Mother in law drama
My husband and I are staying with our 9 month old at my in laws house and have been for about a month because we’re having some work done to our house but my MIL is driving me crazy.
I feel like she’s constantly criticising how we parent our son and making weird comments - she’s esp critical of how we feed him (baby led, not wiping his face until after he’s done eating, letting him feed himself etc. she even had a go the other day about us giving him a strawberry with his meal and said it would confuse him to have sweet with his savoury- it’s not like we’re giving him ice cream with his meal, it’s fruit for gods sake - we also gave him a very mild non spicy curry the other day that she also had a massive problem with)
The other day he had a tiny bit of nappy rash that she was very critical of - he’s not been sleeping well because of 9 month sleep regression (which she apparently doesn’t think exists, she thinks it’s because of what we’re feeding him, despite him having no reaction to our meals for him). She thinks we get all of our information from TikTok or instagram (I don’t even have TikTok) - I do follow a couple of baby accounts online but not loads and they tend to be like paediatric nutritionists etc.
She seems to think that everything we do or say is wrong and everything she thinks is right despite her kids being in their 30s and she’s not had a lot of experience with babies for a while. She didn’t even know you’re not supposed to give babies honey under a year or that babies are supposed to be put on their backs for sleep
Honestly the judgemental comments and constant criticism is taking its toll on me - it’s also changed how I view her and tbh as soon as we can go home again I want to not see her as much because all of the judgey comments are getting me down
I’ve had a pretty stressful year with my own health and my mums health and I really don’t need this added stress - being at their house should in theory be less stressful with extra pairs of hands but it’s waaay more stressful
Helppppp. How would you deal with this?!
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I'm not good with confrontation so we blamed health professionals. When my MIL had gone to India when we had out little one we checked with the health visitor who said we should wait 2 weeks for them to visit as baby hadn't had her vaccines yet.
Maybe politely let her know that nhs advise has changed. There are loads of free online baby academy classes she could watch to update herself on the new advise so she's not giving you a headache with the contradictions.
If she wants to help and be involved I'd try to make the best of it. We have very little help. But she needs to update her knowledge xx
I have a few similar points, it’s the “why” to everything you say…
I said she can’t have this this or this and it’s why, we never did that, why??
Not okay fab I’ll write that down.
I just say that’s how it is that’s the rules we follow.
You just have to stand your ground unfortunately, I’ve also had a word with my boyfriend and said we’re a team, what we say goes. There’s no “you know what she’s like” … she’s my baby no one else decides how to raise or feed my child x
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