I wasn't really sure where to put this, but it mostly concerns my son so I will put it here.
My son is almost 8 months. He's pretty easy-going, naps and sleeps and eats well, but hasn't all been easy - I suffer from mh problems, mainly under control but obviously having a baby can make anyone depressed/anxious etc especially during the pandemic. If I'm honest, I've always been a bit weak and find it difficult to cope with life. I've done a lot of therapy, medicine, self help, I do do everything I can to mitigate my issues (exercise, good diet, meditation, let people know when I'm feeling bad etc.) But yes, I am not the strongest person and I hate that about myself.
Before we had the baby, my MIL told us she would take care of him all the time, come to our house as often as possible, do anything we wanted. I guess kind of stupidly, we took her at her word.
Since he's been born, she's been very helpful if I need someone to tell me the myriad ways I'm doing everything wrong, but not much else. (We never had a lockdown here (non UK) so no reason for her not to visit.) She never comes to our house, we always have to go to her. When we do go to her, all I hear is that the baby is too hot, the baby is too cold, the baby's nappy needs changing, the baby is hungry, that milk is too hot, that milk is too cold, you can't feed him that he's too young, his nails are too long, don't let him climb on that. The one time she came to our house, my husband had to go and pick her up and drop her off, which took almost 3 hours due to bad traffic (should really only take an hour but it was a Saturday lunchtime and the GPS said the traffic was bad, so totally predictable). I would happily have paid for a taxi, but she refused.
If she would just take him and do what she wants with him for an hour or two, I would not mind at all. I trust her to feed him properly and stuff, she is perfectly competent. But she doesn't. She just stands over me and nags. If I hand her the baby so I can have a shower or drink a cup of tea, she starts complaining about being tired after a few minutes. She isn't old - 60 or 61 and in fine health (goes swimming and to church and stuff).
Today was really the last straw for me. She started nagging me to eat more slowly. It was just too much. I told her, not in a nasty way, but bluntly, that I don't need to be told how to eat, since I am 35 years old and the reason I was eating fast was because the baby was crying.
She burst into tears and ran and hid in her room. I just can't deal with this right now. I haven't seen my parents since the pandemic started so they've never met my baby. I can't go back to the UK. None of my friends want to meet because they're paranoid about corona (me too, but I'd still be ok with meeting.) I feel lonely and a bit lost and probably still suffering from PND and I just can't spend my time worrying about her hurt feelings over nothing. Did she want me to run in there and comfort her?
My husband tells her constantly not to nag me, but she just doesn't stop. They have fought about this so many times and honestly, my husband is a relaxed kind of person but he gets so angry when she starts again.
Sometimes I just want to cut the relationship off. But we have so little family as it is and I feel so sad for my son growing up without people who love him around him. I can see she loves him so much and she is really sweet and kind to him.
I'm sorry if this is a bit jumbled, my emotions are all over the place right now.