quite a lot when I am at work or have breaks to see friends and so on

And you've carried on with this arrangement even though she's clearly insane?

I don't think the cousin is insane or a weirdo and it won't be helpful to call her names. Her maternal bonding hormones have kicked in (inappropriately but we all know that falling in love is an unpredictable business).

OP if you mostly work at night and Your DH goes out to work, in the evening can he not take over the evening child care?

You need to stop using his family so much for childcare, can you use yours.

You're going to have to sit down with your DH and plan your schedule properly, through the whole month if you have to.

Mute notifications from her, you are feeding into the unhealthy attachment by responding and validating her feelings.

I think childcare with his side will need to be cut back/off for a while until she calms down.

If they're a sensitive lot , you don't need to announce or get into conversations, just quietly pull back.

And loudly you repeat she is my baby not yours, you have no rights to question my decisions about her whereabouts. Because your behaviour is making us both uncomfortable, we have decided not to use you as a baby sitter any more.

When she kicks off ( and she will) and anyone says its your hormones, reply it is yes my hormones, she is behaving crazy, I don't want her caring for my child behaving like that.
Next time she comments when you die she will be mine........nope I have all sorted thanks, she will be living with my parents/sister.

Feel free to start telling others minding your child that they can refuse to answer her questions re your childs welfare, when she is etc

Stop it now or this is going to get a lot worse for you in the future.

This is gaslighting. And I've experienced it at the hands of an outsider who came into my family not long after my Dad passed away. This was a female friend of my Mum's who made comments not unlike you mention about your partner's cousin. Obviously I'm an adult but it made me so uncomfortable. She would kiss me, hug me and touch me when I didn't want anything from her. If I complained it would start an argument that would go on for days. At one point my Mum told her 'my kids are not your kids', because she was trying too hard to fit in and be part of my family. It's only with my Mum passing away too that I can finally make my own decisions (wish it wasn't under those circumstances) but the woman tore my confidence down slowly over years because she was so overbearing and like your family, not one thing was ever said to her.

You have to stand by your own feelings on this - this is YOUR baby and your feelings are valid. Not only that, it's your job to protect your daughter from weirdness and possible danger. If it means you having an angry confrontation, so be it, at least you're saying your piece. The last thing you want is for it to go on until your daughter is at an age where she can be 'safely parted' from you and then it's her wanting to take her on day trips etc. Hit it on the head now.

You need to cease using her for childcare immediately.

I would cut her off completely and use professional care for the baby as this is an escalating situation which could see her running away with your baby or even worse, harming her because if she can't have the baby then no one else will.

If your family are condoning this weird and dangerous line of thinking then they are also a threat to your baby as they may facilitate taking the baby away from you.

So is her boyfriend also spending loads of time around your baby?

She sounds totally batshit.

I wouldn’t let her have any unsupervised contact with your DD and you should tell nursery not to let her pick DD up from there.

If the family complains so what? She’s your baby.

If all else fails, buy her a puppy.