Becoming claustrophobic!

So today I bought the cutest outfit for baby and sent pictures to my Mum and MIL. MIL responded “we have already bought plenty of clothes for the first year. You shouldn’t waste your money”. I get it’s the first grandchild and she’s excited, and I’m grateful for any gifts, but she’s already bought a pram after we had one, because it’s “better”, told me I “won’t cope” and she’ll “have to take over” and now I can’t even buy clothes because she’s covered a year. How?! We don’t even know baby’s gender or how big they’ll be so how is it possible to cover that long. Now she’s kicking off with my partner because I’ve bought clothes and my parents have - the cheek of it, buying their own grandchild stuff. Literally saying “they have it covered” and “I had no right to buy stuff knowing I would get gifts”. My partner says he’s trying to “balance everything”. Argh! She’s out of order. Oh, I also have “no right” to not find out the gender…

Show your support

No no no no no! This is your baby and you dress her how you wish! If she wants to use her clothes when/ if she has care of your baby then so be it but this is too much. You need to advocate for yourself or have a serious chat to your partner and he needs to speak to his mom. I know it’s hard but this is just clothes imagine how it could get if you don’t say no from the beginning xx

Literally saying no on repeat and just get told I’m over sensitive and selfish. I’ve told him he needs to please draw some proper boundaries, because if he doesn’t I’ll end up saying something far worse than no…

That's crazy! Maybe just thank her for everything and remind her this is your first baby and you guys have it handled. And if you need help,you'll ask! Sometimes gently reminding them that if that's how things were for when they were first time parents, that's great, but you're prepared to take full responsibility and make decisions for baby!

Nah, if I was you I would just ignore her best thing to do. She's not the mother so she shouldn't have all of these opinions when it comes to your own child. Just ignore her and do not engage and if she keeps acting like that don't tell her about certain things your buying or doing for the baby. You need to make your boundaries and your partner has to also support this.

I genuinely would expect my partner to have some serious words and would tell her that it is my baby not hers and wouldn’t accept the gifts while she’s being the way she is. She had her children so had her opportunity to do this for them, this if your child not hers

Ugh! So sorry. Horrible

I had to reread this again and it’s one huge annoyance for you. So sorry! This is not right if your MIL at all

That sounds like she’s trying to be VERY controlling of the baby, probably will only get worse. Telling you “you won’t cope”? wtf? Is there a reason why she’s decided that other than wanting control? Even if you financially handle this, they should be asking your opinions on said years worth of clothes. It’s your baby. What if you hate all the clothes, or she’s buying outdated things you don’t want? That’s just crazy. I can see her now already telling you (if you want to) that you should breastfeed because she wants to be able to feed the baby herself blah blah. 😑 I’m sorry

@Alexis No reason I know of. And yes, she’s complained we haven’t bought a pump because “you can’t breastfeed all the time and will need a break”. My partner is having serious conversation this weekend.

Plenty of woman/moms breastfeed “all the time”. It’s usually less mentally taxing than pumping too. In fact forcing you to do both is just insensitive to you and your mental health. She doesn’t want your baby to be overly attached to you is what it sounds like. Which you are the mother, not her, your baby should be overly attached to you. Seems like she wants to interfere with that almost. I hope the conversation goes well and he stands his ground and defends you. Good luck 🩵

@Alexis I know. I said to her that two of my best friends and my sister literally never pumped or formula fed. Fingers crossed it all goes well. He is very stubborn, which might actually help in this situation!