I see SO many posts about MIL's not respecting new Mums, and I guess I'm just trying to work out what must be going on in some MIL's brain in order for them to behave this way?
My MIL is actually amazing and just the most caring, loving, helpful person in the world, however when I had my first Daughter, she was an absolute nightmare.
She would turn up unannounced every single day. She would apologise every time, and yet continued doing it for about 4 months until my partner asked her to stop. She turned up unannounced once with her friend in tow. We were EXHAUSTED, finally got baby to sleep and sat on the sofa eating our dinner quickly, and she turns up, didn't apologise, woke baby up so her friend could have a hold and stayed for about 20 minutes. She would come over, point out the things I was doing wrong. She would ignore everything I asked her to do e.g bedtime, feeds, amount of milk, and make a point of telling me she had done everything differently to how I'd asked. She purchased all of the "firsts" well in advance. She told me that she had bought a dress for my Daughter to wear on Christmas Day. I said she could pick my Daughter up from nursery at 1 on a couple of occasions, and both times she picked her up a couple of hours early, saying that nursery rang to say she'd woken from her sleep and she could go and get her. She also told me I was good to let her look after her as I didn't know the way she did things. Basically, just ZERO respect.
I now have a 2nd Daughter and she is absolutely amazing. Completely respects me, listens to everything I say, asks for advice, doesn't overstep boundaries.
So why is it that sometimes with the first child, there can be a massive lack of respect? It almost seemed like a battle of who was in charge. I don't understand the logic.