Abit of informstion about me. I’m English and my husband is Arabic. It’s normal to call our grandparents “grandma and grandpa or grandad” my mother is happy being Grandma to my 10 month old LO.

In my husbands Arabic family they call their grandmothers teta. However my MIL (mother-in-law) has gone by “mama” to her daughters (8 sons and 1 daughter) for the past 10 years. Yes I know.

Since my daughter was born she would every time she sees her go “Hello mamaaaaaa” and I genuinely thought it was just a term of endearment like the way Hispanic culture tends to call their babies lil mama etc. But then once she referred to herself as mama. My husband straight away said “you’re not her mama, you’re teta” she didn’t respond but then continued with the whole “mamaaaaaa” every time she looked or handled dd.

I quickly realised why she was doing this, it wasn’t an “endearment” it was so my baby hopefully will associate the word with her! So I told her via phone call, (I sort of blamed my husband) like we will be calling you teta from now if you don’t like it, you can pick another grandmother appropriate name but I WILL be mama or mummy or any of a mothers name. She just said okay that’s fine I don’t mind, if that’s what my son chose, I’m happy.

Each visit she NEVER refers to herself as Teta and starts with the whole “hey mamaaaaaa” and just repeating mama to her. My husband goes mad at her and tells her stop doing it. She goes in a huff and starts crying “ohhhhh I don’t think I’m her mama I only see you for a few hours each week? Clearly I’m not her mama but I can’t even express my love for her I say mama out of love” my husband replies “no you can’t because I want her to call my wife mama and I don’t want her confused every time she sees you, you’re chanting mama to her face” she just goes “ok u win, I’ll try my best”

She then tries to say how her other grand children are not confused with who mummy is and they refer to her as grandma in social settings but use mama when they talk to her, so she’s not trying to take anything away from me? But I have told her plenty of times how I wish for mama to be my name!

(We go outside for one minute, we come in and we can hear her going “mamas here don’t worry, your mother and father will be back don’t cry mama loves you” my husband tells me “don’t worry I won’t never let it happen” and we quickly make our excuses to leave.

The problem is. I can’t cut out our weekly sometimes bi weekly visit because my husband loves to spend time with my father in law and he won’t go that far, he knows it’s a big deal but says we can fix it as our dd (dear daughter) will listen to us.

Dd hasn’t babbled mama yet but says dada in semi context!

My question is?! How can I ensure my dd (dear daughter) never calls her mama?! I know if she babbles it to her my mil (mother-in-law) will sort of try to take ownership of it!

I’ve read so many posts recently so similar to my situation but I’m just so worked up about it !! Thanks for reading this far!