MIL wants to babysit but...
Hey ladies, i need opinions. This is a long post so if you read it you are the absolute best and i appreciate it.
I am in a bit of a situation here. Ill start by saying prior to having my son i loved my MIL so much. She was such an amazing MIL but now that she is grandma to my son she is consistently overstepping her boundaries and now i have such a negative association with her. Im still very nice to her but i dread going around her because i just know she is going to do something that makes me upset.
Ill give a little context:
● Even before my son was born she told me i shouldnt breastfeed so she could have the opportunity to feed my son and bond with him. I actually couldnt breastfeed him due to his lip tie and my anatomy. It bothered me a lot as that was something i was really looking forward to and i felt like i was failing him and ripped of that experience. Because of this i still wanted that special bonding experience between a mother and baby so i am the only one to bottle feed my son. My husband is on board and weve made this abundantly clear to family yet she still nags us to let her feed him. She asks every single time regardless of us making it clear where we stand.
●My husband and i were previously not comfortable with anyone babysitting our son. She would call us daily to nag us to let her babysit or even nag us to let her come over at night to care for him while we were sleeping when he was a newborn. At first i definitely thought she was just trying to be nice and allow us to get some sleep so i brushed it off but regardless of how many times we told her we didnt need it and we would prefer if she waited until we came to her for help, she would still nag us daily.
● She undermines my parenting a lot. Anything i ask of her she either downplays it or just ignores it and doesnt do it. For example we wipe my son during every single diaper change even if its just pee. we have told her this several times but she still does it her own way and does not wipe him.
●if i have any concern over my sons health/wellbeing she always downplays it. For example he rolled off the couch a while back and i just asked her not to swing him hard on the swings because we were still monitoring him for a head injury and she just looked at me and said he was fine and went on swinging him.
●There are times where she has made me extremely nervous. She will hold my son upside down by his ankles even though we have told her that his hips click and we are waiting on an ultrasound of his hips to rule out an issue. She downplays it and still does whatever she wants.
●She forces him to walk prior to him even pulling to stand on furniture yet. She is always rushing his development.
●She keeps asking to put a carseat in her car but she is a terrible driver. Weve already said its not necessary but she still asks.
Because of all this im not comfortable with her babysitting him. This is the issue, she is STILL nagging us to babysit and im still not comfortable. My husband wants to just let her do it to shut her up but she is the type of person that if you give her an inch she takes a mile. If we let her once it will be a non stop nag. She guilt trips us so bad. She bought a puppy and sent us a picture and said "hopefully this will help with my grandson withdrawl" and she asked us to give her a bottle so she could bottlefeed her puppy. She also smells my son obsessively when shes around him, begs to change his diaper and feed him and even kisses him even though ive made it clear im not comfortable with anyone kissing his face or hands. She also monopolizes his time and doesnt let anyone else hold him at family gatherings. She has even ripped him from my arms when i was teying to comfort him.
I told my husband where i stand. Im uncomfortable and feel all sorts of disrespected by her. If we were to allow her to babysit a conversation would need to happen first with strong boundaries being set. He is too worried to hurt his mothers feelings to set such strong boundaries which i understand. He is scared of the victimizing and guilt tripping that will happen as well. Which i get. His mom has basically used guilt as a tactic in the past to manipulate him. She said things like "oh well i guess all my children hate me now" But im just too uncomfortable with allowing her to watch him until that convo happens. Am i being ridiculous or unreasonable?
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