Mum has distanced herself since I've had a baby and I'm hurt

[Armymum32]

AIBU for feeling hurt?
I've held this all in for a while now and it wasn't until I shared this with my partner today that I realised I'm sort of losing my mum.

Long story short, I've noticed over the last two months my mum's slowly distanced herself and come off as if she doesn't want me around or doesn't want to see her grandson.

Before having my baby who is 4 months old. I would always go to hers, help her out, spend my days off with her whenever my partner was away or drive her places etc. but now I'm lucky if she comes over more than once a week to see us.

When baby was born, my partner was lucky to have 4 weeks off paternity after me having an emergency C-section. And at 6 weeks my baby was discharged home. Obviously by then my partner was back at work and I was bricking it on my own. However, my mum did help me for 3 weeks which I appreciated tremendously. But in the 2nd week she made me aware she was going to limit her days helping me, which was fair, but also hard. She went from 4 days to 1 maybe 2 days a week depending on if I was having a real hard time.
Me and my partner don't currently live together as we have been waiting for a military house and are seeming to have issues. So I have my own place and live alone Mon to Fri morning. My mum lives down the road, doesn't work and hasn't since my brother was born(he's 24), she sadly doesn't have friends or hobbies. So I'd of thought she'd be over the moon more about having a grandchild.

And over the last two months I've noticed my mum just seeming to not care as much. It used to be us talking everyday, even before I was pregnant, she'd call me, even if it was just a quick call. But now I just get the odd goodnight message. She doesn't invite me over anymore either and if I ask to come over, I get told she's busy.

I feel I have to beg her to come over if I'm having a hard time as she keeps telling me "You should be used to this by now" or if I have a day where I'm really struggling(e.g week of injections), I get told I shouldn't be struggling. And it upsets me as being on your own isn't easy, especially when you have no idea what to do some days or everything is still so new at times. And I know she's not obligated to care for my baby. And I've never once thrown him at her either. But she doesn't even ask how I am anymore.
If I try coming over she tells me she's busy, has to cook my stepdads and brothers dinners or doesn't reply to me until late at night. If I don't message, I don't hear.

I've also asked her if she's ok, I've asked my brother how she is at home. He says she's fine. Mum just says nothings wrong. So I then feel I've either done something I'm not aware of. Or she just doesn't want to deal with me and my baby.

AIBU for being upset? And should I just suck it up.

You were helping her a lot before, maybe she's got the hump because she's not your main priority now? Is she emotionally immature in other ways too?

Just to offer another perspective. It might be that your mum wants you to live your life without her ‘interfering’ or being a burden. I’ve experienced similar with my mum albeit without a baby. I asked my mum once why she never calls me and I always have to call her and she said that I’m busy and she doesn’t want to just call out of the blue and make me feel forced to talk to her. Ageing and your children growing up is a strange thing to go through I think. I also think you need to focus on sorting out living arrangements with your partner, this situation makes you vulnerable.

I say this gently as clearly you’re struggling, but you’re the mother not your mum. It’s your baby and baby’s dad should be coming round every evening to help - why isn’t he?

It sounds like you’re trying to use your mum to be a surrogate second parent to baby because your partner isn’t around. Helping you for weeks and even now several days some weeks is a LOT of help.

Dealing with a baby during their injections is tough! And doing it on your own is challenging.

Come on OP dramatic much?

It all sounds very co dependant - were you not working before you had the baby?

Help from grandparents is great but maybe she doesn't want to be relied on you chose to have a child so you need to work this out with your partner maybe she wants to be a grandmother and not a mother's help/nanny

We only have your version of this and can't tell how much you rely on her or things have changed for her

It sounds like tough love to me. You aren’t married and in a position to live together. Why is that? Was it a planned pregnancy? Did your Mum think the decision to have a baby in these circumstances was poor and not properly considered? Did you assume she would just step in to fill the gap even though she still has obligations at home and a life of her own? She helped a lot at first and now she’s stepped back somewhat because you made this choice and you need to crack on, meet other mums and live your life without depending on her when your partner should be supporting you properly.

Because he's in the army and away for months.

People don't seem to get this. My kids DF was away with the military as well. At the time ( not sure if it's changed) you couldn't get military housing if you weren't married and he was fighting in a war when DD1 was born. Still have had people of here saying about how he " should've been more support when the baby was small" etc. Or accue me of setting the bar low when I say I just had to get on with it ( DC was 4 months old when he met her) .

People often fail to read the threads
.As for the RlOP maybe your mum is giving you a chance to " prove yourself" and be able to care for the baby alone ( which you DO have to do plenty of time especially with a military dad_) but if you still seeing her weekly you can are not abandoned

You have a military DH problem not a mother problem. What is he actively doing to get a home together with you ? By whatever means he needs to do more to be a father which he currently isn't doing.

Write to Admiral Sir Tony Radakin KDC ADC head of the armed forces in the UK -I’m sure he can sort out long term leave for DP (😂)

With kindness...it's not that hard to look after your own baby. You get into a routine and can preempt when and why your baby will need something, so you organise yourself accordingly.

Your mum has been there, done that, twice and is probably getting frustrated that you seem to not be coping well. It seems she's taken a step back so you'll learn to get on with it.

Closer to death...she might only be in her forties. Not all grandparents are old with a blue rinse.

I agree with this, well put

How is your mums health and have you noticed any personality changes. My situation could be very different to yours but I had a similar experience when I had a baby. My mam was the closest person to me, we spoke every day had plans several times a week and a wonderful relationship. I had my son and mam completely backed off. She stopped calling regularly and I felt with any visits she couldn't wait to get rid of me. It just wasn't the person i knew and was i so shell shocked and devastated at the change. It turned out my mam had a terminal illness and she was trying to hide it from the family. I'm not trying to frighten you or say the same thing is happening here but just giving a different perspective.

She doesn't want to be relied upon for childcare. You need to sort out your own situation with your partner. It would be far better for you if you were living with your partner, who sounds supportive, instead of expecting your DM to step in. And it sounds as though she has done a lot to help already.

your partner should also be stepping up considerably.

OP’s partner is military and working away. They are not together because of an issue with military housing. I doubt the lack of support from him is voluntary.

I agree with this.

Yes, being a lone parent is tough but it’s something you are going to have to get to grips with, especially as a military wife.

Most of us find it tough when the 2 weeks paternity leave ends but you were very fortunate in that your partner had a lot longer than 2 weeks and then you had your mum for 3 weeks.

It is really now time for you to manage by yourself. I know that is hard with PND (been there myself) but you do have to push through and find a little routine that works for you and your baby.

I think your mum is doing the right thing in stepping back whilst you find your feet. I hope you are receiving PND support from a good therapist. It can take a while but it does get better.

And if he’s military how do you propose he does that - go AWOL?

Maybe your mum is practicing tough love.

You do sound very reliant on her. Now you are a parent yourself and have a partner (albeit he is not living with you) maybe she feels you need to acclimatise to being a mum without her popping round all the time.

She may be deliberately stepping back a bit to try and help you not get too dependent on her but to find your feet independently.

It sounds to me like you have said something or done something that she has enormously taken the hump at. This can absolutely be the case even if she says it isn't. Or maybe she felt you were taking her for granted - TBF helping 1-2 days a week still sounds like an awful lot. Is she still doing that or has she stopped helping at all now? Might she feel the help (whether reasonably or not) that the help is too one sided at moment? A lot of grandparents don't really give much practical help, they turn up to have the odd cuddle over a cuppa and hand the baby back if they cry. Maybe that is the sort of GP she wants to be.

My mum stopped helping out at my children's parties when I asked her to make some tea for the other mums. She thought tea didn't belong at children's parties because of spillage risks. She called me out on that, I asked her to make the tea anyway. She complied with a face like thunder and then never offered to help or accepted a birthday invitation since. I think her pride was hurt. I have just cracked on - I guess she was not that interested in DCs' birthdays anyway and perhaps it was always more about her than I'd realised.

My therapist encourages me to choose my own boundaries and maintain plenty of distance from her! Perhaps not what you want to hear. But you need to think about what is healthy for you as an adult, as well as what would be practically useful.

These are pretty much my thoughts.

I suspect your Mum is cross with you for having a child under these circumstances.

I mean, it depends where they live and on other factors, but surely someone with a full time job in the military could look at renting somewhere in the meantime.

Is your baby triggering your mums loss of your brother when he was a baby ? You say he’s 24 and she hasn’t seen him since he was born?

I agree with others who say if she has never had friends, she may have difficulties around relationships, and that she may be distancing herself as the focus isn’t on her.

But what I would say is that watching a daughter become a mother herself seems to be quite triggering for a lot of women. My DM seemed to find it frustrating that I didn’t take to motherhood like a duck to water, as she perceived herself to have done - she loved having babies and children, had easy pregnancies and births, no problem feeding, whereas my experience was different. You see it on here particularly in relation to feeding threads, where the OP is breastfeeding and that seems to be an issue for her mother or MIL, because they didn’t/couldn’t. So I would also consider that there could be something here along similar lines, that your mum might not even be able to articulate to you.

Also, becoming a grandparent is a huge shift and may be stirring up feelings which have nothing to do with you.

Can you talk to her or would she just deny there’s any change?

This is a kind of vague thought op but you might find it useful. If it just seems confusing, ignore.

I think sometimes becoming a parent can be a wonderful but also alarming thing.

As a child - especially in a secure childhood - we have a sense that our parents can make things right if they go wrong. Graze on knee? Don’t worry, Savlon, a plaster and a cuddle. Your bedroom is snug. Your teddies are a comfort. Your parents know when you need to go to bed, what you need to eat.

Then when you have a baby you suddenly realise how thin that supporting fabric was. Actually there is SIDS and maybe people are right about childhood vaccines being dangerous? You realise parents aren’t in fact full of all the answers and solutions. And that can be an ( irrational) sense of betrayal, because you realised you thought they could fix everything and they can’t. They are human, they have doubts and failings. And I wonder if a little bit of this is that sense of betrayal in that it IS hard and a huge responsibility having a baby and no, your mum can’t just wave her mum wand and make it all fine. And you know that because now you are a mum, the scales have fallen. Even now as an adult I love my mum, depend on her a lot, but I can’t ever quite recreate that sense of utter trust I had as a child that she would shield me from everything. And, totally irrationally, that sometimes makes me disappointed in her.