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.

The baby took formula!! OP and her DH regularly gave the baby formula. He wasn’t insisting or forcing anything.

A bit of crazy chaos is not remotely dangerous 😂

Parents travel on train every day without it being some big drama.

I was a real commuter for many years. I've also travelled with babies on trains. It's really no big deal. It's certainly not dangerous. It's as much a normal thing to do as go in a car or a bus with a baby (but a lot safer!)

Yep, a poster upthread (from a culture of Irish funerals where everyone flies in from abroad to attend) put it well earlier, she said ‘a live child is more important than a dead adult.’

Oh definitely. I moved away when I was little, but reading this thread has made me feel very Irish indeed!

The point is OP is worried about ferries getting cancelled. Which is reasonable given the weather warnings.

Do you ignore weather warnings for yourself or just for women on the internet?

OP says the baby is EBF!!

The thread where FIL was saying he would get formula OP states the baby at that stage was EBF

The baby is 4 months and has had formula right up until less than a few weeks ago.

And her posting history about the baby’s formula intake says otherwise.

Cold

Maybe she had dropped formula at that point, as now had BF fully established

The OP says the baby is EBF. Happy to be corrected if you quote her.

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.'

Ok. I am a grandfather with a recently acquired daughter in law who I don't know well, coming to stay for the first time with a new baby and who I want to make feel welcomed and at home. She is clearly anxious and has struggled at times with feeding and confidence, wants to EBF but has used formula previously and is worried about being in a place without shops, etc, close at hand. I say, 'don't worry, we can make sure we have whatever you need here before you come - I can make sure we have formula in if you need it. Hell, I'm an old hand at babies - I can feed him if you need a break.'

That's exactly the kind of well-meaning intention that can be misinterpreted as trying to take over, especially when a new mum is feeling raw and sensitive and unsure of herself. But it really doesn't mean that that's what was behind it, or that we should castigate Grandad as some kind of evil misogynist exploiter of women.

I skim read the "positively dangerous" bit. And thought WTF can be dangerous about asking on a local FB group about Baby groups. 😂

I needed to come back and read the post properly!!!

Have a look at her posting about the baby’s formula intake taking formula as recently as December.

You’re going on about how remote and awful the Scottish island is and how it’s not a place for a baby, how will she get supplies, how will she bring her luggage etc then the FIL says he will get formula in for the baby and he’s evil, force feeding her baby formula blah blah.

The man has barely said 2 words and he can’t win.

The journey may not be actively dangerous but it is stressful, unpleasant and totally unnecessary. OP could come up for the funeral but expecting her to hang around for weeks on end or make the journey twice is totally bonkers. I actually discussed this thread with my husband yesterday who wouldn't dream of making me travel to NI with our 8 year old for this purpose, let alone this ridiculous odyssey with a tiny baby. (I would probably go anyway but he wouldn't expect it.) I'm glad I married a grown up with some control over his emotions!

But this is invention. It's meaningless. You've decided, based on bugger all, that you're better qualified to recount what happened than OP is.

Which is rich considering your comments about making things up based on no information.

Bugger all 😂

Oh I've just realised that's a bugger to a bugger! Didn't even clock it. Maybe I should've said sod all, to vary the use of language a bit!

I would be much easier with a baby than an 8yo.
8yos get restless and have an need to run around. Burn off energy.

At 4mths they aren't even crawling yet. They'll happily sit on your knee watching the world go by or be rocked to sleep on the train.

Just thinking Op buy the kid a seat and use family rail pass, the rail pass will pay for itself and having the extra seat just gives you more space

Another point with a baby they'll happily watch whatever films you've downloaded. No worries about being bored watching back to back Peppa for 12hrs.

But this is invention.
Possibly. But no more so than deciding that he's been 'threatening' to 'force-feed' the baby formula.

Huh? Do they? Or do you walk up and down non stop whenever it’s an option to keep them happy until your back feels like it’s going to spasm and you’re getting a tension headache? That’s more like my experience. They aren’t crawling but that doesn’t make them easy.

Then let's have a non-invented explanation of how FILs actions were in fact 'focus on one thing that he thought they might have in common - excitement about the coming baby.'