or over-protective or just normal?

[femalevictormeldrew]

OK bit of a history here, don't see eye to eye with MIL. So am worried that this may cloud my judgement a bit.

Have a DD who is 22 weeks old. Have had MIL babysit twice - we have loads of family to babysit but wanted to include her as she loves DD. Somethings have been niggling at me over the last two weeks

1. The last time she babysat, she told me when we got home that she gave DD 3 scoops of formula to 4 oz of water (because, bad mother that I am, she thinks I will allow DD to become dehydrated). I told her that it is quite dangerous to do this, and left it at that.

1. I have noticed that when she gets her hands on DD, she lies her on her (MIL's) knees)without holding her in any way. DD is a very active baby, and I jumped towards her on several occasions because I thought she was going to fall on the floor.

This is the one that "takes the biscuit" so to speak. We were in MIL's house today, and she comes in and hands DD a digestive biscuit. Now maybe I am, as I say, being a bit over protective, but a Digestive biscuit at 22 weeks old?

So this, basically, has just made my mind up that MIL is actually a danger to leave baby with, and I will never have her babysitting again. If we don't have her, and we have someone else, her feelings will be hurt (and I don't want to hurt my husbands feelings either). But if we do have her I am afraid of what will happen. So the other alternative is to stay at home until DD is 18 years old.

Maybe I am being a bit unreasonable, but I have a DD from a previous relationship who is 8, and I would feel safer leaving DD2 with her (not that I ever would, but you know what I mean).

femalevictormeldrew Sun 27-Jun-10
"RE the knees, I also put my DD on my knees, but MIL does it, and I can only describe it as leaving the baby to "perch" or "balance" on MIL's knee caps, while she sits back on the couch"

This is the only one that sounds faintly worrying to me.

"The formula, I don't know exactly why it is dangerous (but it says it on the side of the tin ."

Only reason it says so on the tin is because if you did this with every feed, your baby would end up with malnutrition. This has been known to happen in poor countries where formula is expensive, so they have to have the warning on. It is not the case that formula turns into anything dangerous just because you add a bit more water.

"And the biscuit, I won't mind if she eats the whole pack when she gets bigger, but at the moment she is eating baby rice and pureed vegs etc, and I have visions of her getting a lump of digestive in her mouth and not even knowing to chew (she has no teeth anyway) and choking on it."

Ah you'll have lots of Mumsnetters telling you that baby rice and purees are no longer recommended and that the right and best things to do is to give baby things she can hold and chew . Current recommendations is baby led weaning (letting them hold and explore food) from 6 months- so going by that, both you and your MIL are slightly slightly out, but neither in any way that could be dangerous. Digestive biscuits melt if gnawed by babies.