Reprimanded (Gently) for Letting My 2-Week-Old Grandson See My Face When Parents Want Him to Go To Sleep

Oh how ridiculous! The world I fear is going potty! What will they come out with next I wonder?!

My mother would like to stoke my newborns head while I was nursing. She’d try talking to the baby when they were about to fall asleep.

She was told similar to you- stop distracting baby!

I’m sure I wasn’t nearly as nice in my reprimand.

I think you sound totally normal NewGranny and I would also be surprised if a bonkers "rule" was sprung on me. You don't sound overly wounded - just bemused
and slightly taken aback.

My DS and his wife have some different ways of parenting but I let them get on with it. At my house, the focus is on food, rest, warmth, happiness - in whatever order necessary.

How lovely to have a growing family. Congratulations on being a granny - it's The Best.

Ps. Your son and partner will one day look back and laugh at this silly "rule", especially if they have more children! We're all a bit daft with the first!

Sorry I saw this thread this am and didn't see your last reply. You'll do fine. It's new for everyone and it takes time to figure it all out.

Give these parents a break! I'm sure they didn't deliberately hurt your feelings. They are probably exhausted - it is so hard to recover from a labour and delivery and then go home and look after a baby.

Many thanks for the supportive and informative replies! I can understand the advice, and of course am following new mom and dad's rules - well aware that times change and my old ways are just that - old....

A few months ago, I uprooted myself from my home state in the US, to move 1,000 miles at my son and his wife's request. They bought a house for me, near their own house.

From the first day home from the hospital with the baby, my son and his wife had asked me to come over for a few hours in the early evening to give them some relief and a chance to eat a meal, take a shower, etc.

Last week my ex-husband (and new Grandad) came to town to see our grandson. We have been divorced for 20 years. He still behaves like a jerk around me, and makes everyone very uncomfortable. So my routine visits were suspended, and yes, 2 days away was a new experience.

On reflection, I realized that I can use this time to schedule things like visits to the dentist, etc., and certainly have not been sitting at home waiting to be invited over... Mr-Ex will leave town soon enough, and I live here now...

I'm resilient and independent, and just had to remind myself that while my primary purpose in moving nearby is to be near my grandson, there is also life going on with many interesting experiences waiting to be had.

I have a new grandson about 3 weeks old and have seen him for the first time this week - (we live some 300 miles away so it’s not easy to pop in) - our daughter is a very anxious first time mother who is doing fantastically well. Today she was keen for me to watch an of episodes of a Netflix documentary called Babies (Senses) it was very informative and the research being carried out is amazing - l wish l had seen it when l was a new mum - you can learn new stuff even at our age - l would suggest you take a look at it and try and persuade your grandsons’s parents to as well - very enlightening information about baby development.

My son who is now 54 years old was very difficult to get to sleep at night. The health visitor advised us to put him in his cot and to sit in the room but never have eye contact and to ignore his crying, which would eventually get him to sleep. It was torture to do and often my husband would fall asleep before the baby.
No eye contact is not new as the baby gets stimulated and thinks it is a game. My daughter in law (his wife) always had our DGD in her arms until she had dropped off, we thought that bonkers too but it worked for them and they are still incredibly attached.

I'd say not too get too upset. First time parents usually find it a stressful time. My daughter in law had some weird and wonderful ideas. My own mum told me not too worry that when she got to number two plus, she'd just be pleased to let someone take over. That was absolutely true. I asked my daughter in law if there was a certain way she'd want me too do something and she said 'no, you'rerthe one looking after them. I know they are in good hands'. Things will settle down and change. Just enjoy your grandson

A cat can look at a queen.

Apparently not in these strange times.

New parents have their own ideas.
We are considered old fashioned. Don’t put the child up the chimney or down the mines.
How did our children survive?
You are to be entrusted with their precious baby. It’s their way or you will never be trusted again.
I often have to bite my tongue. The alternative is not worth thinking about.
Congratulations on being a granny. Enjoy and bite your tongue.

The judgement on this thread baffles me. Those poor sleep deprived parents

When my oldest was a few weeks old, she was a horrible sleeper. I was barely functioning due to lack of sleep and desperate. At the advice of the Pediatrician, we set up a routine for sleep. One of the things was to not make eye contact when she was falling asleep or during night time changes. That advice was given to me 18 years ago, so not some new fangled made up thing that new parents today are using in order to offend the grandparents.

If anyone had poked their face at the baby during our "go to sleep" routine and I had to start over, I would have given a more then gentle reprimand. It would have been not pleasant at all. ESPECIALLY since mine was eating every 2 hours (like all babies do) and getting her to sleep took forever.

OP: I am sorry you felt put out that the parents of the baby were upset that you interrupted his new "go to sleep" routine. I wouldn't take it personally that they did not inform you ahead of time that they were trying something new. It was probably the last thing on their sleep deprived minds as they are adjusting to having a new member of their family. I know at that stage of new parenthood, I was not thinking of others feelings as a priority over what my needs with a newborn were.

I am sure that by the time you are participating in care, the parents will have the baby on a better sleep schedule and you need not worry about this scenario playing out again.

but the wider point is, don't be offended, it's not worth it.
it's their call.
and you say it had been all of two days that you hadn't seen GS?
well, that says a lot.
sounds too often to me.
once a week is enough.
don't crowd them.

i can see how it might work.
i used to creep down to see, sunday night at the london palladium, and if everyone was laughing enjoying the acts, they didn't notice, didn't bother marching me back to quarters.
if the tv had been off, and all quiet on the below front, i wouldn't have bothered.
it's early FOMO.

he'll be at university soon, so forget it ever happened, it seems like everyone is on edge, new parents, new granny.

This has triggered a memory of me explaining to my own dear Mum on how to cross a road with my newborn in the prom. I told her about zebra crossings and Belisha beacons and bless her cotton socks, she stood and listened to me , didn’t say a word and went for a walk. She later reminded me that she had reared five children of her own without killing them! Remember, it’s new parents, scared and exhausted .

Ive never heard of this stupid rule (thank goodness).

Poor little baby being depraved of his Grandmothers loving smiles.

Just out of interest how the hell does not seeing faces help him sleep?????

The parents were obviously sleep deprived and maybe did not speak as diplomatically as one would wish, but as for

It is amazing the rules now applied by parents to ensure the well bing of their babies. I cannot imagine how the human race has managed to grow so much given the conditions and circumstances most babies coming into the world now, not to mention the billions that have been born over the aeons of time have been born and brought up

It used to be that mother and baby would be isolated from most of society for forty days after childbirth, and that was a practice that was pretty universal except in the case of deprived mothers with no support.

NewGrannyInTX

Visiting my new grandson and his parents the other day, the little guy was awake while his dad with holding him, and I was looking into the baby's face, smiling at him and talking to him softly - he was wide awake and I hadn't seen him in a couple of days. Apparently, his mom and dad were trying a new technique to get him to fall asleep, which involved not having him look at faces.... This was a new one on me. And they didn't tell me anything about this in advance, so I was taken aback for essentially being reprimanded for looking at the baby. Really???? I have made it a point to ask them how they want things done (I will become his caregiver when mom and dad go back to work), and this caught me off guard. And honestly, hurt my feelings a bit since it came out of the blue without telling me about it ahead of time. I do plan to tell them to clue me in if they are doing something new, so they don't spring something like that on me again. As a new parent myself, I set boundaries with my own parents that they balked at (like not smoking cigarettes around the baby), but never saw this one coming... I guess I'm looking for some re-assurance that this was indeed over-the-top - or some enlightenment if I am truly behind the times in what to expect.

Bit ott if they hadn't given younthe heads up! However, I used a technique on my 2 DS my nieces and my puppies!! I would gaze at them, not intently but then Crosse my eyes , fake a stifled yawn, then gradually let my eyes slide closed, worked every time! And yep I did have to crawl on all 4s in and out of nursery with both DS to avoid waking them! #2DS would then try to see me over edge of his cot once he got wise to me! Ever tried commando crawling all way across a landing and down stairs?!??

Some young parents treat their babies like scientific experiments rather than small humans.

New Granny, Congratulations first of all. Try not to worry about new parents being led by fads, they will get over it. Getting pulled up when you weren't in the loop about this particular thing seems rather sharp but grandparenting is a crash course in eggshell treading without a guide book. I agree, for what it's worth, that the faces, security, warmth, smells and sounds of people who love a child is beyond value. A baby so young deserves nothing less, comfort and safety are paramount, not rigid rules.
Hope things relax soon.

Omg, I’m so pleased my daughters aren’t into this nonsense
One of mine is a senior midwife and she laughed when I read this too her.
I feel sorry for you, a new baby is supposed to be a happy time and people smile at babies eventually they focus and get excited at a smiling face …
Poor baby what are they doing to it ?
It’s not you and you have done nothing wrong bless your heart x

They are tired! That’s all - new parents are sure they’ve invented some new ‘thing’ - they haven’t - but don’t offer anything - wait to be asked!!

The point is, the OP was not told that they were using this new technique - and she got "reprimanded" for it.

What happens when the OP is providing childcare? Whose "rules" will it be then? Presumably, it won't be considered that she is seeing too much of her grandson when she is needed for (maybe unpaid) child care, allowing them both to work.

As for the technique, it seems weird to me.

I had not consciously thought about this before but actually, when my toddler grandaughter lays herself down and is about to drift off in her pram, I deliberately do not catch her eye because I know she will sit herself up and start chatting to me.