I think I have a touch of postpartum anxiety and it’s driven by my inability to be assertive with my PIL. They live a couple hours drive away and we see them for a weekend once a month. They went against our expressed wish to kiss our baby which initiated a spiral of feeling edgy when they held her etc... they passed a few disrespectful comments whilst I was pregnant too (fat and an incubator for their grandchild 😞) and so I have a lot of anxiety around their visits. Latest visit, MIL walked off with baby in a public place which I felt uncomfortable with. Next visit is at a family lunch at someone else’s house and they’ll be there... I’m getting anxiety over the fact that MIL will take over and change her diaper or walk off with her again (not a big deal I know), but how do I get them to start asking before doing anything? How do I get them to respect us as parents? Husband is catatonic to it all and let’s it all pass over him. They want us to stay with them, which we’ve been avoiding, hubby knows it would put my anxiety into overload and in my head I’m thinking mil will take over our nighttime bath routine which is family bonding time....

Can I ask what your long distance grandparents do for your baby and what ‘help’ you’d say no to?