First baby: how to stop MIL buying stuff for it!

[Gemmitygem]

I'm sure I'm not the first, but basically:

MIL has bought an awful lot of stuff for our (unborn) 1st baby, due October. Not just a few things, she's bought boxes and boxes of clothes, snowsuits, towels, vests, socks, absolutely everything; also a car seat, bath, pram and moses basket so that if I didn't want to, I wouldn't have to buy anything for the baby at all..

It's kind of her, and she means well, but it makes me feel so panicky: I just don't want it! Now some of the stuff I can reasonably say that we'll keep at hers and use for visits (e.g. the pram etc), but it's the clothes that are the problem.

This sounds ungrateful, but I actually don't want anything for the baby: I haven't bought anything for it yet but am really looking forward to choosing little things for it myself or with DH, and really it would be great if our parents would say 'we'd like to get something, what would you like?'

My own mum is also very excited about the baby but wouldn't dream of buying loads of stuff without asking if we wanted/needed it.

I would have to be extremely direct to get the message across to MIL that we don't want any more stuff, (or even harder, that we don't want the existing stuff) as she is not easily fobbed off, but we hardly ever see her and I don't want her to think I'm rude or hurt her feelings because it's her way of showing she cares.

Any of you been in this situation and have any advice? Much appreciated!

I agree with it being hard to be a MIL.
When I was expecting DS1,my MIL just didn't seem excited,she didn't buy anything at all.I thought she didn't care.
After he was born(and we nearly lost him) she told me that while she had been having Dh the woman in the next bed had a stillbirth and it really upset MIL,to the extent that she can't get excited about new babies until they're really here.
She then bought Ds a lovely box of stuff and I learnt a valuable lesson.
After Ds's birth I'm very wary of buying stuff for pregnant people.

MILs can't seem to get it right whatever they do.

I've being there too.
I agree with everyone who says "be grateful and smile" Yes your babe will grow out of it really quickly and you will be glad of the options of differant outfits your darling can poo on, get sick over and other lovely things newborns do! However, I know I still think "I'm the mother here" when my son is being given sweets I don't agree with and parenting decisions DH and I have made are being disregarded. It will get better. you can still decide what babe wears and it will start to matter less(sorry if that sounds patronizing) Having the option of leaving stuff at MILs is great.(Know that doesn't work with clothes)Can you ask Dh to ask MIL to get stuff for when babe is older(like 2yrs old even) Now when my MIL sends my ds a t shirt in post it is nice because i can't afford to buy him as much stuff as i'd like. grandfolks do have their hearts in the right places. Unfortunately they don't always realise the emotions that pg and new mums (and dads) are experiencing. I was very possessive of my son and I will never ever apologise for that. He and I went through a bad time together and I needed to do as much bonding as poss just after he was born.In my post preg madness, that extended to feeling I was making decisions even if it was the green or blue babygrow!

At the end of the day, you're better getting it off you chest here.So keep sharing if you need to!

I wonder if your MIL is compensating for the fact that you are abroad so she will not see the baby that much.

yes bozza, that might be part of it. But my own mum is not acting like this at all, and she is also very excited about the baby (for her it's the first grandchild!) and also is a long way away.

MIL doesn't show much interest in DH and me normally, and most of it is about her liking to plan and buy things.

Am feeling calmer about it now after talking to wise SIL who has it ten times more than me as she is nearer MIL, and realising many others have the same issue: I honestly wouldn't mind if I had a base in the UK, as then you can easily store stuff, decide what to do with it etc but I'm only coming back to have the baby, then we might be moving to a third country or going back to the second, it's not clear yet, me plus baby will be 'camping out' at my parents for the first few months of its life, and I'm just thrown into a panic by the thought of having uncontrollable amounts of stuff with nowhere to put it when I won't have a real 'home' anyway!

My mum has said she will pay for my pram which I am pleased about as money is in short supply!!! I have chosen it but not bought it yet. On the other hand MIL and FIL have said nothing !!! I don't want them to part with shed loads of money or anything but they say they want to contribute but wont say what to !!! I'm getting frustrated cos I don't want to step on their toes if we buy something and then they say "oh we wanted to get that" My DP has mentioned that we understand they might be superstiticious about buying stuff yet, but we need to know what they wish to buy, again saying we are not being pushy but we want to get organised as money is tight. We're never happy LOL

My MIL is quite an item, I guess if she were the average slightly-getting-on-my-nerves MIL I wouldn't be so bothered but mine asks for privileges in exchange of the unwanted and many times rejected gifts ("I pay, I have a say" is her motto). Extravagant gifts that have bothered us are:

• a £500 videocamera (which I specially resent as DH spends so much time behind it that he doesn't share the holidays with us, actually, during the last holidays he tipped DS's pushchair (DS hit his face against the ground) because he was filming while pushing the pushchair!. It's like having to take care of two toddlers.
  Now MIL keeps complaining of not receiving more videos.

• A bank account with a monthly £200 direct debit deposit from her account because "she has chosen the school HER grandchild is to attend (a nationalist bootcamp "where he could learn all about the virtues of being a Mallorcan" -I'm all about and pro- tolerance so I find this horrible... ). We have let her know what we think of her choosing a school for DS, but she won't listen. Have not even checked said account so not sure if she is still insisting on that. However she has mentioned that if DS can't attend that school because we refuse to go back to SPain (no wonders here!), she wants to pay for her GS to attend Universitye, as long as is the one she has chosen.

• After so many rows in front of DS where she accused us of not raising him properly I got fed up, told her what I thought and since then we have limited contact. She has never appologised, continues to blame me for everything and from time to time the telephone rings with a woman screaming her head off saying that we have no right to stop her seeing her grandchild. When all this problem started I told DH that he should be prepared for changes on her will (we don't want anything from her, but I knew she was going to play that card) and....

• a month later she rung to tell DH that she was still highly offended by our actions, that she was still waiting for an appology but as a "gesture of good will" she would include DS in her will. We have insisted that we don't need DS to be the owner of a house by the time he reaches his twenties (how do you convince a teenager that he has to make things for himself when there is a quarter of a million house on his name?). I'm sure she has not listened but we preffer not to know about it.

All sounds familiar, but not as extreme. I am finding things worse now. DD is 3 years old, and we just spent the weekend with the in-laws and I have never seen so much stuff. MIL says she gets it all from a friend whose daughter no longer wants it, but tbh I don't believe her.
There were numerous new puzzles/jigsaws/games/books/paints, a scooter, a sand pit, a huge paddling pool, swing.. the list goes on.
It makes me feel so inadequate, as we haven't got anywhere near that much stuff at home! I just feel that it will make dd stop appreciating things when she is bought something, when there is so much stuff on offer to her already.
I have asked dh to say something, as I think it is totally over the top. He says he will, but he is such a lightweight - not wanting to upset them.
Their house is also almost shrine-like in regards to dd. There are so many photos of her up, paintings that she has done whilst there etc. It makes me feel quite uncomfortable. It is just SOOOOO obsessive!!!
Rant over!

Sell what you don't need and give the money to charity. And I agree I'd prefer to buy my own stuff - its all part of the pleasure of having a baby.

Keep one or two things though for when she visits and remember to have the baby wearing it!

If she's buying clothes then most of them will be grown out of within a month or two. Don't think of this enormous pile of stuff as attached to you for life. Baby clothes have a very short lifespan and most of us find that our baby didn't even get to wear some of the things they were given before they were too big for them. Sort the clothes in to age/ size. Pick out a few of the nicest bits that you like best that will be useful straight away and pack away anything that is the wrong size or you don't like and stuff in a suitecase in a loft until they are needed. Give the stuff you don't like to charity.

Then go and give your MIL the biggest thank you hug ever for her involvement and excitement.

My MIL gave us a carrier bag of hand-me-downs which had mould growing throughout. Appreciate what you have got.

LOL at the present of valuable mould.

Class

My MIL was obsessive throughout my pregnancy and now with DS. At 9 weeks pregnant she was buying babygros and teddies (she had been specifically asked not to by DP). Anytime i was near her she would be eyeing my bump, i often expected her to run across the room and grab it! I can look back now and be relaxed about it, and see it for the excitement and caring it was, but at the time it made me angry for no good reason! It still does my head in the way she literally snatches the baby when i walk through her front door. She is however a lovely person and i do like her, but the way she is with my baby sends me all irrational! Like everyone says, eBay it and save the money or give the clothes to charity. You just have to grit your teeth and get through it really i think.

Booo, I can empathise. My MIL was very much like this, and it made me feel claustrophobic and intensely irrational. I hated feeling like that. Strangely enough, I didn't have that feeling with my mum!!

It's my Dad who's like this, snatches dd away from me the moment we set foot through the door. They live 250 miles away so we go there for weekend visits, I don't see dd from Friday night to Monday morning!

Maybe because she is buying it in dribs & drabs she doesn't realise how much she has bought ? Or perhaps she doesn't have a lot else to do with her time ?

We had a slightly similar thing with my Mum, very excited about the birth of her first grandchild she (and just about every other friend, female relative or acquaintance) was knitting for Britain from the minute we knew the sex. All very nice except none of the cardigans fit because they are all from patterns that pre dated long sleeved baby gros, plus some other odd items - I have a fine pair of knitted pyjama bottoms for anyone whos baby has one and a half foot long legs and a 10 inch waist, plus three pairs of what could be mittens or socks but are equally useless as either.My husband suggested that we should ask her to start knitting nappies to at least provide something useful but we didn't say anything because God bless she's my mum and she did it with love, but once DGS was born mum herself realised when she saw our drawers teaming with stuff from other people and tried to get on one of said cardigans, that she should ask what DGS wanted rather than assume. Now we get exactly what he needs and its fab. Perhaps this will happen to you, if not if you are in UK you could also sell through NCT sales, won't make as much as Ebay but much less hassle, plus you will be contributing to their funds.
Good luck, and don't worry about writing ANY thank you cards to ANYONE for at least 8 weeks.

It's so hard - you want them to feel involved, but MILs do seem to want to take over!!!

Mine insists on buying stuff ALL the time - it's nice when it's something we want, but often it's not. I've opened a secret ebay account to sell anything we don't want and have given lots to charity!! I've had a word to ask her to mention it to us before she buys anything, but she doesn't - and she gets a bit off if we've bought something already that she was planning to get. I've also told her a few things that we don't want or like, but she's ignored me and gone and got them anyway.

I totally understand - I ended up buying loads of stuff on the web and getting it delivered only to get "why didn't you ask for stuff for the Christening?" and "people could have bought that for you for presents for her". Why does she begrudge me buying a gift for my own?

We also have a deluge of knitted cardis, which I'm looking in to sending to Africa.

Mind you, despite the above, I'm so glad that she takes such an interest - it'd be much worse if she didn't!!

you can still buy all the things you want to and accept graciously the things she buys. anything you don't like your baby doesn't have to wear and you can always sell them on ebay or just put them on the baby when MIL is coming. anything big though like the car seat, pram, cot you should say to her you want to pick it yourself though and don't let her take over.

Wow - cool mil. We live in diff countries from all our rellies, and had to frogmarch mil to the shop to buy a travel cot for us to use! My marvellous mum sent a whole mamas & papas 3 in 1 all the way to the far east for me though. If you don't like the pressies they're quite handy to give away to other people who have babies . Also, don't forget that you may have a couple more babies, so extra things might be handy.

By the way Gemmitygem, I've had babies in 3 different countries, so sympathise with all that

I'm a big fan of "oh how lovely, we'll leave that at your house to use when we visit".

But I do feel sad that I can't justify buying clothes for my children. They never need any, cos we get given clothes by friends with bigger children, and my mum buys them stacks of stuff. And we don't have so much money that I can give away the clothes that mum buys and go out and choose some more.

Hmm. My resolve is strengthening as I type. Stuff this. They're my kids. If I sell 5 items on Ebay, that'll get me enough to buy one item of clothing that I like, won't it. That should be enough..

It crosses my mind, in an amateur psychologist kind of way, that these women could well have their own issues going on about babies.

I mean, having their own children was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to them. They can't have that time back, but they can relive the experience through having grandchildren.

My MIL is a bit like the ones described. To make it worse, she doesn't buy nice stuff, so I end up with this awful dilemma about what to do with it all.

Then again, her children were her life, and they have grown up and left (as our children will do one day - which breaks my heart). Her firstborn was also stillborn. she has many issues which I hadn't thought about until after I had my daughter, and having identified them, I try to look at things from her perspective and allow her to have a good shot at playing Granny as it seems to make her so happy.

Hi everyone

This is the first time I've posted on here - I have to say this topic of conversation struck a chord with me!!

It took me back to 2 years ago when I was pregnant with my DS James. I felt EXACTLY the same as Gemmitygem. I felt like MIL was trying to control and 'get in first' with everything and it really wound me up. I just didn't know where I was going to put everything, some of it wasn't to my tastes etc etc,and half of the fun is buying and choosing things yourself.

Looking back now I can't believe I ever felt like that, it must be something to do with pregnancy hormones ...

In time, when things settle down a bit you will see that she is just really excited, at the end of the day the baby is yours and you have the day to day say in what baby will wear and use, the rest you can do with what you choose as everyone has suggested.

To be honest I now make sure I dress James in something MIL has got him when he sees her. I feel lucky that I have been able to let my MIL "in" and I now see her as invaluable support. It's nice to see the big grin on her face if he's wearing the outfit she got him for Easter etc...Yes sometimes it can be over the top and well meaning advice can be annoying but I think if you can ignore the bits that irritate and smile graciously when you receive the gifts she will never know if you do pass things on to charity or whatever.

I hope you don't stress too much over it - in time you will wonder what you were worried about.

Good luck to you
x

Well said muminamini.

(Welcome btw)

Mogwai,it crosses my mind in an amateur psychologist sort of way that they are beside themselves with joy,overflowing with love and simply want to express it.

I've only skimmed the latest messages but I have to say, on the whole, poor MILs. We may all become them one day.

I find it quite sad, this 'I'm about to have a baby and the grandmother seems to be showing a little TOO Much Interest' stuff. As the mother of a boy I hope ds doesn't marry anyone with this attitude, how tf will I know what to do for the best?

I agree with you Moondog, but some mums/MILS do try to show their affection by buying things, which isn't necessarily an example I'd like to set my children.

My MIL seems to buy things through excitement (and from having had two sons and now having a girl in the family at last), whereas my own mother has always shown her affection through buying stuff (or shown disapproval by withdrawing promises to buy things).

That latter, I find hard to take

as soon as my mil knew i was pg she started knitting, the gifts never stop, take the gesture nicely, they get carried away!

you may need some of the things she has got too!