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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel let down by my Mum because she ignored my DS' feeding routine when she babysat?

164 replies

Babyisaac · 03/07/2008 09:42

My DS is 6 months old. I had to go in for a half-day at work yesterday (not going back properly until September). She looked after him for me. He is bf but I gave her a bottle of EBM to feed him yesterday afternoon (he is not yet weaned). I asked her to feed him at around 3-3.30pm as the routine he's in is 7, 11, 3, 7 and it is working for us.

I went round to pick him up yesterday. There had been no problems - he'd been as good as gold. When I asked about the bottle she said she'd left it until 4.30 to feed him as she wanted to stretch things out as long as possible and change his routine. I flipped my lid. She said she wanted him to take a full bottle. I said it meant he wouldn't take a full feed at bedtime. He didn't. He had a quick snack before bed and then proceeded to wake up for more quick snacks all through the night - I knew this would happen.

I'm annoyed because:-

  • she's undermined me and my instructions by changing his routine off her own back.
  • she thinks I'm overreacting and being a stress case because he was perfectly happy.
  • she thinks I'm being ungrateful, which I'm not - she only had 1 instruction to follow.

Obviously I was very upset. She thinks she can do a better job than me. She also said, "He's 6 months old, he should be dropping a feed by now". He isn't weaned!!! He will decide when he needs to drop a feed, not her! I feel like the s**t on the bottom of her shoe because she's taken over and done what she thinks should be done for him and not what I wanted.

The worse thing is that she's meant to be looking after him 1 day a week from September but I honestly don't think this will happen now. I've started looking around for alternatives. I might be overreacting, but this seems to be the thin end of the wedge. She's a very controlling person and what else will she try to change? My DH rang her last night to get her side of the story and ask why she'd decided to change his routine without asking his parents and she told him to shut up and slammed the phone down on him.

Sorry this has been long but thanks for reading if you've got this far!

OP posts:
Bundle · 03/07/2008 11:55

babyisaac, never mentioned the word "freak" - just control. which is important to lots of people. not so important to others.

BandofMothers · 03/07/2008 11:59

So I still say I would be furious and good for your DH ringing her to complain. At least he has the balls to do it, and the only reason she hung up was because she knows she was wrong to do it, she had no good argument. She would drive me nuts, mother or not.
She probably likes the attention it gives her but I can't see how upsetting her children regularly will do her any favours in the long run. She sounds like a toddler having a tantrum with the not talking ot you when she doesn't get her way. Very controlling, would do my head in. Hope you can find a way to make her listen to you.

CrushWithEyeliner · 03/07/2008 11:59

God are you me? I could have written that post myself. You have my sympathies.

Oblomov · 03/07/2008 12:07

Babyisaac, your last post has just confirmed everything that I thought before, and my opinion / judgement of the situation has not changed at all.
As I said before, there is clearly far much more to this, than the OP. Which is only fair. Becasue you would not put all your life history in the OP.
But I still maintain, and I stand my ground on this, and this comes from soeone who longs with all their heart that either their mum or mil lived close enough to look after ds regularly, from someone who has had ds in a nursery, part time, and always been very very happy with his care.....
my point still stands - you will have to find alternative care other than you mum, becasue this fraught thing will continue -
if its not that your ds will/won't eat brocolli it will be that she is forcing him/not encouraging him enough to walk too early/late.
She will take his stabilisers off before you and just generally get your gaot.
We can all see this coming, a mile off.
What a shame.

HaventSleptForAYear · 03/07/2008 12:11

babyisaac I hope you don't think I called you a control freak - I called MYSELF one.

AbbeyA · 03/07/2008 12:12

In view of your relationship I would find alternative care in September.

cat64 · 03/07/2008 12:18

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

Notanexcitingname · 03/07/2008 12:18

I'm newish to MN and am amazed that so many think you are being pfb and U.

When I was first back to work, with a 6 month old nighttime sleep was pretty damn crucial to me, and if someone looking after my child had done something for thei own reasons, that I had told them would disrupt my sleep I too, would have been livid. (Blimey, that was a long sentence)

Although the OP does need to know that feeding all night is not at all uncommon in bf babies who's mums are just back at work (didn't happen to me, but then he was up half the bl*&^& time anyway)

Yes it is true that your child's carer will never do things the same as you, but that one point seems pretty important to me. If she's going to insist on disrupting your sleep (which is what it amounts to) then I'd say you've got no choice but to use alternative childcare until he's older, and more adaptable. Grandma's love isn't any good to him if his mum kills herself crashing the car as she's so exhausted

RubySlippers · 03/07/2008 12:22

i still stand by my initial post especially after all that background information!

you and your mum are clearly at totally opposite ends of the parenting spectrum and as such your mum looking after your child whilst you are at work, simply won't work

Oblomov · 03/07/2008 12:29

Thanks Cat64. We agree.
I wonder whether sleepycat still thinks that Op's mum is the best person to care for ds weekly.
I do not agree.

margoandjerry · 03/07/2008 12:30

you didn't relay all that in your first post so people are guessing at what's going on.

Nobody is casting aspersions, just using the only information they had to form a judgement which is what you asked for.

bergentulip · 03/07/2008 12:32

Knowing all that background, I don't really understand why you asked her in the first place???!!!

OrmIrian · 03/07/2008 12:35

Can't usefully respond to this at all. I didn't do routines so I wouldn't have given a t*ss. It all seems a bit OTT.

hunkermunker · 03/07/2008 12:50

Every chance being away from you for the day upset his sleep patterns.

No way of actually knowing.

Maybe best to take a long view and see it's better for your DS to have a relationship with his grandparents that doesn't involve so much shrill.

HonoriaGlossop · 03/07/2008 13:14

oh, excellent, excellent post hunker!!!!

sums it up. absolutely.

hunkermunker · 03/07/2008 13:45

Why, thank you, HG.

I hope the OP takes it in the spirit it was intended. It's hard for everyone when the child becomes the parent.

ally90 · 03/07/2008 13:58

Babyisaac, again yanbu and if you want to post more about your relationship with your mum post here. We all have difficult relationships with our families, and we're a very supportive crowd. Some of our families tend to be people who can work their abuse from the backgroud so that we look like the one's causing trouble...when actually we have mothers/fathers/siblings attacking when others don't see it...or do it so subtly sometimes your not even really aware that its your family BU not you...posts like this one always set off alarm bells for me as there is often so much more to it than PFB syndrome (always feel as if someone is patting someone else patronisingly on the head when they use that term...). Hope you find good childcare who do their best to respect your baby's routine.

NellieTheEllie · 03/07/2008 14:10

Babyissac,
I am like you in that my ds was a total nightmare for the first three month. As much as I would have liked to be a relaxed and "whatever happens happens' kind of mum, the only way we got the lovely little boy we have now is by setting a routine and sticking to it.
I found it very difficult to get family and friends to understand this and also got labelled controlling etc.
We know routine works and so does ds, and when we do have to change it a bit (cos life isn't routine!) we know the consequences and can deal with them.
I agree with others that your mother is doing you a great favour, so you can't expect her to keep to things as rigidly as you would. But when you have a child that needs a routine and your mum doesn't respect that you should look for other childcare.

DaddyJ · 03/07/2008 14:18

Babyisaac, well done to you and Mr. Babyisaac for taking a stand.
It was very inappropriate of your Mum to deliberately dick with the routine.

You have been accused of all sorts of ludicrous things on this thread
by people who don't understand (or don't want to understand for ideological reasons)
why maintaining a routine is so important to you.

Don't be annoyed because maybe your Mum is thinking the same ignorant thoughts
and this thread might actually help you understand her position better.

You have a big battle ahead of you but it's a battle worth fighting.
What she did was hugely disrespectful.
She needs to acknowledge that and it should not happen again.
And that's regardless of whether she'll provide childare come September or not.

FluffyMummy123 · 03/07/2008 14:19

Message withdrawn

FluffyMummy123 · 03/07/2008 14:19

Message withdrawn

lulumama · 03/07/2008 14:21

i thikn that it was mistake to expect her not to be controlling and do things her way, based on the family history, and am not sure why you thought you would be able to leave your baby with her one day a week without any issue.

far better to use childcare outside of the family in this situation

she should have fed your baby when you specified. but sounds like you have a complicated relationship with your mum anyway

NellieTheEllie · 03/07/2008 14:25

I agree DaddyJ about some of the posts on here. They aren't necessarily wrong, it is just that if your child is happy in a relaxed routine and goes with the flow, you really don't know what it is like with a hysterical child that only copes in a routine. Some of my friends still take the piss out of my routine (2.8yrs on...) but, man, if I didn't do it I would be rocking somewhere in corner now!

taliac · 03/07/2008 14:30

Can everyone give Babyisaac a bit of a break please.

Most of us at this point in our lives went a bit PFB when other people didn't take care of our DC the way we wanted ( at a couple of memories..)

Most of us rowed with family members due to sleep deprivation too. It happens.

Plus surely we've all got a family member who behaves like Babyisaac's mum does and criticises their parenting directly or indirectly? Its bloody annoying and hits you on a very raw nerve because your identity as a parent is still so new..

So Babyisaac YANBU. However, do consider that its possible that from raw nerves and sleep deprivation you are making more of a deal out of this than it really is. If I were you I'd try and make peace now..

Oblomov · 03/07/2008 14:33

I disagree with Cod.
I feel very sorry for OP. For her relationship with her not-very-nice-sounding controlling mum.
Routine is not the issue here.
There will be plenty of other instances when Op's mum shows a lack of respect to Op and her parenting choices, in the future.
I would bet money on it.

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