If you have adult children would this be a big ask for you? Why are they making these comments?

[gerpy]

My mum is 60 and my dad 65. They live around 10 mins drive from us. Since we had dc 7 weeks ago, my mum has offered to do all his washing. She will come every other day to do this. My dad has helped us with the rubbish, sorting recycling. My partner doesn’t drive so they took us to register the birth in their car (I had a c section so couldn’t drive).

I never asked my mum or dad to do these things except the lift to register the birth. It is a help that mum does the washing but obviously we could do it if we had to. Neither of them work, they are both in good health. But… they seem to use these things against us if they are in a bad mood or we ask a favour. For example when we asked for a lift to register the birth they agreed but we didn’t hear the end of it.. ‘we do all your washing and spend hours sorting your bins, how would you cope without us??’ One evening i was expecting the return of DC’s clothes and text to ask what time they’d be here to which my mum said she was ‘too old for this’ and I was ‘demanding.’ This was after I said perhaps I should keep some of the washing back to do ourselves and she insisted she took it.

they’ve even made comments to wider family that we have ‘heavily relied’ on them since the baby was here and it’s been ‘non stop for them.’

i feel hurt by all this and can’t articulate why. I almost feel like they’ve tricked me into thinking they wanted to help. I don’t know if im overly emotional or something but I’m quite upset and feel these things are really quite minimal in terms of support and something I would do without feeling I was essential and my daughter was incapable, which is how they come across.

The laundry and bins are unusual jobs to take on. Driving you somewhere, coming round and making you a sandwich/cup of tea, holding the baby while you have a shower are more normal ways that parents help out.

I’d put a stop to it. Sounds like you’ll need to be assertive though. Don’t let them rile you up, just keep calmly repeating “Thank you but we’ve decided to do this ourselves now.”

It sounds very odd OP. I’ve asked if any of my DC needed a help with anything after their DC were born and it was normally to help with nursery/school drop offs/pick ups, or running a hoover round/hanging washing out/loading or unloading the dishwasher etc. When DS’s went back to work I’d ask in advance if DIL’s needed snacks or anything dropped in during the day or if they’d like a meal dropped round and popped in the oven for later. I’d never have done it then whined about it!

How in earth is putting the bins out helpful? It’s a five minute job at most!!

just thank them for their help but tell them you will manage from here on in!

Yeah it’s not me who has driven this at all, they are insistent and then will give the impression they have given up everything for us to do it.

just shocked they can talk behind our back when we’ve never once said please can you do x or y… except the lift to register the birth.

The only reason I would offer to do my adult DC's laundry and bins and drive them about would be because I thought they were not coping. In general I don't care if they have clean clothes, but throw a baby into the mix and I would step up and do it. No one enjoys doing someone else's laundry, so presumably they think you are not coping. Are you?

@MrsBahHumbug they had encouraged us to move as they said they would do pick ups etc for nursery but after this I’m not sure it’s wise!

Did you ask them to do these things? If not then a bit weird but a nice gesture. To then keep banging in about it then just tell them they're welcome to visit you all but no need to do any chores.

@antipodeancanary i would consider us to be coping. Clearly my parents do not…

My mum used to try do this, though I have actually always absolutely hated being "helped" to the point its a character flaw and I get in my own way. I'd always rather do everything myself than accept help because I always see offers of help as criticism even when they aren't.

In that context I swallowed my pride when my father insisted that my mother would be heartbroken if I didn't let her help after the birth of my second child.

I let her, she came to stay, got in my way, hogged the newborn and did very little except hold him (I'd been using a wrap sling and didn't want or need anyone to hold my baby), made a lot of demands of me, criticised me a lot and then went home and told everyone that I wouldn't have coped without her.

When my third was born she was allowed to visit on condition she stayed in a hotel and visited as a guest during the day.

Don't accept help with strings.

Then you have to be more insistent. It's your home, your family and your decision.

I assume you've stopped them from doing any washing or sorting the rubbish out now? Sned them something to say thank you, ignore the PA comments and don't accept help in the future. All you can do really

Take control of your own life, do your own washing and recycling, though make sure that your partner does his share of the work too.

Don't let your parents brow beat you, be polite but firm with them and be determined about what you want. You are a grown up now, you can make your own decisions about how you want your life to be run.

Your parents now. Put the baby clothes I ntbe washing machine before Mom gets there and put rubbish in the bin. When she says oh we've come to take the baby's clothes say that's kind Mom but you said the other day you were struggling and we're on our feet now so we appreciate it so much but we OK. Why don't you come and have a cuddle instead?

Strewth, taking the recycling out takes around 30 seconds a day, why is your dad making such a 3-ring circus out of it?

As for the baby's washing, she can't do it if you've already done it. You say you had a c-section but I expect you should be able to do the laundry by now. If not, your dp can do it.

They are disloyal to snipe behind your back like that. Do they have form for this?

"No thanks, I've already done it."

Practice saying that and remove their control.

‘we do all your washing and spend hours sorting your bins,

How many bins do you have???

I can only imagine doing this if I’d turned up to my child’s home to find piles of washing, rubbish, recycling and dirty nappies everywhere, which leads me to wonder, how bad was it that you father had to spend “hours” sorting your rubbish out?

Offers of help after having a baby for us involved MIL turning up with a lasagne for our tea and telling us to go to bed for a couple of hours sleep while she watched the baby.

Were they controlling when you were little OP?

‘help’ the soft form of control.

some parents just cannot help themselves. Have firm boundaries in place. Some people love to offer, then seem to get really annoyed when you take them up on the offer !

be careful with childcare. Make their contribution optional if you can

Baby laundry and recycling bins are oddly specific (and easy) tasks to take over. I notice they haven’t volunteered to do anything more onerous or labour intensive.

They are using to control you and play the martyr. Take back the tasks and bat off any further manipulation immediately. Also if any flying monkeys start sticking their oar in given short shrift too

Give them

I had a relative who did similar when I was a new mum. She insisted on taking washing and returning it ironed. I insisted she didn't need to. I was grateful for the offer of help but, to be honest, if she had said 'I can give you an hour of my time - what help do you want? I wouldn't have suggested the washing. But she insisted (actually let herself in the house when I was out on several occasions and just took it!).

I found it a bit irritating to say the least (I didn't like the idea of someone going through my washing, felt perfectly able to do it myself, often something would go missing for a couple of weeks meaning I couldn't wear things I wanted when I wanted) but was also grateful someone wanted to help. UNTIL I learned that they were telling anyone who would listen that they 'always' do my washing and ironing, because I wasn't coping.

So I took their key off them and didn't let them do any again. Their main incentive for doing it was to feel better about themselves and to look like a saint in front of other people. I suspect there's a bit of that here. Learn to say no and mean it. Tell them you've heard they are telling people how tired they are, and you don't want to add to that.

God some of the replies on here! Cutting and nasty for no reason!

I know exactly where you're coming from OP, parents can be like this, sometimes when they have very little going on in their own lives.

I'd gently tell them you don't need as much help, thank them and reassure them they can see the new baby whenever (suits you).

Most of all don't escalate this in your own head - it's a them thing, not a you thing, and at 7 weeks pp it's easy to get very down/emotional about little things.

Enjoy your little one, and congratulations! x

They do sound like they’re being odd OP. I’ve got a 3 month old baby who was born via emergency c-section, my fiancé & I get absolutely zero help from anyone. I don’t feel like we’ve missed out on anything, it’s not that hard. Just tell them you’re really grateful for everything they’ve done so far but you can take it from here. If they insist, insist harder.

Send them a big bunch of flowers/bottle of wine and a card sayin "Thanks for all you've done while I was recovering from surgery, you've both been wonderful. We're back to normal now so you can have a well earned rest from laundry and bins".