In laws turned up to lo nursery

[Beacal72]

First time poster hello 😁

A bit fed up with meddling in laws (mil and sil) they turned up at my lo nursery without telling us to tour it in the of chance they "might" send theirs next year. Despite it being out of their way by miles.

They told us after the fact and didn't seem bothered that the could disrupt our dd during her time there. As they left her there whilst taking her touring cousin home.

We don't leave her with anyone but nursery and we are super strict about her routines as she is bf and took a long time to be reallly happy at nursery. They said she seemed confused they were there. Which is understandable!

My sil was unapologetic and said we ruined her day by challenging not letting us know. They know our parenting style. They know we would have asked the staff to remove our dd before they entered the room to avoid her getting upset.

I'm really heartbroken as all i want to do is protect my daughter, especially when we are at work and she is at nursery. But they say we are in the wrong for being upset. I'm so cross and just hoping im not alone in my despair 😣

This is a just one of a long list of undermining behaviour by the in laws And resentment is building.

Is she your first child OP? I'm on my second child and I can't bloody wait for her to take a bottle and have a night away, I need a full nights sleep!

This may be your experience but there's no way I'd want my dc to be sleeping over with someone else until they were at least 5.

Actually the secure parent-child bond can be easily disrupted. I left my dc aged 3 with a babysitter one evening. He got upset about something. It took him about two years to refind the 'resilience' he had before. Upsetting children doesn't give them resilience. Being there for them and teaching them how to handle disruption in a loving and considered way works much better.

Op you have my full understanding too. I'm sorry your thread had so many posters with zero empathy on it. You were naturally very upset. I'm glad posting on here has enabled you to move forward with the situation.

I have just read this whole thread and so many like them recently, that I can't help but think new parents have all been reading a pile of ' how I must assert myself with my pfb...'

It just seems that so many of those new parents with 'IL boundary issues' are the type of parents who really need to unclench a bit.
They also seem to be the sort of parent (mostly mothers - it has to be said) who are horrified at the idea of their husbands mother having ANY time with their sons child -without an overly protective mother hovering over them in case granny feeds them chemical laced hobknobs !

Have you thought that perhaps, if you just let granny have a few hours with LO on a regular basis - be that weekly or monthly , then it might be good for your relationship. Your MIL managed to look after your DH successfully enough . Surely she can be trusted with her GC . Having an overly dramatic DIL watching every move can't be a very pleasant GM experience.

No doubt all the MIL haters will jump in with 'she doesn't have any rights ' 'GM has to do what mother wants' and the particularly annoying 'your baby your rules' .. However. You say you see them, that you love them. Then perhaps it's worth trying something different to improve the situation.
After all.. if you keep doing what you're doing then you'll keep getting what you get. ! and that doesn't sound much fun for anyone.

There are a couple of really good “Problems with ILs” sites where people are more sympathetic than Mumsnet!

But they went to see the nursery and no in all honesty they prob didn't think about your daughter getting upset. But my goodness why don't you wrAp her up in a little more cotton wool. Children are resilient if you let them be... Protect them from every eventuality and your asking for it .

The problem with just trying to find more sympathy on a different website, is, that it doesn't really solve anything. The 'problems with ILs ' is that it is virtually impossible to know who the loony party is in most of these disputes.
The DIL will always write it from her perspective and the MIL from hers.Both will sound plausible. The one common denominator I have noticed over the years though, is that those with laid back parenting styles, happy for children to be with and sometimes stay over with dm/dmil are also the ones with the good relationship.
Whereas those with very proscribed ideas of parenting, (sort of baby care by-the-book , inflexible ideas from everything from slings to food) tend to be the ones with the terrible relationships . This appears to be down to the fact that DIL can't (won't ?) trust granny and granny is wound off the clock because she feels judged at doing something that, let's face it, she has done quite competently for years. What is needed here is both parties to relax a little. Instead it appears they both make their positions more entrenched.

Ontoh if the level of batshitness emitting from in-laws ever reaches the degree, of the memorable thread where the in-laws re-landscaped the Garden, pulling out all the trees that provided shade for their albino DIL (whilst their son and dil were on holiday)... then you have to move, leaving no forwarding address....

Children are resilient if you let them be.

Nonsense. I was desperate for DS to be resilient because it was really hard. He just wasn't. He's fine now, but that took years.

Maybe have faith that people know their own children and stop with the patronising advice.

The thing is us mothers don't owe it to our in laws to parent our children in a way that suits them. We also don't have to agree with how our parents or in laws raised their children.

MILs have had their turn having babies. They need to respect their grandchildrens mothers if they want a relationship.

That's all very well font, but some of us have ILs where we believe it was sheer luck, rather than fantastic parenting, that saw our dh's reach adulthood.
I never ever left my dc with my ILs. When we visited I had to stop my mil from walking in the middle of the road with the pram, she would try to let my child play with pill bottles because he liked the rattle sound etc. She was a nice lady but there's no way I would have left my babies alone with her.
We had a decent relationship, I think. I never wanted to hurt her feelings or exclude her - my children loved her very much. But as the mum, I had to mske choices, she didn't like, in order to do right by my dc.
It is also difficult to unclench if gps undermine the parents.

I think many of us totally understand in laws motivation may have been malicious and part of a general stepping well beyond the usual boundaries for people not the child’s parent. The op being upset at this is perfectly reasonable. The op justifying despair and heartbreak to the effect on her dd is batshit. Her dd is fine. The despair and heartbreak is the ops own feelings about interactions with her in
Laws. Op, own your emotions. Stop projecting them onto your dd. She saw someone familiar in a different environment , which is one where she is safe and cared for. A non issue in her life. A big issue for you. Time to recognise the difference.

Maybe they just wanted to be nosey and see what their catchment nursery offered compared to where your LO goes to.
That said what you should be more concerned about is how you are reacting towards all this. You are coming across as somewhat precious. Breaks your heart at LO feeling confused? Seriously?? Protect her from confusion? Wow. Would never want my dc to make friends with kids who have a mother like you. Otherwise they would always feel like they were walking on eggshells and That would break my heart!

Seems like people haven;t really taken in what op has said about mil's behaviour - tryingt o change/interfere with nap and sleep times for their own benefit, trying to push op to give up bf'ing so they can feed lo & potentially have her stay over, (pushing for sleepovers is also not appropriate; they should let the op and her husband offer, if they want that level of help and are comfortable with it) etc. etc. ... She's said she's not respected how they'd like to do things with their lo and overstepped boundaries. I've seen this kind of overbearing, interfering, territorial mil behaviour a few times and it becomes an issue.
An issue that makes every bit of behaviour part of a pattern, not to be considered independently.

With my sil's lo, her mil would even try to police other members of the family's time & involvement with the baby ... she put the parents in such an uncomfortable position, I remember seeing the father becoming completely tense & down having to answer when she pointedly asked if an aunt she was 'in competition with' had called with them while we were there.

I think this mil is one of those (andf the sil in a cohort) - and has made the op stressed and uncomfortable and created a territory/access to baby issue. I don't think it's impossible that this incident was a 'fk you, I'll get access if/when I want' ... which many many posters here can't seem to see.

If it was legit., why on earth did they not mention they were visiting the nursery? That's completely abnormal (and I don't think it was due to anticipating a bad reaction from op).

(Also forgot to mention - insisting on spoon feeding lo when they prefer to finger feed themselves) ... is typical adult 'I want to play with my live human dolly and you're not letting me' behaviour.
A lot of people, women really, have these 'maternal' things about babies; lost count of how many people wanted to nurse mine when she was younger, touching her all the time etc. But it's really about them, not the baby's welfare/comfort and that makes it irritating.

Children are resilient if you let them be.

They, or at least some of them, really aren't.

With my sil's lo, her mil would even try to police other members of the family's time & involvement with the baby

Yes we had this. MIL counted hours with SIL’s PILs to make sure it was “fair”. When I had my baby FIL remarked “at least there’s no competition” because my parents are dead.

People who haven't been through it rarely understand.

I totally understand how you feel OP. It would have been confusing for your DD. Nursery is not exactly a public place where people walk in and out.

It's not streaming with people like a shopping mall.

In a normal relationship they would have told you they were going there.

You will get a variety of responses on MN which is fine...but some people express themselves by being rude and lacking diplomacy. It's best to ignore such posters.

I had a similar battle with my own family when DS was born. It was so frustrating and I felt out of control while they boundary stomped all over the place. We followed attachment parenting principles too and they didn't understand or agree with it.

DS is 4 now and I look back and realise that I was uptight, but first time parenthood is massive and I needed to do things my way. You are not wrong for feeling the way you do, but hopefully in a few years you will look back and realise that although they are weird and annoying, you survived.

My only advice is to grit your teeth, compromise when you can and stick to your guns when you need to. Things will get easier and you'll be much more relaxed when she gets a bit older.

Things will get easier and you'll be much more relaxed when she gets a bit older.

Unfortunately it didn’t work that way for us. Because I put up with it, gritted my teeth, didn’t say anything, it got worse and worse. It ended up with MIL breaking the law in her effort to control us and I had to take legal advice.

She is cut off now, FIL also as he physically threatened me. It is only the knowledge that I will go to the police that stopped them though.

@beingthere sounds awful. What did your PIL do?

Halvec she stole from us.

Whilst I accept you are free to bring up your child hiwever you see fit I do wonder if this kind of behaviour from the in laws stems from frustration at your over protective and paranoid parenting. It is odd, that they didn't mention it the day before but perhaps the time has come to chill a little be less possessive over your baby.

When I first read it I assumed the visit was genuine, so, they were really considering putting the other child there. And I thought the OP was overreacting.

If, however, this was a deceitful ploy to see the OP's child in the nursery, then this is bizarre and underhand behaviour. It would lead to me reducing contact and warning the nursery.

I assume there are no real concerns about the welfare of the child, which is the only caveat to that.

They also seem to be the sort of parent (mostly mothers - it has to be said) who are horrified at the idea of their husbands mother having ANY time with their sons child -without an overly protective mother hovering over them in case granny feeds them chemical laced hobknobs

Is there any particular reason my husband's mum needs time with my child without me being there? I'm not against it, but why is it necessary?

@Pengggwn
I totally understand why grandparents would want time alone with their grandkids as it creates a different dynamic to when the parents are around too. I think it makes it more difficult for grandparents to forge a special relationship with their grandchildren if parents are hovering around constantly. To turn your question around, why would a parent feel that it is necessary for them to supervise the contact that grandparents have with their grandchildren? Assuming there are no welfare concerns etc then I can't really see a valid reason for it.

This modern obsession some MILs have with having alone time with babies and baby sleepovers is truly bizarre.

And on a practical level there has been so much change to guidance on babies over the last generation. What seems like overprotective to granny may well just be standard practice to mum.

I'm sure that when I was a kid, the normal thing was to just visit gps as a family. The only time I really only remember seeing my gps without my parents was when they did the occasional bit of babysitting. Don't recall them wanting to push my parents out the door so they could 'bond'.
Maybe the gps need to chill out and stop being possessive over someone else's baby!