Not sure where to start, but here goesā¦
My baby is now a few months old but my MIL insisted on coming to stay the first weekend after he was born. She lives over 300 miles away (blessing or not?) and she stayed over in our spare bedroom on the Friday and Saturday night and left late on the Sunday.
I had an emergency csection the Friday before so my baby was barely a week old when she visited and I was still in a lot of pain, could barely walk, had alarms set on my phone all hours of the day to remind myself to take the
pain, antibiotics and injections.
1. She brought ear plugs for her stay
she also never offered to do a night feed/take him early in the morning so we could have some rest etc. She literally came for a break (her words not mine lol), yes I too did a double take when I heard her say āoh Iāll be coming to stay every month for a break to see little oneāā¦
2. She kept making ignorant comments regarding breastfeeding and natural birth (she breastfed and had natural births) which made me feel like
tit (on top of already feeling like
tit) because I was formula feeding and had a csection.
3. Weād gone for a drive, which turned out to be a big mistake as the baby had a screaming fit in the back of the car. Took him home to change him as he was sweatingā¦ got a clean (albeit creased) white baby grow to which she asked if it was clean. I said yes. MIL then proceeded to pick the baby grow up and sniff it in front of meā¦ as if Iād put a dirty baby grow on my newborn babyā¦ to be honest this was the point where I lost respect for her. Sheās a family liaison officer so sheās used to supervising people with their kidsā¦ she needs to realise Iām not one of her clients lol.
4. Next day (Saturday) I had come downstairs to her cuddling my baby, just literally sat there cuddling him saying how content he is (yes love donāt suppose you want to cuddle him at 3am instead?
) when I then took the baby off to feed he had this massive rash down the side of his face. She then proceeded to tell me she wears her perfume on her clothes rather than her skin as she gets an allergic reaction to itā¦ who the hell wears perfume to cuddle a newborn baby?!?
4.Fast forward to Sunday, as weād had a busy day on Saturday I spent most of the morning in bed (eating my stupidly massive stash of chocolate). Went downstairs at half 11 to MIL rolling her eyes at me as we were only now having breakfast (my partner cooked everyone - his brother was here too at this point - bacon sandwiches). I then sat opposite her feeding my baby to her complaining to me that she was tired as sheād been awake since 6am and couldnāt get back to sleep and had a very long drive home that day. Poor soul. You can imagine how much I cared whilst sat there sleep deprived.
5. She then complained that she was hungry again. Her other son my BIL offered to make her a sandwich. She stuck her nose up at this. We then ended up in a pub having a carvery (I had something small as we hadnāt long had breakfast). They all sat eating their dinners, I ate mine one handed as the baby was really unsettled. After sheād finished her dinner (I had already finished mine at this point) she asked āwould you like me to hold the baby so you can finish your dinner?ā I just looked at her stupid, said no and continued to enjoy my newborn cuddles.
Tbh, if I could have that previous time back with my son I would tell her to stay in a hotel, bring her own dinner (if she wanted any) and I would have basically locked myself and my newborn in the bedroom for the foreseeable.
I havenāt been coping great in all honesty. My partner and I have been arguing to the point where weāve almost separated several times. There have also been times where Iāve stayed upstairs for a few hours break on the weekends whilst my partner looks after our son downstairs and I just simply havenāt wanted to go back down. Weāre going to visit her this weekend. Thereās more, but Iāll leave it for another post on another day. Thank you for taking the time to read x