My MiL is a smoker. I'm reluctant to let my now 9 month old DS go to her house because of this.
She says she won't smoke when he is around, but this was offered as a rather grudging concession and means that she stands in the open kitchen door/french windows and smokes, blowing smoke into the garden. Which of course goes back into the house. I don't feel this counts as 'smoking outside', and I don't know how she would manage that anyway, unless my DS miraculously napped long enough to be left alone and for her to go out into the garden get a ciggy in. She's also unlikely to do this as she doesn't like going out into the cold.
Her house really smells of smoke, as do her clothes and any toys she brings round for DS.
She has stopped in the past, but then started again because she didn't want to 'get fat' (she's a size 8). She started secretly as well, and didn't admit it for ages, because she knew we would 'make a fuss.' I'm an ex (very) heavy smoker, so I do sympathise, and I know the kind of denial you need to be in to keep smoking! But she's already told my DP that 'ex smokers are the worst', in that we are oversensitive about smoking.
Basically, she feels I'm being precious about DS. I don't want her smoking around DS - I can live with her having a fag while she's out pushing him around in the buggy (this is what she does when she comes round to our house, although we've never discussed it openly), but I don't want him in a smoker's house or car for any length of time.
I'm looking for any UK fact sheet about the effects of smoking on babies and children. I can find plenty of info on smoking while pregnant, but I just want to be able to hand her something, ask her to read it in her own time, explain that I think my concerns are reasonable, and ask her how we are going to manage her smoking with any time she spends with DS. I'm not daft enough to think she will give up, so we need to accommodate this somehow. I think the first step has to be for her to take the risks of smoking on children seriously. This may not work - she has bad asthma, as do her adult sons, and you'd think that would stop her smoking, but it hasn't. I want to try though - I can't really think of anything else.
Does anyone know a good place for sound info, in a short, condensed form? It will have to be UK based as she will dismiss it if it is American. Sorry. TIA.