MIL Issues

Perhaps you can teach your MIL some baby massage (if you can keep you 15 month old still!!). You could talk as you do it in nice low tones showing your MIL how well you daughter responds to gentle touch and a calm atmosphere.

Just an idea!!

Cara, can you comminicate with your MIL ok? I must admit I wish I could talk to mine more but sometimes my lack of Cantonese has it's advantages ... He he!

oh waffle_hk,


so sorry to hear about your MIL issues.


my MIL is great-she's currently visiting, non-intrusive/critical about our parenting skills whatsoever, loves my baby to bits but is restraint enough not to overwhelm him because she knows she is a stranger to him (having only seen last year UK).


but my extended family is probably more like your MIL - big, loud and loves to criticise how i bring up my baby. everything from his bedtime, his diet, his inquisitive nature (loves exploring new things). especially his personality - he doesn't like it when people shove themselves in front of his face then he cries, runs away and then they comment he is naughty -DUH????!!!!! which kid wouldn't? and how he can't sit still - comments like oh so naughty, our kids never ran around the house like that, happy to sit in playpen for hours. what, a kid is naughty just cos he doesn't like to sit in a playpen????


i ignore them and sad as it is, i don't visit as much anymore because it's just not working (only tolerating major holidays and if i know it'll be a small crowd). you do what you feel is right.


i'm sorry that i don't have solutions but i can imagine you are definitely not alone!

My MIL is staying at the moment, but has just moved out to a hotel as was agreed cause our place in tiny. Actually I think it's your husband who needs to speak directly with her.....that's if he has cut the apron strings himself and is 100% on your team and ready to defend the way you have chosen together to raise this child. My husband really had to tell his mum in clear terms that she needed to release him and move on a few years back. It was hard and seemed damaging at first....But now we all have a fantastic relationship and they respect our boundaries and are wonderful. I have more trouble with my own mother butting in with her criticism or analysing of why my son behaves the way he does. She had four girls so somehow she's the expert in raising kids! It's awkward having inlaws there when you have a new baby I had that with my second and it was definately weird cause I was worrying about the family dynamics more than looking after myself. Good Luck and hope things work out well. Cara I would be sooo pissed by that incident, thank GOD my MIL is very good at keeping her opinion to herself.


We have to keep it together for the kids right, man does my son go crazy for his grandparents, they are the royalty in our house at the moment it's super cute.