Help me to understand

phoenix, just read your post on 'Getting out of Hand'! Satsum did respond on the other thread - it seems to have slipped down.....

Hello back again. Yes the relationship with my MIL is a good one however she does not have any daughters and is quite used to being head of the family and organising her husband and sons. I have waited 8 months to sort this out because I have just finished breastfeeding and I no longer can use that as an excuse to take my daughter back. As a first time Mum I am trying to learn how to deal with new emotions regarding my daughter and I needed your take on a situation just to clarify my own thinking. I have invited my MIL over next week and I will be addressing this dilemma firmly and confidently.

Wishing you well, satsum

GOOD! The best bit of being a gran, I gather, is being able to hand them back!
I never expected to be a nan, and wasn't really interested!
But now I am!
I'm besotted by my DGD, but if she starts to want mum? It's straight back!

For some reason she thinks granny is funny!

I am glad you have decided to deal with things satsum - not easy I know, and I do wish you well. I know you will handle it well as you have taken the trouble to try and see both sides.

You don't need an excuse to take your daughter back - it is your right and the best thing for her.

Jeni is right - being with GC is great - but handing them back it good too - I am usually exhausted by that time!

Good for you, Satsum. You are a good mum and I hope your MiL appreciates you.

That's good to hear, satsum. All the very best.

Good luck satsum I hope you will handle it sensitively as it really does sound as if she is not doing it deliberately to upset you because she is such a nice person. Please don't let it turn into a row and stick to this one point only. I have seen small things escalate in families and everyone throw in unimportant things so that it looses all sense of proportion. Please let us all know how it goes.

I think the original poster has been handling it sensitively for far too long. Eight months in fact.

Some things have to be tackled head on. Doesn't have to turn into a big row.

I agree. I wouldn't have let it happen more than once. When my mum and sister-in-law didn't call me in from gardening for my mum and DD1, aged four months, cried after her nap, even though I'd specifically asked them to "call me when she wakes", I never trusted them with such a task again. They were challenging my mothering style, out of jealousy. OK, message received, trust lost. Simple.

They didn't even pick her up themselves. That would have been allright. They just left her to cry. Swines.

I honestly think this is being blown out of all proportion and that there is probably a lot more to it than what we are being told.

I cannot honestly see any point in ruining what seems to be a perfectly good MIL and DIL relationship over something quite trivial. I still say it could be handled with a little humour and sensitivity and does not call fro a great big "show down".

I wouldn't say it was a trivial matter at all, gillybob.

This is strange behaviour. I would have heard warning bells ringing long since and would not take baby round unitil things have been cleared up. You can imagine how something like that could develop in later years. Those feelings she has for that child cannot be called love. Love is different. Quite different, You have to be hard hearted indeed to keep hold of a breastfed baby when it is screaming. Unforgivable, even cruel I think.

Now you can all call me harsh but the story is so upsetting.

Hi Anagram Perhaps trivial was the wrong word to use. But what I mean to say is that its not something worth falling out over or causing a huge family upset is it? Nobody died.

The MIL probably feels upset that she is unable to pacify baby grandaughter and although she is dealing with it rather oddly (dare I say silly) it might be the only way she knows how.

.......People are all different and as I said in the other thread running on the same subject I think it could be easily sorted with a little tact and humour.

oh Blimey talk about blowing things out of all proportion. I have a picture in my mind of a lady (granny)unable to pacify a baby (her first grandchild). Holding on to her for a little too long in the feeble hope that she will stop crying for mummy.

Some people are painting a picture of a bl**dy mad woman half possessed by demons !

...........and I wonder satsum do you REALLY want to understand?

an if you do then why don't you just ask her why she does it?

Not accepting behaviour one doesn't like from one's mother or mother-in-law does not mean one has to fall out with them, gillybob. I didn't fall out with my mum when she didn't respect my wishes regarding my baby; I just didn't rely on her to do what I preferred any more.

satsum's situation is somewhat different in that someone else is holding the baby when she wants to, but it still needn't effect a "falling out"unless the MIL simply refuses to co-operate with what the baby's mother wants.

Calm down, gillybob!

None of us knows the entire picture, we're just giving our opinions based on what satsum has told us. In my case the thought of a woman deliberately taking the baby out of the room when it needed feeding by its mother struck me as very odd indeed, but it probably should have been dealt with there and then.

Why do I feel like I am being "told off" for trying to keep the peace? Sadly I only had a MIL for a few months. She did things differently from my mum but neither of them were right or wrong, just different.

Maybe its a Geordie thing I don't know but I am a great believer in not causing world wars when things can be easily sorted with a little humour and some gentle words.

..and bags please spare me the sermon............ "if one doesn't like what one is doing then one should..............." you sound like The Queen !

Oh you haven't heard me when I am excited Anagram LOL

It wouldn't be a full blown argument!

Just say something like, "There are bound to be times when she wants Mum or Dad - you know, just like your children did, remember?".

And keep saying it till she catches on.

No WW3.

I am like the queen, gillybob

NOT!! I just use the pronoun 'one' sometimes when it seems to fit better. Not trying to be anything except clear.

No shoulds in my post either. You're reading a sermon into it.

I kidded my grandson for years that I was the queen in my spare time.

He laughs about it now, but he really did believe it!