Hi everyone,

New mom here! My baby girl was born premature at 35wks on 07/25/23. She spent her first 26 days in the NICU due to respiratory distress syndrome. She’s such a strong girl. I’ve always expressed my wishes when it comes to touching her hands and face. And absolutely no kissing other than from mom and dad. Everyone seems to respect them except my MIL. I’ve reminded her time and time again not to touch her hands or face. Just this past Sunday she was holding the baby while she slept. Couldn’t seem to keep her hands away from her face. As I’m getting ready to head home and take her from her, she’s kissing her face and getting very close to her mouth. I say “please stop kissing her so close to her mouth”. To which she responds “but that’s what I want, I want to smell her breath…that baby breath“. I said, “yeah but that’s germs”. She’s didn’t say anything else and we left.

She always does things like this. She’ll say things like “I know you said not to but I have to ____ just this once” and she’ll either kiss, smell, or touch places that are no nos for me.

So now my question is, am I being overprotective or overreacting about this stuff? What advice do you have for me? This stuff stresses me out because I know what germs could do to her. I also feel like I could never ask her to babysit because of things she’d do without me being there….I appreciate her love towards my daughter but this frustrates me so much. And as to talking to my husband about this, I feel like he gets annoyed when I bring it up because he doesn’t fully understand my reasoning.