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

[Babyisaac]

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!

Oh, and when I said after a few times of my mum ignoring me I relaxed. My mum apologised for keeping him up late and said she just wanted to spend time with him etc etc. The both stuck to my rules, but after a while, I decided it doesn't matter if a 6 month old stays up till midnight. Or is fed an hour later, as long as he is not distressed, it just doesn't matter

YANBU IF your mother did ot to undermine you which I think she did, if she had done it as she thought your DS was hungry for eg then that wouldn't be so bad.

My mother looked after DD1 when she was 8 weeks old, I left 2 5oz bottles of EBM and fed her before I left and DD1 would NEVER have drank that much in a few hours and 6 nappies, when I phone her 2 hours later my Mum told me DD1 had drank the 2 bottles and wet 5 nappies which were soaked through (I think not), she's from the sold school of trying to get as much milk down a baby as possible and I know she would have been forcing milk down her throat (have seen it) and changing her loads.

When she was 9 months old she brought her in chocolater buttons I said she wasn't having chocolate yet so she went and filled out some lucozade in the cap to give her and I said "what are you doing you cannot give lucozade to baby?" and she said "I gave it to her when I was looking after her!" I also left her lunch and she gave her salty porridge instead.

She has not looked after the DDs since (not that she offers) but the things she does are deliberately to undermine me not because she thinks a 9mo wants lucozade.

Getting back to the original post I think you have to make a serious decision about whether you want your Mum to look after your DS, she will do things differently thats human nature and either you have to go with it or find another form of childcare - sorry.

littleboyblue makes a good point that it's easy, specially with a PFB, to get hung up over every little detail of parenting. In the grand scheme of things, a few late nights, some chocolate buttons etc are not a problem. And if you make it into a problem, you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of stress which isnt good for your children, because believe me, if you get so worked up about these things, god help you as your children get older and you have less control!! I agree that in many ways the joy of visiting grandparents is exactly that the rules are slightly different. It's a treat.
Usually this type of thread is about situations where parents are blurring the boundaries by using the grandparents for free or cheap childcare, and this is the crux of the issue. When a gp is looking after your child on a regular basis, the relationship changes, because it's no longer about just visiting for pleasure. I'm not saying grandparents can never enjoy providing childcare, just that it does change the basis of the relationship. It seems there are a lot of parents out there who want to retain total control over their child's life, while quite happily expecting the gp's to radically change their life to accommodate caring for the child. That's unreasonable. If you aren't happy with the situation, and would prefer the grandparents to just be grandparents, not unpaid carers, then it's only fair to make other arrangments where you can have more of a say in how your child is looked after.

I didn't say a gp automatically gives better care than a professional carer. I said that being cared for by a gp (or other person who will have a long term relationship with them) is better than being cared for by a stranger, even if they are professional. It's not the same thing.

I don't know anyone who has their child looked after by a stranger.

Yanbu but it is a tough one and possibly not handled well from either side. You flipped out after a one time when you should have tackled it by speaking to her. She has no right to change yr routine..but she is also helping you out.
That being said my own dm was the same (without the hanging up phones) but was a bit like the more I asked for something to be done a certain way, the more she dug her heels in. Dp asked the same of her 1 time and she listened..not ideal I know.
I've literally had conversations with mine where she says 'I'm the mum' and my reply was 'actually when it comes to ds IM THE MUM, yr the gran and things have moved on in 30 odd years'
My advice would be to talk to yr mum calmly and explain the effect of the change on yr routine so as she understands the consequences, ie yr up all night. Hopefully she will listen..

YANBU at all OP, it's not necessarily the fact she changed the routine but why she changed the routine. First child or fourth, you know what works for your DC and people who interact with your DC need to respect that. I would recommend looking at alternative childcare for when you go back to work (see if your/DH work have a childcare vouchers scheme or salary sacrifice scheme) as if you stick with the plan as it stands you're going to be posting on MN a lot more over the next couple of years about your controlling mother and what she's doing with DS and how that's affecting you, your mental health and everything else in your life.
My mother has a history of ignoring my wishes when it comes to my DC and behaves like a petulant child when called out on it, she's 74 years old , just to give you an example, she first had DC 1 to stay when he was about 2yrs old and despite me advising her he has cereal/porridge/toast and fruit for breakfast she fed him a peanut butter sandwich, hot chocolate and a kit kat chunky for breakfast, every day she had him to stay. This was repeated at tea time . I didn't find out about this because she lied to me and got DC1 to lie to me about it until relatively recently (DC 2 dropped them both in it). I put a stop to it, I had thought, but she recently admitted to my DH that she still gives DC1 a kit kat in the morning, it's just a normal size one (4 finger) . When she was challenged on this she tried to justify herself
My children are no longer allowed to stay with her without me staying too and because I can't cope with doing that very often or for very long (my own mental health is important to me), she misses out because she couldn't follow basic requests, lied to me about it and got my child to lie too.
Phew, that was a long post, sorry very cathartic though

If u gave her a long list of instructions i can see why she ignored it/ missed one. But if it was 1 request then i think shes in the wrong ESPECIALLY when you are the one it has affected by getting up more in the night

Get a grip.

THIS THREAD IS TEN YEARS OLD. CHILD IS IN YEAR SEVEN.

THIS WOMAN NO LONGER REQUIRES YOUR INPUT.

Hth.

@MilesJupp - I just snort laughed into my morning coffee. Thank you!

[How/why does a thread this old suddenly come active again!?]

JellyBaby God knows, but it popped up in my I'm on because I posted on it ten years ago!

Glad I gave you a good snort

@MilesJupp thanks for that, I'd only registered the first bit of the date not the year otherwise I'd never have posted
It doesn't help that this was promoted by Mumsnet via the email update
I wonder what the OP did in the end

Lillabet: I thought your post was very well-considered

I was only shouting for comic effect: sorry.