Mother-in-laws can be a real handful, especially when they become grandmothers. One woman took to Reddit to ask for advice about her mother-in-law's complete lack of boundaries as a grandmother. Her post got hundreds of comments backing up her claims that her MIL had "lost it."
More from Mom.com: 8 Things I Never, Ever Want to Hear From My Mother-in-Law Again
She outlined her MIL's behavior, and it's a lot
In her post, she detailed seven different examples of her MIL's questionable behavior. They range from wanting to be called "Mama" to constantly holding, feeding, and changing the baby.
She's also been known to slip up and call the baby by her son's (the baby's father) name, which seems fairly innocent and accidental. But apparently, the MIL takes "40 minutes" to change the baby's diaper in an attempt to spend more alone time with her. According to the poster, the MIL is very possessive of the baby.
Commenters immediately came to the OP's defense
OP shared that her husband mostly backs her up with his mother, but also thinks she's being a bit "harsh."
"Time for a break. Send husband alone. She’s HIS circus. Stop subjecting yourself and your baby to this unhinged person," one person said.
"Tell her that her behavior has earned her no unsupervised time with LO. No more 'whisking baby away' for diaper changes, feedings, etc. No more decisions that aren’t made by YOU or SO. Next time she calls herself Mama make her leave. Consequences put in place will decrease this behavior, hopefully. If not, sucks to be her-go NC," another shared.
"You aren't the butthole here. She is by overstepping. By the time I got to the end of this I was asking myself why is this woman still around this child? She seems to be acting a bit as if it's her do over baby," someone said.
One of the main issues is her desire to baptize the baby
The poster shared that her MIL asked for the baby's measurements to make a baptism gown out of her wedding dress, which was a red flag.
"I REMINDED her that she knows we are not Baptist and do not practice any religion and that we already told her several times that Baby will not be baptized," she wrote, adding that that she asked her son if he "believes in God."
"Watch this woman like a Hawk. She’s perfectly capable (and probably likely to) have your child baptised behind your back!" someone commented.
The OP popped back in to share an update
Shortly after her initial post, the woman posted an update after spending time with her in-laws. While the OP was able to put her foot down and create boundaries around feeding and diaper changes, another thing she mentioned only made people more suspicious of the MIL's behavior.
This time the MIL asked if she could have the baby's measurements to make the baby an apron, which received some raised eyebrows, especially after the baptism dress question.
"The crème de la crème of the night was MIL asking ‘Can I pick up Baby from daycare on Wednesday?’ I said ‘Why?’ And she stuttered something about spending time," she poster shared.
People are now convinced she will get the baby baptized
The MIL's desire to pick the baby up from daycare made the poster want to remove her as an emergency contact out of fear that boundaries around pickup wouldn't be respected, but commenters focused on the earlier issue of the baptism.
"You should consider different emergency contacts, if you have other poeple you trust where you live. You obviously don't trust her anymore. Imagine her having LO in case of emergency when you can't get to LO fast to pick her up," one commenter shared.
"Remove permission for her picking the child up, it's very likely she will get it baptised while you don't know," another commenter said.
"She going to take your baby and get them baptised without your knowledge note the "can I collect them from daycare" nonsense, that baptismal dress is already sewn!" another added.
It sounds like she's going to have to put her foot down even harder.
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