[MelbChick]

This is bordering on a vent, but I'm actually curious to hear from others in the same situation...

I just had an intense exchange with my mother because my 10 week old baby girl has had a couple of really unsettled mornings over at her place (she usually helps me out with the kids at least one day on the weekend). It's really nice to go over there and have the help... but whenever my daughter cries, she's always going on and on about "tummy pain" and what I've eaten (I'm breastfeeding) and saying things like, "You poor thing, you're in pain" to the baby and generally making me feel as though I'm somehow torturing my child by feeding her my milk. My mother in law, whilst equally helpful, loving and supportive in all other respects does exactly the same thing.... it drives me pretty nuts!!

They are both supportive of breastfeeding.... but they absolutely cannot STAND to hear my kids cry. If either of them are holding my daughter when she starts crying, or if I ask them to hold her while I get something for her or try to get settled somewhere to offer her the breast, then they instantly let their own anxiety about it completely override my own assessment of how serious the situation is.

If I say, "she's just really tired - she should have been asleep ages ago" (which usually produces that crying that winds up and up the less able she is to settle herself and the tireder she gets) they argue with me and say, "she's pulling her legs up. She's got wind." Or, my MIL produces some 1970's book about colic and how I shouldn't be eating tomatoes and lettuce or some other cr*p.

Mostly I try and patiently talk them through what I've observed with her patterns of crying and what generally leads to a fairly intense episode like the one that happened this morning. I quote all of the usual tomes such as 'Baby Love' and parrot wisdom from our independent midwife... but they WILL NOT hear it. I can see the sound of my baby's crying hot-wiring itself straight into the anxious-mother cortex of their psyches, which seem to be impervious to any kind of calming stimuli.

Today it was too much for me. I was managing my own anxiety and upset about whether there might be something more seriously wrong with my baby - watching her carefully for anything unusual - I tried changing her position, changing her clothes, feeding her (of course) and just rocking and comforting her. I tried distraction and it wasn't working... but she didn't have a temperature, and she did manage to take small breaks from time to time before starting up again. I felt her body for any reactions to my touch and she seemed comfortable. She wasn't even pulling her legs up or stiffening her body in the way that would normally get my mum 'going'. It was horrendous, as it always is, to feel powerless to understand the needs of my child or to provide comfort from something distressing.

... So WHY in the midst of all this do I find myself dealing not only with my own anxiety, but the anxiety of these two other mothers? They have had two and three of their own children, respectively. Did their babies never cry? Do they not remember? .... or is it really my fault that I don't instantly panic and take my daughter to a doctor and demand a barrage of tests for this 'unexplained' crying. When I told my mum she was stressing me out, she said, "Well if it was ME, I'd be taking her to the doctor and checking that there's not something more seriously wrong".

(Private thought: Well, it's NOT you!)

After all of this, I put the baby in the car and drove home. As I approached the house, I felt my anxiety levels halve. I was still reasonably concerned about what had been going on, but my anxiety was my own and back to being more manageable. By the time I had got inside the house, the baby had calmed down and her dad (after hearing how stressed I was) took over holding her and talking to her, after which time she seemed completely happy and normal, eventually did a big poo and then promptly went to sleep as if nothing had happened. His observation was that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her.

So - should I be worried, or not? Are any of you dealing with something similar? ... My daughter has a reasonably long unsettled period, usually in the evening between 8:30pm and midnight. Sometimes it seems she's awake for nearly this whole time, completely unable to get settled until she's fed and cried and fussed and jiggled and burped and pooed and cried some more until she's completely spent.... and then she sleeps soundly for 4 or 5 hours and then another 3 or 4 hours until morning (which I think is fantastic for a very young baby), and then has very contented awake periods and goes very easily to sleep during the day until the evening crazy period comes around again. For the last two days she's had her crazy period in the mornings instead of the evenings, therefore it has been witnessed by outsiders and invited this speculation about her wellbeing.

[mummame]

Oh yes I have got this with all my kids from my MIL. My MIL used to get really anxious when my DD was just behaving like a normal baby. And my DD did the same as yours, very unsettled for the 1st 9 weeks and needed to be held/fed/cuddled all night, and sometimes most of the day. She grew out of it and eventually accpeted her cot as a nice place to rest! Totally normal for a newborn to be unsettled during the day. And normal behaviour from a MIL as well, the amount of times I heard 'she's in pain, shes got wind' *concerned look* AHHHH frustrating!

[Kemma]

My mil cannot deal at all.
Once when DD was about the same age we were all in a car together and DD would not stop crying in her car seat. She was pretty worked up but we only had about 2 min to go and mil starts yelling to FIL - pull over pull over I can't stand it and ringing her hands. It was spectacular in its freak show-ness.
Dd always hated the car. From experience I knew there was no point stopping. It was better for all to deal with it for the duration.

My FIL asked me what I would like to do and I said to continue on it was only a couple of mins.

Mil continued mumbling under her breath and we very happily got out the other end all safe and sound.

She has 2 children, DH & BIL. She told me once my BIL used to cry in his cot so much he'd vomit. So I'm not taking any parenting tips from her.

I think she's happier just to drink out the sound of the crying
(who said that? )

[Tesseract]

Freya - LOVE the name!

In relation to your post: I'm sorry but I had to have a little giggle, my mum was exactly the same, even down to the words "oh you poor baby yes you're in pain, you've got wind"! It must be a generational thing. It used to drive me nuts too. In the end I just gave up and let mum walk the baby around and jiggle her (as long as I was sure she didn't want to breastfeed) during the fussy period. Let me have a break! And eventually mum would get over it and hand the baby back. And then eventually the "wind" episodes passed as she got past about 12 weeks.

If they're attributing the "wind" to what you're eating then that's no good, do try to set them straight on that one. I was seeing an LC (about other breastfeeding issues) and I asked her and she said there was no evidence about food intake and fussiness etc. Once mum heard it from the LC she didn't argue with me anymore...maybe you could print out some info from the ABA, under the guise of "researching it" yourself.

You know what though? Mum kind of convinced me of the existence of "wind" in the end!

[kelbelblue]

Had my MIL to stay over easter, and she was the same but for some reason it never occurred to her to give me DD back to feed her...had to ask for her back EVERY DAMN TIME!!! DD hadn't pooed for a few days and was trying really hard, so MIL was making horrible grunting noises at her, when we questioned her she was 'just trying to do it for her'
agree with PP about others over stimulating, sometimes bubs just want a cuddle from mum or dad in quiet, other people just smell different, its a lot to get used to!

This post has been edited by kelbelblue: 22/04/2012, 05:08 PM

[soontobegran]

If going over there is not really helpful then I would give it a miss. Invite her into your home to help, maybe under your roof she may be less inclined to hand out advice. One part of me wants to say that you are lucky that she wants to be involved however I do understand that what she is doing would grate on you.
In answer to your question though...no, I do not freak out when I have my grandchildren with me. I hope that my children would say I was level headed and had a calming influence.......I still don't like to hear them cry though.

Good luck with this.

[4WD_Baby#1]

My MIL offers unwanted advice so much she stresses me out. She told me I can't breast feed as I'm on an antidepressant and that hospital will take my baby off me! Which is untrue! I am close to hating her already. She smoked with her pregnancies, I don't. She reckons that was ok.

[MelbChick]

Thanks heaps for all of your replies. I'm glad I posted. It always feels a bit strange to 'go public' but already I am cheered up

DD hadn't pooed for a few days and was trying really hard, so MIL was making horrible grunting noises at her, when we questioned her she was 'just trying to do it for her'

If going over there is not really helpful then I would give it a miss. Invite her into your home to help, maybe under your roof she may be less inclined to hand out advice. One part of me wants to say that you are lucky that she wants to be involved however I do understand that what she is doing would grate on you.
In answer to your question though...no, I do not freak out when I have my grandchildren with me. I hope that my children would say I was level headed and had a calming influence.......I still don't like to hear them cry though.

Don't get me wrong, I consider myself spectacularly lucky to have so much help!! They are very loving women, both of them... so I think that's partly why it's so frustrating. Where is trust in their (and my) ability to calmly provide whatever the baby needs? I wish I could look to them for a more steady, calm and helpful response as I'm sure they have bucketloads of wisdom if they could ever just relax and tap into it!

[MilkyWhite]

I reckon every woman over the age of 50 who ever held one of my babies while they were crying would say "Oh you poor little thing. You must have wind / colic / reflux / gas / sore tummy". None of my children (in hindsight) ever had gas / wind / colic / reflux. Every now and then they would get a bit cranky if they hadn't pooed for a day or two, but then don't we all? They cried much like yours did because they were overstimulated or tired or it was the end of the day or they were sick of being passed round to strangers and they were BABIES!.

And like you I would always feel terribly insulted like these women were trying to tell me I was doing something wrong as a mother or worse, I was ignorant of how to be a mother and care for a baby.

But you know what? EVERY baby is different (something they have clearly forgotten). And the person who knows that baby best in the world is YOU!!!! YOU have spend countless hours looking at her little face and feeding her and cuddling her and getting her to sleep and knowing her every move. You feel like a new mum and a beginner at this but you are the WORLD EXPERT at that particular baby. Add to that that you have mothers instinct that cannot be ignored. Thankfully MILS and everyone else can be ignored. Just say "Oh really? Maybe. I'm pretty sure it isn't. I'll pop her in bed now if you don't mind....".

[au*lit]

Every photo of DS and MIL together when he was a newborn, DS is screaming his head off. I think she felt anxious around him while he was so small and never seemed to handle him confidently. Despite having two kids of her own and two older grandchildren, she never seemed at ease around him and he seemed to pick up on her anxiety.

She also drove me up the wall attributing everything to 'wind'. He cried and it was wind, he smiled and it was wind, he grunted and it was wind, he farted and it was wind (OK so technically, farting was probably wind, but you get the picture).

She also was not good with the crying. I remember once he was tired and crying and she said 'oh it just breaks your heart, doesn't it?' and I remember thinking 'no, it doesn't, it makes me think he's tired and I hope he goes to sleep soon'.

My mum on the other hand is pretty good with little babies and will be calm in the face of crying, so was great when the crying got too much for me to handle.