Feel awful about MIL's passing but struggling with baby - AIBU?

[Charlottef94]

My MIL sadly passed away last week after a terminal illness. She and FIL live in a very very remote part of UK which takes around 12 hrs door to door from us. We were there a week ago luckily before she passed, with our 4 month old.

When she passed overnight last week I stayed as we had already postponed our babys vaccines by over a month due to all the travel over Christmas and up to see them, and they were due to have them that day. DH went up to FIL straight away - however I now feel that he is angry with me that we didnt go immediately and is being quite insensitive to me in having to make this huge journey now on my own as well as currently solo parenting our baby who is going through 4month sleep regression.

I have offered to go up asap, however with the funeral date tbc I would like us to stay up there, until the funeral rather than come back home and back up again. I just feel that it's so many extremely long journeys for our baby who was v unsettled last time we went up there, has just settled down at home again - this is why I wanted to give him a few extra days to get over his jabs and be at home before more upheaval. We have also only been married a year and I did feel that at such a raw time for FIL, having me there hanging around in the very beginning would feel intrusive on his grief as he is alone with DH at the moment.

I just feel my DH is not caring about us at all at the moment, he is barely speaking to me and keeps making sharp comments about how he wants me to get there asap as FIL is really keen to be surrounded by all the grandchildren, as if I am refusing to go. His SIL gets there today with baby. There is a turn in the weather this week meaning I am unlikely to be able to make it to where they live this week or could get stranded with our baby, but I feel DH will tell me we have to try and make the journey.

AIBU in feeling a bit upset myself? I know he has lost his mum but I am trying my best to hold everything together and stable here for our baby and I feel so alone and worried that I've been unreasonable in staying home for a bit longer given the circumstances.

@OhBuggerandArse with the community it only seems to go one way, so disapproval if OP doesn’t come running and do what the men say she should. Maybe the community can see that other people do things differently. Maybe they need to accept other communities. Why should OP do what is expected of her. Why does one community/culture trump another. OP says they have only been married a year which sort of coincides with age of baby, so maybe hasn’t been round the family that much.

It's only 'the men' because their mother and wife HAS JUST DIED.

Nope, it's not 'very likely'. DH has never done the journey before with a baby solo, meaning he has no experience of this particular type of trip to draw on. Also you don't know whether he's simply prioritising his own convenience in not wanting the 4 hour round driving trip.

Stated attitude- nope, we do not all have to learn to deal with old people like that. Nobody in mine or DHs family has ever threatened to formula feed a breastfed baby against the wishes of the mother. It's poor behaviour. If you think it's normal to be viewed as an incubator by your FIL, I'm sorry about whatever has made you feel that way. But it's bad.

'There will be a local baby group'- again, guesswork. But either way, OP is going to struggle with isolation because yes, there will actually be safety issues if she tries to walk around there. You'd have to be on glue to think it's townie nonsense not feeling safe walking along a road with no path. I assume you aren't going to assure us there'll definitely be taxis and ubers available at the relevant time? That would be, well, rather a townie assumption. And OP has told us DH will be working. So we're left with an airy fairy assumption that oh, there'll be something on and someone will take her. You've no idea really.

Your post is all minimisation, and part of it is outright invention.

Also, there may be a local baby group, and local mothers, but in an island community they will all be a car ride away, and probably advertised by word of mouth - FIL will not have a clue about them

"Get the train, it's easier than flying if going to the inner hebrides and cuts out the need for a taxi / car, book a click and collect for Tesco / Argos for all the baby stuff, to save you traveling with it and arrange for a local courier company to collect and drop off at in laws - McLennabs or Derek Wilson travel to the islands every day from Oban - this will save you getting stung in the local Coop and work out cheaper overall and ask for help at the ferry terminal - they are actually really good at helping people travelling solo with kids."

That's nice but how is the OP supposed to know all this? A googling session trying to filter out the old information knocking around the internet about companies and timetables that were defunct years ago? Where's the rallying community and why is OP having to plan and do this on her own with just some advice from randos on mumsnet? If this was my lot there would be cousins and friends travelling from all over the place offering to pick up waifs, strays, elderly relatives and lone English mothers with small babies on the way.

We moved when our daughter was 12 weeks and did a 3 day drive and we always said it was easy as she slept as long as she was fed and changed. with a 2 year old that might have been a nightmare. I had also travelled to see family before we left the UK both driving and on trains without my husband. If this was my DH I would have been on the first train or plane I could, to be there at the worst time in his life where he needed me. I needed him when my Mum died.

I was responding to someone who omitted the issue, and my statement is correct. People dress and adjust their activities accordingly, but it is a safety and logistical concern (especially when there is a weather warning and advice not to travel). Glad you appreciate travel can be crazy and chaotic.

Did he travel hundreds of miles up north with a baby?

I needed my husband when my Mum died, as he is the person I love and seek support from in times of crisis. I do not know how this has turned into a all men are shit and selfish thread- and they aren't.

I'm fairly sure islanders will be like the rest of the planet have local FB groups. Join the island group and ask the question.

It's a Scottish island not outer space

True, it's touchingly optimistic to assume FIL or anyone in the immediate vicinity will know all about whatever offering might exist. No reason to imagine there'll be a website either.

Maybe there isn't extended family to help and that's why OPs absence is noted and felt more?

All timetables and information are up to date online. It needs to be. None of it is outdated.

Also, there are loads of local Mum's / community groups on Facebook, that pop up when searched, where information can be found. Her FIL and presumably DH, will both be able to give all the information that I gave. I think the problem at the minute is the lack of clear communication between all parties. If OP said "I'm going to travel up but I need... how do I get..." maybe the information would be shared?

Why would you not assume they'd be a FB group?

Assuming it's the island we suspect, I've just found four different currently active mother and baby groups with a 30 second google search. We do have the internet, you know, and many of us can even use it.

If you think it's normal to be viewed as an incubator by your FIL
We have absolutely no idea that this is how he views her other than the OP's own interpretation which I find unlikely at best - the OP is clearly struggling to develop a relationship with him and if she's as much of a wet weak as she's coming across here I imagine he's tried to focus on one thing that he thought they might have in common - excitement about the coming baby.

@powershowerforanhour agreed about the rallying community, but I bet that if the OP adopted a different attitude and reached out to the family and neighbours in the spirit that things were possible rather than impossible, all that might begin to fall into place.

Didn't mention FB groups at all, thus the assumption is on your side not mine. My comment was on people in the immediate vicinity and websites.

If you would like to talk about Facebook specifically, there'll be a local FB group I expect. But again this tells us nothing about whether there's a baby group in existence or information about it on there.

They don’t have internet. Haven’t your hear how awful, miserable and positively dangerous it is? They’re still waiting on electricity being invented based on some of these comments.

We have absolutely no idea that this is how he views her other than the OP's own interpretation which I find unlikely at best - the OP is clearly struggling to develop a relationship with him and if she's as much of a wet weak as she's coming across here I imagine he's tried to focus on one thing that he thought they might have in common - excitement about the coming baby.

Ah, so obviously you know better than the person who's actually met him then? Righty ho. Are you aware of the time when he threatened to buy formula and feed it to an ebf baby, and if so can you tell us how that qualifies as excitedly focusing on what they have in common? Having always had a good relationship with my FIL, I dread to think how some of you have been made to see his behaviour as acceptable.

If ever DH had to go away when DC were little he would check in every day to see how they were. This was before video calls were common, so usually a phone call. Even used to read bedtime stories over the phone to them!
Even in the early days of horrendous grief after my DF died I did not forget I was a parent.
OP’s DH is hardly speaking to her, so obviously isn’t checking in to see how his baby is. He isn’t discussing with OP what would be best for her and more importantly what woukd be best for little one. Was happy for baby to miss vaccinations and so be about 2 months behind, and when baby is 4 months old that is a long time behind! He ignored the baby cries when they travelled up before, his phone was more important, and expected OP to deal with baby. He is telling OP how she should travel, not discussing what would be best for everyone.

Yes he is grieving, but he is not really coming across as father of the year.

Assuming he knows the community he could be reassuring OP that there are family groups she could attend (if she wished) and how he will help get her there.

But instead he is hardly speaking to her and is being sharp when he does.

he threatened to buy formula and feed it to an ebf baby
that is a significant misrepresentation of what the OP said, and even the OP's account reads to me as an over-interpretation, no doubt because she was feeling sensitive and vulnerable at the time. It's not a reasonable judgement to make of the FIL's character and intentions.

You really think the best way to build rapport with a new mother who exclusively breast feeds her baby is to tell her that he’s going to put the baby on formula milk?

OP’s not the ‘wet weak’ here, it’s the people who can’t cope without a woman and her tiny baby to prop them up. Why isn’t DH the ‘wet weak’ for not being able to help his father on his own?

It doesn’t matter how many mother and baby groups there are on the island, no one should feel coerced into spending a MONTH there.

I mean to claim he was threatening her by suggestion he buy formula to have in their remote house when she visits is a bit of a stretch. OP’s own posts make it clear she has struggled with BFing, fed the baby BM from a bottle and formula. It’s hardly that crazy for him to suggest having some at the house when they visit.

You’re making all sorts of wild things up based on almost no information.

He didn’t suggest he was going to buy the formula, he told her he was doing it.

You’re the one making things up and denying things Op has said. You’ve done it consistently on the thread.

It’s certainly looking that way.

That is really mad, you know. I dread to think where some of you are getting these ideas from - too much watching Lars von Trier and not enough Crowdie and Cream?

For the sake of simplicity, here's what OP has said.

'has made several comments about him having formula and buying it in (he is EBF) that suggest he wants my baby to himself, feeding him etc'

Let's hear how this amounts to a 'focus on one thing that he thought they might have in common - excitement about the coming baby.'