Since we told my in-laws about my pregnancy about a year ago, my JNMIL especially has done everything in her power to ruin this experience for me. It’s definitely because of her own insecurities and before I gave birth, I actually just felt bad for her that she had such a bad experience being pregnant, giving birth and raising her only son (my partner). Once I gave birth, my priorities obviously shifted from people pleasing her to taking care of my LO and that really triggered her which resulted in some crazy behavior from her side. I’m slowly starting to get to a point where I’m not angry about it anymore, I tell myself how miserable she must be by constantly projecting her insecurities on our little family and try to ignore her. Part of me wants to scream at her when she’s once again overstepping and commenting on every. single. thing we do ‘wrong’, but I’m trying to spare myself since I feel like she’s never going to change and most importantly: I want to enjoy every moment with our amazing LO.
I have posted on here before so for more context, feel free to read my former posts.
After 6 months of almost no sleep, both my partner and I are really tired. Combining BFing with a full time job is a lot, but what is really wearing me down is MILs sneaky behavior and my partner blindly believing she has ‘good intentions’.
MIL has complained about our BFing journey from day one (literally). First she told me it was unnecessary and selfish to BF, later on she complained LO was not fed enough to most recently switch to LO was being fed too much. It seems like I can never do any good in her eyes.
Recently we started introducing solids. MIL has been asking about this for months. We’re taking it slow, following LO’s signs. If he’s not interested, he does not need to finish his plate. We also encourage him to feed himself instead of us stuffing his face. MIL does not agree and she is actually been stuffing his face. To the point where we had a cranky baby for two days because he had so many troubles with stomach pains and pooping.
I told my partner very clearly this was not going to happen again. She has to respect our feeding schedule and can give LO just a little bit of solid food.
Today my partner had a day off on the day that my MIL babysits LO. Instead of cancelling her, like I would, he asked her to take LO so he could sleep. I would never do this myself, but I tried respecting his decision. However, I did not like the fact that he just gave MIL the opportunity to take LO anywhere for an entire day without us knowing where LO was. Usually she comes to our place and she takes LO out with his stroller. Anyways, I prepped a cooling bag with milk and a small portion of solid food for LO to take with them.
When I got home from work, my baby was not home. FIL and MIL decided to bring LO back one entire hour after I came home from work. I was livid. I missed my baby all day and they can’t even manage to bring him back on time? I guess my partner could have communicated a time with them, but both my partner and my in-laws are always very vague about time. Yet MIL is always mad at me for being ‘late’.
When FIL and MIL finally arrived with LO, I was busy freezing milk. We have cats so I can’t leave anything on our kitchen counter. They did not let us know what time they would arrive, yet they were clearly annoyed I did not come running to the door to see them.
My partner asked them about their day and they did not bother to include me in the conversation, which was fine by me. I do wish to ignore MIL as much as possible. However, when she proudly mentioned she gave LO a big portion of solid food (3 times as much as we do) and an entire extra banana, she followed up by: ‘that’s okay right, (my name)?’ The way she said it, implied she knew it was not right. She just doesn’t give a damn about my/our instructions and does whatever she wants. I gave my partner an annoyed look and he tried explaining her why that was not okay. I did not listen to her response, because I would have probably attacked her when she would have said something not to my liking, again.
I can’t believe she chooses her own weird obsession with feeding LO over his needs. He’s for sure going to have stomach issues tonight and tomorrow and is also going to have issues with pooping. It makes him cry a lot and it just breaks my heart. I wish I could do the same to her, so she can experience his discomfort and pain.
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Other posts from /u/cupidsgirl94:
MIL judging everything we do, 1 month ago
Who changed first after you had your baby, you or MIL?, 2 months ago
Do I forgive MIL after ruining pregnancy and postpartum?, 2 months ago
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“Well seeing as you can’t listen and deliberately impacted the health and wellbeing of our child, we will be rethinking childcare options.”
I can believe it, you and your partner are doing nothing to stop her. This is a safe space for you to whinge, so please continue to come here but nothings going to change while the two of you do nothing.
Your husband should look after your baby when he has stomach ache for the next two days
MIL is boundary-stomping. Stop letting her babysit until she respects your rules.
Boundaries mean nothing without consequences. Have you and your husband discussed appropriate consequences for with MIL does things you’ve asked her not to do?
She is purposely hurting your child. Cut her off. Its no different than if she was pinching him to wake him up! Its cruel.
Regarding your LO, I think that there’s drops that you can give babies to help an upset stomach or help bowel movements. You should point out to your husband that every time your child overeats, it has caused stomach issues/distress. That is not something that someone can ignore if they love that child.
Why you continue to be a doormat and let mil walk all over your parenting decisions and boundaries is beyond me. She’s actively harming your child and she dgaf because you keep letting her see him.