MIL buying baby cringey clothing

[Copenhagener]

A very short AIBU.

I had my first baby last year. My MIL wants to buy baby clothing - I’m fine with that.

Instead of buying baby items we’ve said we like or need, she keeps buying baby clothing with pointed and cringey ‘grandma knows best’ slogans that I find so embarrassing to dress her in - so I don’t.

See picture below for an example: ‘Grandma: a mother without rules!’

There has also been: ‘grandma’s best friend’ ‘pass me to grandma’ ‘’if mommy says no, ask grandma!’ ‘call grandma: she always knows what to do!’ Etc. I have no idea where she finds this nonsense. She’s deliberately going out of her way to buy them. A lot are clearly low-quality rubbish from the internet.

She keeps asking why baby isn’t wearing said clothing and going on and on about how funny these outfits are when I see her.

AIBU to not dress baby in these outfits / ask her to cut it out?

It’s not her first grandchild and up until now, I thought we had a good relationship, but now I feel a bit irritated with her.

She has nothing to be grateful for though.

Anything with “mom” on it should be binned.

My MIL does similar... I let her buy what she wants as she enjoys it, then the clothes go in the bottom drawer for a bit and end up on Vinted, that way no ones upset, the clothes can be uses by someone that actually likes them and no ones any the wiser

If it’s from TEMU then she’s probably got a bit addicted to buying them - the site is gamified to suck people in and keep them coming back with discounts and ‘winning’ free items.

They track all purchases and views and bombard you with emails, phone notifications etc of the latest bargain they know you will be attracted to.

So any time she goes to the site they will bombard her with more ‘grandma’ merchandise.

I did one order early on years ago when everyone was raving about the cheap stuff they managed to get. I removed the app. Unsubscribed everywhere and they are still finding ways to bombard me with ‘deals’

Oh OP I feel you, I’m currently pregnant and I just KNOW my MIL is going to buy this sort of stuff!!

I bought a t-shirt like that once for my 3 year old grand-daughter. We were in New York and I saw a shirt that said 'Right, that's it' I'm going to grandma's'. It made me laugh when I saw it because she was at that stroppy little madam stage. My daughter thought it was funny too and my DGD wore it quite a lot before she grew out of it 😆

They appear to be low quality rubbish. I’m not sure what else she can describe them as.

Honestly as others have said...pick your arguments.
I have a Welsh MIL who wanted to put DD in the most hideous frilly hats and dresses. I just let her carry on with it when they had her..because on the other hand they were the best grand-parents that my DC could have wished for.
The clothes MIL never even made it to my house. We still laugh about it now.

These are the clothes your kiddo wears when they are sick. Easy to discard after. Do not bother washing.

I would straight out tell her you don't care for the Temu stuff and it falls apart in the wash.

Both my MILs were really gifted seamstresses, they made my eldest some really nice baby clothes and a quilt. They could put whatever on my kid, one had worked for Chanel and they both just had that eye and used nice natural fibers.

Good gardening or messy play clothing , ask your partner to tell her , if they won't just say thank you and take a few photos of them wearing them , in the house 🏠

You sound like a very unpleasant DIL … finding fault in the things she’s bought, would it really matter just to put them on your baby for a few hours in her company, you’d probably make her day.
I really can’t understand this nastiness to your MIL over such a simple purchase.

Always wash babies clothes before wear. If they are not holding up to the wash I would tell her and suggest she purchases elsewhere

As for the slogans, unless they came as one set, I think I would say the first couple were funny but after that it begins to feel a bit too pointed.

I'd feel the same as you OP despite it coming from a good place.

It's tricky as I wouldn't want to cause upset yet I don't know if I could face years of Temu. Actually I do and no I couldn't.

Could you say natural fibres only? Blame new research - there's lots on toxicity of plastics (also found in clothes) at the moment and damaging effects. At least then you appear as a caring mum rather than insulting her or being a snob (which I don't think you are).

This is interesting to hear! I’ve never used TEMU because of the government safety warnings in my country against its products, so I wasn’t sure how it worked, but this sounds very plausible - she’s a bit of an internet shopping addict.

Would it really kill you to occasionally use these items just for when your baby is seeing his/her grandma? They may be a bit cheesy and not really to your taste, but it's not like they are completely and utterly hideous, is it? She's not buying stuff that will make a baby girl look like a miniature pole dancer, is she?

Have a heart. Be thankful your baby has a grandma who wants to make a fuss of him/her and buy them stuff. Your baby will have outgrown these clothes in no time, so it's not like she'll be expecting to see each outfit worn dozens of times. If you try to make the effort to use some of them once or twice, either when you are with your MIL, or so you can send her photos of the baby in them, (even if you don't actually leave the house with the baby in the outfits) then she'll relax and stop asking.

If you keep avoiding every single outfit she buys as though it's contaminated or got swastikas on it something, she's going to feel start feeling offended and thinking that you are ungrateful or a bit up yourself. Keep her onside. Play the long game. Be nice.

Places like George at Asda or Next do inexpensive baby clothes that reference ‘grandma’. You could throw these away (say they gave baby a rash / disintegrated in the wash) and then dress baby in a cute outfit with ‘grandma’ on from a decent brand when she visits?

She sounds a bit obsessed to be honest.

Please take a look at my follow-up posts.

Also: they actually may well be contaminated.

https://www.businessinsider.com/temu-children-clothes-contained-622-toxic-limit-seoul-2024-11

https://chemtrust.org/news/toxic-chemicals-temu/

MIL bought my DDs the most horrible frilly dilly things that I wouldn't have let them be seen in! Cheap, poor quality tat - I wish she had just kept her money! She wasn't even an involved grandma, and because she seldom saw them I was easily able to get away with getting rid.

I wouldn't buy anything from Temu or Shein, let alone put it on a baby!

Maybe she could start a small savings account for your baby instead? Put the money in that she would have spent on cheap crap?

OP has said she has put her baby in the clothes yet her MIL wants to know why she isn't wearing the full wardrobe in every photo.

MIL has not relaxed, nor has she stopped asking.

OP does have a heart. She does appreciate her MIL she doesn't want her baby in cheap, tacky clothes all the time and wants to choose her own child's wardrobe. She's asking for advice not a lecture.

Bollocks to that! OP sounds nothing of the kind!!!

Do you know anything about Temu and Shein?

If not, I suggest you do some research

They need finding fault with (and it won't take much looking)

I bet they cost about 50p each

At this point I think you just have to be equally bullish "baby prefers rainbow stripes" or of she keeps pushing it "it's not to my taste and they are only this little once so I want to soak up every moment of dressing baby while they still let me! Baby is coming over Saturday, you can pick something and have a squeeze then x" or just don't reply to those. Just because she asks a question doesn't mean you need to answer.

And I agree, fuck temu and substandard, ripped off shit.

OP's MIL nearly killed OP's dog by buying him unsuitable food to make the dog like her:

She did something similar when we got a dog - she kept buying and feeding her copious amounts of treats - handfuls at a time - so dog would love her, and telling all her neighbours that she was the dog’s favourite person in the world. She eventually cut it out when we had a very big vet’s bill from dog getting incredibly sick from some random food she got from the internet and fed to her without our permission (she was on a medicated diet at the time).

The clothes aren't suitable either as OP has said:

Quick clarification on quality: a lot of it is from the website TEMU, which I’m not comfortable with my baby wearing because of concerns about how the clothing is manufactured / lack of regulations. I tried washing one set before use (was going to use them as sleepwear) and they literally disintegrated in the washing machine. It’s not about labels (I don’t buy anything designer, though I prefer organic cotton/wool) but about genuinely low-quality items.

OP has put the clothes on the baby:

I have put baby in said clothing a couple of times when I know I would see MIL, but it’s more that every time I send a photo, she asks why baby isn’t wearing these exact clothes. Once, she even changed baby into them when I was in another room.

MIL is the unreasonable one, not OP.

Sounds more like she is trying to make a statement rather than it being about clothes if she constantly only buys outfits with these grandmother slogans on. It does sound irritating OP.