Mama (in-law) Drama

angelinthepit23

Why is it that MIL's seem normal until there is a baby and they go all crazy?!?

Not sure what her deal is but every time she comes to visit she leaves with something that I'm doing wrong. The first time she said she meant it to be helpful because she has raised 3 kids and knows how stressful it is.

But this last time she expressed concern to my husband about my sister and I using baby talk only to use it herself when she came to visit. 

Seriosuly, don't poke the bear. I'm about done with her.

Anyone else who wants to vent about their Mother/MIL please do so I don't feel like I'm alone in this madness!

doodleoodle

My MIL told me that my bedtime routine and all the work and effort I put into it has nothing to do with LO sleeping well (usually) at night. It's only because it's dark. Oh and apparently I should be able to force LO to nap and to nap for longer. If anyone knows how to force a baby to sleep I would freaking LOVE to hear it. She also told me, after the pedi said LO wasn't gaining enough on breast milk, that the pedi was wrong and that the baby just fell off the curve because initially I was over feeding her. "Babies don't need to nurse more often than every 3 hours. I had my babies on a 4 hour feeding schedule." Good for you, lady. My baby was eating every 2 hours for an hour at a time and when she wasn't eating or sleeping she was crying. The fact that she isn't miserable all the time now let's me know she was hungry before, but cool opinion. ETA @angelinthepit23 next time you should ask her to stop using baby talk so she doesn't stunt the baby's growth hahaha I bet the look on her face would be priceless

DogLoverX3

Im sorry guys!! Here's mine....I'm having a hard time with this one....the day after we got out of the PICU at children's, my mother in law leaned in and said in a very soft voice, "just promise me that next time you'll call an ambulance." ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME!?!??! First, I made the best decision I could after weighing options in a split second in my head. I'm 7 min from the ER. My gf, who lives 5 blocks from me, called an ambulance when her father went down and it took them 15 min to get there-yes 15 MINUTES! She was yelling at them on the phone. Apparently both ambulances were already out on calls. Second, Charlotte struggled and then started grunting and I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I held her all the way patting her back trying to get breaths/grunts. You don't think for one second I don't think "what if" every second of every day of my life. I made a decision. I thought I'd get there quicker. If I couldn't, I'd call 911 from the car and get a police escort. Third, if you feel that strongly, you could try another time and ask me why I made the decision I did and give me your thoughts OR talk to your son and get his thoughts. Fourth, and for the record, my husband thinks I made the right decision. So not only did my daughter come close to losing her life, but I struggle every day with it and relive it often. I'm not ok yet, and that wasn't the right time. It just wasn't. I'm NOT ok with the way you went about it or making me feel the way you did the day after we got out of the PICU. I did the best I could that day-and I wish I'd done better. I don't need her making me feel like that! 

DogLoverX3

.

smnewby

Lol I have the reverse problem. I considered my mil wicked until I had a baby now she is my best friend and trusted caregiver...on the flip side my own mother has been a raging bitch in so many ways I wont bore everyone with all the details.

However the icing on the cake was saying I was a horrible parent for waking my baby to eat at 3days post partum (baby was very low weight and pediatrician had expressed concerns) and in the same breath she advised me to leave my husband of 5 years "sooner rather than later" because appearantly he was even "worse then me" and I "owed it to my daughter". Needless to say we havent been on great terms ever since. 

Edit for words

ColoradoHiker

My MIL is great, it's really my mom that's the problem.  My in-laws are moving to help us with daycare, and my mom is super jealous.  She doesn't live close enough to visit all the time (3+ hr), and she's also on some heavy duty medication due to a medical condition.  I'm worried about her watching Rhys alone, and thankfully haven't had to tell her so yet.

angelinthepit23

So apparently my son balled his eyes out every time she picked him up or looked his general direction. Thanks baby for having my back!

I swear, I will never treat my daughter/DIL this way!

GoogleMD

smnewby said:

Lol I have the reverse problem. I considered my mil wicked until I had a baby now she is my best friend and trusted caregiver...on the flip side my own mother has been a raging bitch in so many ways I wont bore everyone with all the details.

However the icing on the cake was saying I was a horrible parent for waking my baby to eat at 3days post partum (baby was very low weight and pediatrician had expressed concerns) and in the same breath she advised me to leave my husband of 5 years "sooner rather than later" because appearantly he was even "worse then me" and I "owed it to my daughter". Needless to say we havent been on great terms ever since. 

Edit for words

Wow mother of the year right there. 

doodleoodle

DogLoverX3 said:

Im sorry guys!! Here's mine....I'm having a hard time with this one....the day after we got out of the PICU at children's, my mother in law leaned in and said in a very soft voice, "just promise me that next time you'll call an ambulance." ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME!?!??! First, I made the best decision I could after weighing options in a split second in my head. I'm 7 min from the ER. My gf, who lives 5 blocks from me, called an ambulance when her father went down and it took them 15 min to get there-yes 15 MINUTES! She was yelling at them on the phone. Apparently both ambulances were already out on calls. Second, Charlotte struggled and then started grunting and I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I held her all the way patting her back trying to get breaths/grunts. You don't think for one second I don't think "what if" every second of every day of my life. I made a decision. I thought I'd get there quicker. If I couldn't, I'd call 911 from the car and get a police escort. Third, if you feel that strongly, you could try another time and ask me why I made the decision I did and give me your thoughts OR talk to your son and get his thoughts. Fourth, and for the record, my husband thinks I made the right decision. So not only did my daughter come close to losing her life, but I struggle every day with it and relive it often. I'm not ok yet, and that wasn't the right time. It just wasn't. I'm NOT ok with the way you went about it or making me feel the way you did the day after we got out of the PICU. I did the best I could that day-and I wish I'd done better. I don't need her making me feel like that! 

It's awful that she said that! It sounds like you made the right choice. She wasn't there so she should keep her opinions to herself.

DogLoverX3

doodleoodle said:

It's awful that she said that! It sounds like you made the right choice. She wasn't there so she should keep her opinions to herself.

Thank you. I did the best I could-she was gray when I got there and the nurse came running, grabbed her, and yelled for a crash cart(didn't use it). I know I've said this, but it was the single most awful moment of my life. I just didn't need that from her at that moment! I already re-live it often and think about what I could have done better/differently! Thanks for letting me vent. I'm just not over it yet! 

sacrazy

I'm just tired of the "I wish you lived closer" guilt trip. Unless you want to buy us a house, there's no way I'm moving back to CO any time soon. It's too expensive to live out there now.
If she wants to see the baby more, she can come here to TN or buy us plane tickets to go there.

DogLoverX3

sacrazy said:

I'm just tired of the "I wish you lived closer" guilt trip. Unless you want to buy us a house, there's no way I'm moving back to CO any time soon. It's too expensive to live out there now.
If she wants to see the baby more, she can come here to TN or buy us plane tickets to go there.

That guilt kills me too! My parents are very heart felt about it, but damn, I'm only 2.5 hours away!

angelinthepit23

Omg the guilt is the worst. My FIL is very sick and I constantly have to hear that we need to bring the baby over there. But their house is a mess, there is no where for him to nap and their dog is crazy and I don't trust it around the baby. 

chelseaepley

DogLoverX3 said:

Im sorry guys!! Here's mine....I'm having a hard time with this one....the day after we got out of the PICU at children's, my mother in law leaned in and said in a very soft voice, "just promise me that next time you'll call an ambulance." ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME!?!??! First, I made the best decision I could after weighing options in a split second in my head. I'm 7 min from the ER. My gf, who lives 5 blocks from me, called an ambulance when her father went down and it took them 15 min to get there-yes 15 MINUTES! She was yelling at them on the phone. Apparently both ambulances were already out on calls. Second, Charlotte struggled and then started grunting and I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I held her all the way patting her back trying to get breaths/grunts. You don't think for one second I don't think "what if" every second of every day of my life. I made a decision. I thought I'd get there quicker. If I couldn't, I'd call 911 from the car and get a police escort. Third, if you feel that strongly, you could try another time and ask me why I made the decision I did and give me your thoughts OR talk to your son and get his thoughts. Fourth, and for the record, my husband thinks I made the right decision. So not only did my daughter come close to losing her life, but I struggle every day with it and relive it often. I'm not ok yet, and that wasn't the right time. It just wasn't. I'm NOT ok with the way you went about it or making me feel the way you did the day after we got out of the PICU. I did the best I could that day-and I wish I'd done better. I don't need her making me feel like that! 

I missed this....what happened?!

DogLoverX3

chelseaepley said:

DogLoverX3 said:

I missed this....what happened?!

To make a very long story short, we have found out my daughter has severe GERD and aspirates(I had no idea that's what I was watching for months). She refluxed and then aspirated Feb12. Like she always did-I'd been trying to tell everyone since birth that something was wrong, but was assured numerous times that I was over-reacting/obsessing(I have OCD) and that every baby has reflux. Anyway, she recovered as usual with bulb sucking and I laid her down to change her and she started struggling for air. Now, in my situation, this is fairly normal. So I quickly grabbed her and started patting hard her back to get it up, but it wasn't changing. I grabbed my purse and ran out the door, holding and patting her back the entire 7 min drive to the ER. I found out through 3 weeks of hospitalization, that amount other things, she aspirates and has a floppy, narrow airway and her trachea collapsed on me that day. My MIL, once intubation was out and we were out of the PICU, told me to promise her that next time I'd call an ambulance! In other words, I didn't do the right thing to help save my daughter! At least that's how it felt coming from her that way!  I feel like she could of handled her opinion differently and at a different time. 

rubirubi89

@DogLoverX3 so rude for her to even bring it up knowing how scary it was for you.  I don't think I would have had the composure to think that clearly.

My MIL has decided that she's in some sort of competition with my mom. My mom watches LO for about 30hrs a week at our house and so MIL has decided, it its not necessary for my mom to visit with us any other day or time of the week, since "she's already here all the time". She keeps asking to baby sit but when I told her to come watch him on thursday's and friday's with me at work she said no. She wants to baby sit alone or not at all; me being in the next room does not count for her. So she gets..nothing. 

queenwog

My MIL thinks I'm a bad mom because my son doesn't sleep through the night and her kids both slept through the night as soon as they were born. Also thinks I should be giving him bottles of water because he'll be dehydrated if I don't. She has also been telling my son about all the home improvement projects he'll be doing for her when he's a little bigger, like he was born to be her slave, so for those and a ton of other reasons we keep our distance from her.

Jeenyus

doodleoodle said:

My MIL told me that my bedtime routine and all the work and effort I put into it has nothing to do with LO sleeping well (usually) at night. It's only because it's dark. Oh and apparently I should be able to force LO to nap and to nap for longer. If anyone knows how to force a baby to sleep I would freaking LOVE to hear it. She also told me, after the pedi said LO wasn't gaining enough on breast milk, that the pedi was wrong and that the baby just fell off the curve because initially I was over feeding her. "Babies don't need to nurse more often than every 3 hours. I had my babies on a 4 hour feeding schedule." Good for you, lady. My baby was eating every 2 hours for an hour at a time and when she wasn't eating or sleeping she was crying. The fact that she isn't miserable all the time now let's me know she was hungry before, but cool opinion. ETA @angelinthepit23 next time you should ask her to stop using baby talk so she doesn't stunt the baby's growth hahaha I bet the look on her face would be priceless

This.  My mother in law is full of contradictions. She told me her babies never slept in her room, straight into their crib in another room the first night home from the hospital.  If they cry you leave them until morning.  Feed them every four hours, and they learn to wait (starting the day they are born?!). Put them Ina crib to nap and go back in 1.5 hours, let them cry if they wake early but make sure not to go into the room unless it has been at least 1.5 hours.

My daughter has slept 12 hours a night since 5 weeks.  This means her naps are shorter and she eats more frequently during the day.  MIL says I feed her too much, that my daughter is "fat" (she's 16.8 lbs at 18 weeks, was born 7.7), and that I need to stop feeding her on demand/making her nap more. 

I'm very proud of myself for exclusively breastfeeding and making it this far.  My mother in law says she breastfed exclusively too, and added pablum to the bottles.  I had to explain to her how this isn't the same thing!

I may have been a bit out of line when I reminded her that it's been over 40 years since she had her first child.  She told me "What do I know, I've only had three children".  To which O replied "Yes but it's been nearly half a century since you had your first.  A lot can change in 40 years!".

kmd91

sacrazy said:

I'm just tired of the "I wish you lived closer" guilt trip. Unless you want to buy us a house, there's no way I'm moving back to CO any time soon. It's too expensive to live out there now.
If she wants to see the baby more, she can come here to TN or buy us plane tickets to go there.

Yesss, I have no MIL issues, and my issues with my own mother are the same as they've been forever. But from family in general, this guilt. We are 5,000 miles away, none of the family has met the baby yet and I get guilt tripped all the time. Don't get me wrong, I wish it were easier for family to spend time with baby, but this is where my husband is stationed at the moment, so y'all can just deal with it. There's nothing I can do about it. 

skabanak

DogLoverX3 said:

doodleoodle said:

It's awful that she said that! It sounds like you made the right choice. She wasn't there so she should keep her opinions to herself.

Thank you. I did the best I could-she was gray when I got there and the nurse came running, grabbed her, and yelled for a crash cart(didn't use it). I know I've said this, but it was the single most awful moment of my life. I just didn't need that from her at that moment! I already re-live it often and think about what I could have done better/differently! Thanks for letting me vent. I'm just not over it yet! 

You made the right choice, do not let her make you second guess your decision, your little girl is ok and what a great mom you are!!!

itstheblackwidowbaby

queenwog said:

My MIL thinks I'm a bad mom because my son doesn't sleep through the night and her kids both slept through the night as soon as they were born. Also thinks I should be giving him bottles of water because he'll be dehydrated if I don't. She has also been telling my son about all the home improvement projects he'll be doing for her when he's a little bigger, like he was born to be her slave, so for those and a ton of other reasons we keep our distance from her.

All of my wat. Soooo rather than paying someone now/soon to do a professional job with something, she's just going to wait until her grandson is old enough to do it? LOL makes perfect sense. 

@DogLoverX3 I'm so sorry that your family went through that AND that your MIL said something that stupid. UGH. 

SJFTCA

@DogLoverX3 NOT cool at all...I'm so sorry for what you went through (and esp your MIL's comment). I can't imagine!

Well, yesterday, MIL brought over teething cookies for LO. It says very clearly on the box that they are for 12+ months (LO is 4 months). H told her that LO can't have them, and she apparently got very defensive (I think I know how to raise a baby, blah blah blah). She also mentioned that he shouldn't forget that we aren't paying her to watch LO five hours a day, four days a week. Ummmm, look lady, we never even asked you to watch him...you insisted. And we can easily pay someone who will do what we ask, if necessary. We threw the cookies away bc it didn't seem like she was going to respect our wishes.

I've also just figured out that she is giving him an unknown amount of extra juice every day. He drinks 2 oz mixed w 2 oz of water each day bc of constipation problems, but I don't need him getting filled up on Lord knows how much extra juice. MH is good at standing up to her, but he still can't MAKE her listen. Anyway, she has to watch him for about another 8 weeks until I'm out of school for the summer, so I'm trying to just suck it up and reevaluate the childcare situation over the summer. But goodness gracious she can piss me off.