Mother-in-Law Involvement

My MiL has always been incredible with our little boy and he's always spent a lot of time with her. He was a very difficult baby (colic/reflux/allergies) and she helped us so much. He currently spends 2 days with her, 1 day with me and 2 days at nursery - when I'm at work. Lately I feel like she's becoming over involved and making decisions as though she's the parent. For example he was a bit poorly over the weekend and I said I was going to book him a GP appointment on the Monday, but then she called on Sunday saying she'd called and booked him a hospital appointment on Sunday and could take him if I was busy (he was with me that day, not her). The appointment wasn't urgent and I hadn't asked her to call. She's also not listening to what we say about sleeping/eating and has started just putting him on a different schedule, which is making evenings very difficult for us as he's super tired and upset. I have spoken to her and she said we should just do what he wants/dictate his own schedule and that she'll do things her way when he's there. It's hard, because we have relied on her a lot and I've appreciated her help. Does it seem like I'm overreacting trying to push her on following what we say? I just feel like she's taking over a bit.

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I think your partner needs to sit down with her and establish some boundaries. Otherwise it could get worse. The schedule thing alone would require a reset chat I think .

Id definitely ask my partner to speak to my mil about it if that was me. She obviously means well but there is nothing worse than someone watching our children and going against the routine that works best for us and our kids! It's hard enough to get into a routine that works. I've had to have words with my dad about this recently and thankfully they made the changes but it can feel awkward to ask🤦 Xx

This would personally drive me nuts, particularly the GP thing - that’s not her job and I wouldn’t want any appointments going on without me there to oversee stuff. I agree that I think your partner should be the one to have a word about her overstepping

My mum is exactly like this! I know it sounds awful but you have to decide is it worth having her overstep boundaries and have free childcare or completely shut it down and put baby in nursery for the extra 2 days. That's what I had to decide because there was no talking to my mum. She's definitely gotten better now but when my daughter was first born I felt like she had three parents. She didn't listen to a word we said about feeding/naps etc, only when I said we're gonna have to reevaluate and cut down on visits because it just isn't fair on my daughter that she started to change. You just have to be prepared to really follow through! Good luck x

@Amaya thank you for your reply! Really interesting hearing from someone in a similar situation! We have been talking about increasing the nursery to 3 days. Then he'll only be with my MiL for 1, which will hopefully be a better balance! x

Honestly I really feel for you, it's so hard especially when it's your MIL. I do believe they have completely good intentions but the translation sometimes gets lost. This all happened before my daughter went to nursery and I was on mat leave. The idea was my mum would take her for the day so I could rest/catch up with things. The day off was great but the aftermath was never worth it. At the time my daughter would have a 2 hour nap in the morning and 2 hour nap in the afternoon. My mum would let her nap 20 minutes the whole day. She was a wreck when she got home and it would take all night to settle her down and even days to get the routine back on track, it just wasn't fair. If you can afford the extra day in nursery then do it!

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