Including pictures of your grandchildren in your Holiday cards??? Grandson's mom says no...

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61

Most Important Takeaway: BACK OFF. DO NOT OFFER ADVICE. GIVE DIL SPACE.

A new mom is most likely exhausted, sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly. Her protective instincts are off the charts. Don’t assume that what she says today is set in stone forever.

THINK LONG TERM. There are YEARS of potential babysitting opportunities to be had. Choose to back off now in order to build a better relationship.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Ask Son what you can do to help them. Offer food (whether prepared by you or ordered in from a restaurant). Ask Son if there is a convenient time for you to visit. Ask for specific time frame (30 minutes, one hour, etc.) for your visit, and be sure not to overstay visit. DO NOT DEMAND to see them on Christmas Day. The baby has no clue, but DIL will want to establish her own family traditions. ASK Son when it would work for your side of the family to gather for holiday meal.

ASK SON @ Christmas Gifts. DO NOT overspend and overwhelm DIL with gifts/clothes/toys that they do not want, or do not have room for. Ask if there is a big item they need and buy it for them.

MAKE YOUR HOME CHILD FRIENDLY. This is a huge way to entice DIL to spend time at your home in the coming years. Install electrical outlets safety plugs, put safety locks on your kitchen cabinets, and remove all potential poisons and medications from lower level cabinets throughout your home. If you have pets, figure out a way to contain them while the child is in your home. That may take some pet training along with purchases of crates.

FOR LATER…think about making a baby space in your home. Is there a guest room where you can put up a crib or a portable playpen? Keeping a supply of diapers and wipes can be a huge relief to parents of young ones. Having a few baby blankets, wash cloths, baby shampoo, diaper rash ointment, sippy cups, small feeding spoons makes your home more convenient. Collect a few board books, simple toys (no batteries, no loose parts), and just a couple of small stuffed animals (again, baby friendly with no loose parts to break off). Do you have stairs in your home? Plan to put up baby gates when the baby starts crawling. DO NOT let S or DIL know about this right now. They will probably freak out. But you can quietly collect these things and store them for later use. Your likelihood of getting to babysit later depends on how comfortable DIL can feel in your home. Having a child-proofed home, having a supply of basics on hand, and following your DIL’s instructions for baby care (no candy, obey bedtime routines, etc.) are imperative for a better chance of getting to spend time with your grandson.

Congrats on becoming a grandparent! It has its own benefits and frustrations. Be patient and bite your tongue and hopefully you will have more interaction with baby in the future.

62

Ok, now I believe I remember your thread/post about wanting to be at the hospital for the birth even though you had not been “invited”.

OP, it is WONDERFUL that you are so head over heels over this beautiful baby! I get a sense that this Christmas card thing is just one of a stack of roadblocks between you and the baby’s mom.

Here’s my advice. Find it in yourself to “reset/redo” your relationship with baby’s mom. The holidays are stressful enough - and for her, with a new baby! Can you find it in your heart to stand back, be supportive, welcome them in your home in a relaxing way (a “visit” is fine! - you know with a new baby, heading out for any excursion is an event!) being cognizant of just enjoying time together without any judgement. Enjoy your time with them where ever it is - your home or theirs. Let them know they are welcome at your home, offer to cook them their favorite dinner - no strings attached!

Don’t worry about “dibs” on the baby. Plenty of time. No way would I have been letting anyone babysit my first one at 10 weeks - that was me! Everyone is different.

If this baby was VERY unplanned as you say, mom mentally probably had less time to get used to the idea of being a mom and I’d give her lots of kudos that she is embracing and protecting her little one with every thought.

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I’m thinking of requiring my sons to read this thread and to sign a contract with me stating that they will never give ms a DIL like this one!

64

I have a long-standing joke with my son that he either has to bring home a future DIL who is an orphan or a future SIL, instead. I’m only half kidding. God help and God bless that girl because I will be the worst MIL in the entire history of the universe. The hope is that I will be like a cartoon character who thinks evil thoughts while outwardly behaving appropriately.

Thankfully, son is much younger, so I will, God willing, have had some grandma experience before it’s his turn.

65

My goodness, I went to sleep last night and this morning discovered a new thread with 63 posts already! So, apologies – I haven’t read every one.

My advice is to honor your DIL’s wishes, as bizarre as they might seem. IMO, your relationship with her, your son and the new grandbaby is much more important that a Christmas card. I have no idea why she doesn’t want the photos on your card, but I’d just honor her point of view, at least for now. As the years go by, she may loosen up.

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My parents were doting grandparents to my kids, especially my dad. He would drive very long distance to come see his grandchildren - unannounced. He would tell me that he was in the neighborhood. :slight_smile: D1 was the first grandchild, so she got a lot of attention from both sides of family. Instead of feeling infringed or put upon, I felt they were very lucky to be so loved.

I think there is some sort dynamic going on between OP and the DIL. I would probably try to step back and give her some space now. Maybe next time ask her to send you a picture of her family that you could include in your collage. I know my kids are kind of particular on pictures I send out of them. I would also make myself readily available to babysit when they need it. As new parents they probably would appreciate a night out sometimes or they may have emergency from time to time. When you babysit, try to follow the mother’s directions on how she wants the baby to be taken care of. My parents were pretty good at doing what I asked, but I knew from time to time they did bend the rules a bit. My in-laws were too far away to do any kind of babysitting.

67

It could very well be that your DIL is being a “B” about everything. But, you are the older, more experienced adult and you should be the bigger person. My Mom let my SIL’s petty complaints and anxieties ruin their relationship. They have called a truce but things could have been a lot better over the years if my Mom did not take offense so easily. Give your DIL the benefit of the doubt and try to see things from her side. As long as your son and grandchild are happy and healthy you really should have no complaints or advice.

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Patsam, be very careful. My own MIL never had the experience of a MIL (because my FILs mom died young). She gave me tons of “advice”, including how to correctly pronounce our child’s name (we were doing it wrong). Later on she openly favored child 2 and then over both of them, the cousins. For example when all the children visited her, ours had to move from the beds they normally slept on to the floor to make room for the (older) cousins. My husband said nothing to her because he felt there was no point and she would not listen. After years of this and one outrageous incident where she screamed a stream of obscenities at child 2, for something that was not remotely related to her, I decided we will never again travel to see MIL. MIL can come to us, but now she is elderly and disabled so she can’t. It’s over. Hubby visits her when he can, alone. I have zero regrets, except for possibly that I did not clearly state boundaries from the beginning. Your DIL may be doing you a favor by bringing this up now. Just a different perspective.

69

To be fair, if my MIL had the OP’s DIL, she would feel like she hit the jackpot. :smiley: My MIL thinks I am “overly emotional”, “needy”, and “weak”. There will never be a meeting of the emotions with us.

There’s no “right” or “wrong” way with all of this (within reason, if DIL’s an ax murderer, for instance), it’s simply that the OP and the DIL don’t mesh well and see the world differently. This can lead to decades of hurt feelings if you don’t, like another poster wisely suggested, “reset” your thinking.

This is not going to be your Dream DIL, this is the Real DIL. The faster you can switch gears and follow her lead (because you want to see your grandkid, that gives her the trump card), the better things will go, I think.

And no comments in her earshot about how you wish things could be (I try and mutter them to myself on occasion, the dog is a very willing listener).

70

I’m Team Mom. OP, every single post contains some sort of hostile remark or comment toward your DIL/mother of grandson. I can’t even tell if the parents are married because you have managed to obscure the relationship between your son and this woman.

Um, no one “owns” another person and no, you don’t have a “stake” in him. Of course, the new mother is protective of her newborn - she’s the mother. The mother hasn’t even left the baby with her own mother, so you know that it’s not about you, right? This is a woman who is developing a relationship with her brand new child.

As for breastfeeding, maybe you don’t know because you didn’t nurse your children but the first 8-12 weeks are very important. If you offer the bottle early (say before 8 weeks), the baby can develop “nipple confusion” and reject the breast. For the mother to build up supply, she needs to be nursing on a consistent and likely frequent basis and just develop that relationship with the baby. I had many problems nursing with my firstborn and there were many weeks when I wanted to quit but one friend told me “Just stick with it for 12 full weeks. You’ll want to quit but you need to stick with it for 12 weeks” and she was right. Maybe your MOC is going through something similar - she knows if she gives in, she essentially gives up and she doesn’t want that to happen.

Mothering/parenting isn’t a battle or competition to be “won”. Maybe you need to re-adjust the lens a bit on the mother-child relationship as well as the one between you and MOC (mother of child).

As for the Christmas collage - that’s just another little skirmish. Yes, maybe the MOC was being petty. Maybe she was having a bad day and just didn’t want to deal with being diplomatic. Another way would have been to ask her to send you a picture for the collage - that way, she could have said “no” then and the whole thing settled; or she could have said “yes” and still maintain control over what she felt was an apparent intrusion.

71

I’m also in the camp of TEAM MOM.

To the OP, please back off and let this new family establish their own identity. As someone who is now at the other end of 25 yr old relationship with an overbearing MIL, let me assure you that no good will come of this.

I also disagree with the many posters that suggest you deal with your son directly and bypass the mother of your grandchild. She will know that you’re doing a end-run around her and that will not go over well.

When my H and I married and we were in charge of our young children/new family - we did things the way we wanted to do them - including vacations, time with grandparents, family holiday traditions , etc. Please understand that it is the new parents’ right. My M and D were accepting of that and my children had a great relationship with them. My MIL had firmly set rules - wouldn’t leave her house for Christmas, made broad proclamations about how and where other holidays should be spent, made disparaging remarks about events in her family we had to miss. As I result, I wanted to avoid her whenever possible and did much of the time.

If I have learned nothing else here on CC, it is that my future DILs will control access to my grandchildren. I will worship them, offer no opinion unless asked, sing their praises to everyone I know, and be grateful that they are making my sons happy .

72

That’s pretty unfair. We are only hearing one side of this story, and the OP’s own words reveal that there are likely some valid concerns on the DIL’s part.

73

How about a compromise? You send out the collage with your family pic only, but ask your DIL for a snapshot of the baby that you can print out and include in the envelope to send to close friends.

I don’t do the picture Xmas cards, but every year I include wallet size school pics of my kids to far away relatives in my Christmas cards, so they can see them grow.

I understand her “territorial” behavior concerning her baby. She is bonding and figuring out this parenting thing and if she wants to breastfeed she doesn’t want advice about giving bottles so someone can babysit. She wants to be the one feeding the baby and taking care of her/him.

The best help a MIL can offer is hold the baby/take it for a stroller ride for a short time while mom naps. Do laundry and dishes or cook a meal, if the DIL welcomes that help. I know I did. But for me, my job was to take care of the baby these intense first weeks and months.

74

Patsam, in your thread when baby was born, you referenced “we are going to decorate their condo and get one of those storks for the front lawn.” I know you are well meaning but this is the kind of thing that can come across as stealing someone’s thunder or overstepping boundaries.

I don’t know if you actually followed through on this, but how would you know if that’s what they wanted you to do? I would have felt horribly invaded if, when I was in hospital, someone came to my house and decorated it. I might have thought - ugh, now more mess for me to deal with and clean up. As for the stork thing, this sounds silly, but it was a HUGE moment for H and I to call the stork place and order the kinds of storks we wanted for our front lawn (because there were 2, and because we didn’t do it til they were home, which was 2 months after their birth). I would have felt very usurped and resentful if someone else went ahead and did that for me - unless I explicitly asked them to do so, or they had asked me and I’d said ok.

Here’s a small example that still, 23 years after the fact, brings me to tears. Mine were premies and in NICU for ~ 2 months. About 1 month in, they were finally well enough that the nurses told me I could unhook one of them, bring them to the other’s incubator, and do the traditional “mother of twins” photo with a baby in each arm. Well, as the nurses were bringing the one baby to me, my H swooped in, saw what was going on, was so excited that he grabbed both babies, posed for a picture and then handed them to me for my picture. He was doing it out of the same excitement I was – but I was SO hurt, I had already missed out on so many traditional “new mom/ baby” moments given the situation, I just wanted to be the first to actually hold one baby in each arm and take the classic mother of twins picture. Honestly - even thinking about it, I still feel the hurt - even though my H has long since apologized and I know it was out of excitement, not a desire to push me out of the way. My mother was in the room at the time, and she laid low. Of course she too wanted a picture of her holding both her grandbabies! But there was plenty of time for that and she knew that it needed to be me, first and foremost. She didn’t need to swoop in, and I’m grateful she (or my MIL) didn’t.

The way you describe wanting to “not miss a moment” when the mother was in labor, and being very concerned that the other mother might get a greater share, feels to me a lot like this. Let mom have her moments. She gets to “introduce” baby on the Christmas cards, she gets to decide her own parameters on visiting and bottlefeeding and so forth. I think it’s ok to express “I’d like to see baby at some point, can you and Son think about what might work best for you and get back to me?” but that’s very different from “I see you’re exclusively bfing and that means I can’t babysit” or “I see you’re spending a lot of time with your mother and I feel left out.”

75

I didn’t recognize the OP’s name earlier, but having read more of these responses and seeing the one about her wanting to be at the hospital during the birth despite being told “no”, it’s clear that OP has boundary issues. No wonder the DIL is bristling! Grandma set a precedent before kiddo was even born that she’s overbearing and doesn’t know when to quit. I wonder how many of those hoping/insisting even in a joking way that your sons don’t marry girls like the DIL are just like this OP, who want to steamroll their DIL’s and get their way all the time?

76

In another thread, someone posted this advice column (it’s sort of like a Dear Abby type). OP, I know you aren’t as overbearing as this woman, but it might be worthwhile to read this and reflect upon it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/carolyn-hax-a-mother-in-law-wont-take-no-for-an-answer/2015/05/03/b5d476bc-e918-11e4-9a6a-c1ab95a0600b_story.html

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I hope the OP hasn’t abandoned us here! Lots of good advice.

I was looking over her thread about the birth of this baby and she mentioned that she will be babysitting starting in January or February. If that is so, the Mom of that baby knows that future heartbreak and difficult adjustments lay ahead for her whole family when she has to return to work. Please give her all the private family time she and your son need now, when they can have it at home. This may be the only holiday season she will have with lots of time to spend with her baby. Don’t begrudge her one minute of that!

And hold off on buying a cute holiday outfit for the baby or tons of toys. I’m sure she and your son want to do that themselves. I know it’s hard for an enthusiastic grandparent to hold back, but please do! Maybe start a 529 in the child’s name. Ask THEM first who it should be opened with, and have one of THEM be the custodial name on the account.

78

Usurped is exactly the right word for this, and we each have our own special desires, wishes, dreams, whatever. For me it was buying the first Christmas outfit for each child with my mother. It’s just a small tradition in my family, one which my MIL wouldn’t have known about, but I would have blown a gasket if anyone else bought those. After the first year, my position was “please buy anything you want as long as I don’t have to pay for it.” God only knows why the picture thing is important to her, but it’s entirely possible there is a backstory that you don’t know.

My niece is a new mom this year. It is her tradition to buy that first Christmas outfit with her mom, as well. Unfortunately, her mom passed away unexpectedly a couple of weeks before the baby was born. Her MIL, who is the loveliest woman, asked her last week when she could take them shopping for that outfit since she is now the only grandmother. Totally the wrong thing to say and my niece is incensed. She is angry at fate, but the MIL was unintentionally insensitive, IMO. Point being that you might be overstepping, or the DIL might have her opinion for a reason that means something to her. Did you ask?

79

Bottom line: press now, keep coming back to DIL with more intrusions about the freaking holiday card, weigh which grandma gets more time, who was at the hospital, who should have a stake, who did or didn’t breastfeed, how it shuts out grandma, how sad it is to be the paternal grandma-- and more and more about OP’s feelings-- and you can lose in bigger ways later. OP’s choice. This complaint and that one?? This comment or that one? Or some understanding? Right now, this isn’t about what OP “wants.”

I don’t see how we even imply the new mom may be a dilly. OP is pressing the new mom, didn’t hold to the one photo, is explaining to us why her own feelings are hurt and her nose is out of joint. Now she wants to write yet another letter explaining and reassuring that it really is okay? What does she expect now? And this isn’t about the grandma’s friends, either.

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I’m blown away by some of the things that make you guys mad, like who gets to put the flamingos on the lawns, who gets to take pictures first, who gets to buy the first shirts.

I am amazed that you have enough people in your family who care that much that they’re competing for who gets to do this first. There is nothing like that in my extended family-they recently boycotted all birthdays because it was an inconvenience and “we’re all old enough now not to need happy birthday sung and ridiculous cakes”. The other side hasn’t talked to their grandkids in 9 years because I annoyed them.

Y’all are super lucky to have so many people that emotionally invested in your kids.