Inlaws dont want to follow nap schedule

[Madea667]

My 16 month old is a sleep trained baby, we do our bedtime routine and put her into her cot where shes usually alseep with no fuss in 5 minutes. Same goes for naps too.

Now my inlaws are aware I sleep trained her and dont agree with it (I used ferber)they insinuate I'm heartless for letting her cry and 'they will not allow crying in their household' they are my only source of childcare or catching a break. When LO goes to their house she constantly skips naps because MIL doesnt want to place her in the crib to sleep, she likes to rock LO to sleep but LO will wake up as soon as shes transfered to crib so now she ultimately just skips naps. (Shes on 2 naps a day still, no signs of needing to transition to 1 just yet)

If LO spends the night, I have to go and do the bedtime routine at my MIL house which LO is normally exhausted because MIL doesnt want LO to cry??

Like at this point I'm actually stuck on what to do because I've:

Spoken to MIL numerous times about this, even just sticking to regular nap times and she always says 'oh she wasnt tired' when my daughter was infact very tired

Tried to compromise by just letting them do it their way but when LO comes back from any visit shes an overtired mess who takes days to get back to normal.

At this point I dont know if I should just lessen childcare or what? LO currently visits once every 2 weeks or once a week.

Has anyone experienced this?? If so what did you do??

Maybe she is crying there as she’s just learned to not cry with you due to methods

Mil's wishes don't trump the op's routine.
My dc were being raised vegetarian.. Dh wasn't but respected my wishes... The one and only time I may add. Mil smugly told me she would feed them meat if she had them. So she never did. Like ever...

Free childcare - their rules. You don't have to use her for childcare so you have a choice.

Vegetarianism is not actively damaging to babies. Ferberization is.

This.

The issue is your poor baby being overtired. As your mil sounds empathetic as disagrees with ferber maybe focus on that? Say shes getting distressed at home so pls try the nap at X time and reassure that she wont cry.

Many people cannot comprehend routine or that you can just put the baby down awake after a gentle winding down routine and that she'll fall asleep.

We got a nanny when I went back to work at 7 months and we had to work really hard for her to stop rocking my baby to sleep!! it meant baby was waking up after 30 minutes instead of his usual 1 hour nap, he was overtired at bedtime, waking more in the night etc.

She had 15 years of experience and 3 kids of her own but had never worked with a baby who could fall asleep independently. At her last family, the baby was taking contact naps with her still at the age of 2!

And she was very against any kind of fuss. Even the slightest fuss, she would run in to get him and sometimes she would accidentally wake him up when he was actually just rolling for example.

I had to.explain to her she was actually being cruel, confusing my son, causing him to cry at bedtime etc. She got it eventually, even if she didn't necessarily agree. It was baffling as our routine was easier than what she was doing! She is otherwise an excellent nanny, extremely caring and gentle and proactive.

We also stayed with my parents when my baby was 6 months and, while we didn't leave my son with them often, they REALLY could not understand routine. Had ZERO respect for it. Mocked me relentlessly for insisting we are home for his lunch time nap. My baby thrives off routine, it's how he is. Somehow that is seen as a moral failing on my part.

Well you know their position in this, you either suck it up or you don’t use them for childcare.

@FeelinTwentySixPointTwo my baby thrives on routine. Falling asleep here and there and everywhere would actually make my life harder. I appreciate it works differently when you have multiple children but OP only has the one. And the beauty of an only child is his nap times are total chill time, you can have a nice bedtime routine etc. I can watch a film during my baby's 1.5 -2 hour mid morning nap, it's bliss. I love a Sunday morning film.

Why cause chaos when it's completely unnecessary? OP needs to stop leaving the child for extended periods of time with grandma, pretty simple choice there.

This would definitely piss me off, but after one time I would have stopped using her for childcare. Save yourself the stress and use a nursery instead, they'll follow what you do.

@StretchyPants1988
Fair enough. Horses for courses innit. I would have hated to come home from days out just to get back for nap time (and as you say, that's not really an option when you have older siblings to look after too) but whatever works for you.
Agree that if OP doesn't like Grandma's ways, and isn't willing to be flexible, then she needs to find an alternative.

If they won’t follow your rules, you can’t use them for childcare.

I would be willing to attempt to put the child down for a nap and for bed as you suggested, but if they did cry, I would not continue. You would have to fire me as your babysitter because I’m just not going to do that.

Why does she go so often to MIL? Are you using her for childcare whilst you are at work?

@Madea667 i read your first post and understood instantly. Mumsnet has a huge anti-sleep training brigade so I can see many jumping in to tell you their thoughts about sleep training seemingly without even reading that your child is already sleep trained and doesn’t cry when put in the crib - ignore this

if not already done perhaps invite MIL to watch you do bedtime routine then gradually switch positions so you’re in the room but she’s putting dc to sleep? This might make MIL feel more comfortable with this? Giving her the benefit of the doubt I’m sure she’s not trying to be intentionally annoying but probably feels anxious herself as this is clearly v different for her. Whilst your daughters welfare is Ofc of paramount importance it’s quite a big deal looking after someone else’s kid and despite you telling her multiple times I can understand the associated anxiety.

If this won’t work then as others have said I’m afraid you have to weigh up benefits of having a free break v consequences of having an overtired child everytime she goes there. My mum was similar in that she really hated having to leave my dc in the cot alone for the few mins before she fell asleep so she messed around with her routine too but it never really had a knock on effect of over tiredness (she always had naps whilst there though, my mum just rocked to sleep). So for me it didn’t really make a huge different if her routine was knocked off for a few days. Perhaps MIL doesn’t understand the knock on effect it’s having for everyone - Can you have an open and honest convo with her - preferably with your DH present to explain that whilst you really appreciate the support, dc is so tired because of not having naps when she comes back to you that you think it would be best for her to only go in between naps? Whilst this would be a last resort I also think it would be really sad if it came to this as your MIL would miss out on spending quality time with her gc. Whilst it’s great to have free childcare for me it was really important that both sets of gps got to develop a bond with our dc. What does your husband think of it all? Hopefully you can come to a good resolution - good luck

The baby doesn’t cry, she goes to sleep if put in her cot.

Same here

I think this is the issue with using family for childcare. The only person (other than nursery) who has ever looked after my daughter is my own mum and although she knows loosely what her routine is, I don’t expect her to be rigid with it while she is in her care if she doesn’t feel like it is the natural way. She raised me and my sister both perfectly fine, she also knows me and my daughter really well so I trust that she can look after my baby without me needing to impose strict rules & schedules.

If I wasn’t happy with the way my mum was looking after her, I simply wouldn’t use her for childcare anymore. If you want to dictate & impose schedules then I do think paid help from a babysitter would be best.

I suppose the thing is that babies behave differently with different people. Baby might go into the cot and go to sleep with mum but it could be a total different story at gran’s house.

To those who want to shame me for sleep training in the first place kindly fuck off this thread. You can respecfully disagree and thats ok. But to shame me or call my parenting choices sickening go and touch grass or go get yourself a cookie. Like most mums, I'm trying my best. OP, if you use barbaric outdated methods to get your baby to sleep people will judge. because it’s not something to be proud of.

Nobody has judged the fact you’re sleep training, people are judging your methods, and the fact you’re criticising your MIL for not wanting to use those methods.

Presumably your MIL has seen you put the baby to bed and they not cry and would therefore be aware that she doesn’t, so I can only assume that she does cry for MIL, which is why she’s doing naps in the way that she is.

You’re not going to get someone who agrees to or with your methods. No nursery or professional childcare would risk their reputation by agreeing to it. And if they did they deserve to be struck off.

You’re going to need to find a compromise. Clearly your baby is crying with others, otherwise they wouldn’t know to let her cry according to you. So if as you say she’s now sleep trained, then they wouldn’t need to know.

If she’s crying for others then what you’re doing isn’t working, and all you’ve done at home is teach her that crying is pointless.

FWIW I agree with babies needing to nap, and I agree that in an ideal situation MIL should be adhering to them. But there needs to be another way to do them.

Surely she could just do contact naps then? I didn't do Ferber and did contact naps as a result.

Of course with my second I hardly even noticed if she had napped or not 😅

I personally think that if you’re choosing to use grandparents as free childcare there’s going to have to be some flexibility. It’s such a privilege to be in that position. As someone who has literally zero family support and 2 children, trust me. I also agree with someone else up thread who mentioned trying to retain the relationship with the grandparents if possible. There are going to be so many stages of your child’s life that you will want their support and involvement in. I’m so envious of the families with grandparents involved with their grandchildren- it looks like it can be such a special relationship 🥲

I agree you with have to choose paid childcare or how your DMIL does things.

My DPs looked after my DC. They would let them eat whatever they liked. Even if we visited they would try and encourage them to eat lots of unhealthy snacks.

I just tried to give them something fairly healthy and filling before we went.

How about suggesting to DMIL that she could take DD out for a walk if she’s tired and she doesn’t want to put her in the cot?

It’s unusual for a 16 month to have two naps. She might be more ready to stop to one nap than you think.

You’ve got a grandmother who rocks your baby to sleep and does childcare with sleepovers. I’d be bloody grateful.

Totally agree with Grannies approach. I wouldn’t let a baby cry either.

Your MIL is amazing, good for her for not playing along with your cruel sleep training demands. You only feel shame from these comments because deep down you know sleep training is cruel, and triggers trauma responses in their tiny developing brains. Thank goodness your baby gets to be rocked to sleep in it's granny's arms.

I fully agree with sleep training and it sounds like you have done a lot of hard work with your kid.
Send her to nursery while you work and no more overnights (unless you are both night shift workers why do you need overnights at this age?)