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My mom comments on a lot...I had a really hard time about it, to begin with.... now I completely ignore her as if I didn't hear her.......

I also once emailed her a solids chart when she insisted I feed my 4 month old like 2-4 tablespoons of cereal 2 times a day....lol

I think she understood then she has forgot a lot send my DD is healthy and happy!

The only thing my mom commented on a lot at the start was how structured we were with naps and how we prioritized them over our personal lives. In her day "kids went where you went and slept when they needed to" etc. But after a few visits she realized that our way worked for us and now makes comments all the time about how she just always thought babies were whiny and cranky all the time when she had kids and now she realizes we probably spent our whole baby/toddlerhood overtired because we never had regular naps.

My mum and her family are always making comments. ::insert eye roll:: I just ignore and carry on. My kids, our life, our choices, period. It took me awhile to have that attitude but it's here now.

My mom comments a ton, but it's always positive. Which is nice, but there's a point when "you're such a good momma and I'm so impressed with you" type comments get old. Especially since they started back before we were even TTC (they were "you're going to be such a good momma" back then). I've tried to tell her that those type of compliments lose their impact when you say them ALL. THE. TIME. but she hasn't listened.

FIL is opinionated (he was pretty rude to DH about my wanting to go med-free during labor), and his "advice" at the shower (we had a place set up to fill out little cards with advice for the new parents) was, "a belt works." Soooo, yeah. We're planning on positive discipline (no spanking ever), plus attachment parenting, so he's not going to agree with any of it. And I find it unlikely he'll be capable of keeping those thoughts to himself.

MIL mostly makes comments about how I'm STILL BFing. The kids are still young, but I'm sure she'll have other fun stuff to add throughout the years.

I also love how she talks about my niece that already knows how to write her name and how to count to 20...she's FOUR!! DD is TWO?! Haha. Oh well, I'm basically a crappy mom.

My mom does and I have told her to keep her opinions to herself, especially because I don't ask for them! She's always telling me what I should/shouldn't do. And this is from someone who didn't breastfeed because "blood types weren't the same." Yeah...

We pay my mom to nanny 3 days a week, which limits a lot of her "doing whatever she wants" because we're paying her. But she always says stuff like "he likes it when you do it this way" or "he doesn't like that" - as if she knows my son and his inclinations more than I do. Which drives me bananas, especially because he acts a lot more whiny when she's around because she'll do whatever he wants.

Also, our son cannot co-sleep, needs a rigid nap schedule because he doesn't sleep unless forced to and gets super overstimulated, and he's not into food/drinking/milk in general. So the implication is always that we're these cold-hearted parents who never snuggle our baby and lock him in a dark room and are starving him. Except he's completely healthy, sleeps 12 hours a night and naps 2 hours twice a day, and he's SUPER happy and well-behaved when he's awake. But of course, none of our parenting did that - its because he's the sweetest child in the history of Earth and he came out of the womb that way.

My mom comments to me about my sister's parenting so I'm pretty sure I'll get the same treatment when LO is here.

MIL gives unsolicited, well-meaning advice but would NEVER criticize. Annoying sometimes but I just ignore. My mom never, ever does. She trusts me whole-heartedly. She often says, "Yall know so much more than we did. It's wonderful." Shes never defensive about her own parenting.

Most of my mom's comments relate to daycare since she really isn't comfortable with it and wishes I would SAH like she did. I'm sure she says other stuff to other people like my brother and SIL. I know everything she thinks they are doing wrong.

Our parents don't, but my sister (who doesn't have kids) thinks I don't discipline enough and my kids don't know I'm boss. But she's a more assertive person and I'm pretty laid back in general.

@gingerbebe: How old is your LO? Mine is 9 months and we're the same way... rigid naps/bedtime schedule, and LO HATES drinking/milk with a passion. But he is generally a happy, healthy baby. But pretty sure my ILs think we're mean for "making him drink and sleep so much".

My mom has made comments like some of the others, about how we have so much more information available- mostly in a good way. She never really "sleep trained" us and thought it was sort of overblown until she was around my sister and nephew when they did sleep training and she saw what a difference it made, then she totally understood. My dad will make comments occasionally like, Oh we never (whatever parenting issue or transition we are talking about) with you kids! My mom usually stops him right there and says they did so, he just was at work a lot and doesn't remember! She will make comments about how sad it is that all moms can't stay at home. I've tried to explain that not everyone WANTS to but I've given up on that one.

MIL tries really hard it to ever step on toes. The only tiny issue was when she asked me more times than I cared for when I was going to stop nursing. Never said anything bad about it but it got on my nerves.

And one of my aunts sometimes says things about what great parents my siblings and I are. She backs it up with things she thinks are great so I don't mind that one bit.

We're at my ILs for the weekend and in the first 30 minutes they already started with the commentary about how early LO's bedtime is!

My mum is very careful not to comment or question, although I know she did a lot of things differently. Mil and FIL don't necessarily make bad comments, but they give a lot of unrequested advice and suggestions. The other day they were over here and DS was having a bit of a difficult afternoon with lots of testing and meltdowns, and they had a million different ideas about why that might be. Perhaps because he is a toddler!!

Oh, SMIL is one who doesn't care for kids, and never had her own, so she's been a pain with my niece. She told her to stop being a baby (in a not nice tone) for crying when she was 2. That sort of thing will not fly with my kid.

It doesn't help also that BIL (that lives in the same town with my ILs) had his son 2 months before us and of course our nephew a way more relaxed, go-with-the-flow kid who literally sleeps anywhere without any problems. So his parents take him out and go to restaurants all the time because their baby will just sleep in his stroller when he's tired. Nephew doesn't need as much sleep as my son and goes to bed at 10pm apparently. So my ILs don't understand why I get so tense when they want to go out to dinner right at DS' bedtime or whatever. My FIL said something like "we never could have used a schedule because we had 3 kids" - which sorta sounded like "good luck acting nuts like that once you have another kid" to me.

And then my dad said something about how I was too obsessed with the number of ounces my son drank in a day (because I'm constantly worried he'll get dehydrated) because back in his day people nursed and you never knew how much your kid drank. Or that people in my culture think by not roomsharing until school age, you're a coldhearted parent. To which my mom added that she's concerned my son wont ever know what its like to sleep in the warm embrace of his mother. Or something nuts like that. She tried sleeping with him once and he just partied and kicked her in a face and she gave up at like 3am. So DIE.

I think I feel especially annoyed by these comments because DH and I ended up parenting completely differently than we originally intended because our son just flipped the script on us. All the things we thought we would do for him, HE just wasn't into. He doesn't like babywearing, didn't like breastfeeding, doesn't really care about milk/eating/drinking in general so BLW is pointless, he didn't like roomsharing, he WANTED his crib, he hated swaddling, he loves sleeping in his own room in the dark, and needs his routine and sleep schedule to not be a terrorist. So we're doing what works for our son - not what we think or what anyone else thinks is right for him.

My family has a lot to say about how I parent, especially concerning how early LO goes to bed and how we stick to a schedule. It led to a few blowups and now they are very careful when they say something to me. I am so different from the rest of my siblings and my parents in terms of sleep and approach to life that it shouldn't surprise me. My mom did say something the other day that they all worry I don't enjoy LO because he's "scheduled." What does that even mean???

I get irritated because my sister and mom will rave about how happy and easy going my LO is, and then complain about the fact we are leaving because he has to go to bed...it still hasn't occurred to them that the fact he gets his needed sleep is directly related to how happy he is!

@regberadaisy: I KNOW I will. I get comments from my mom already, and we don't even have kids yet!
She's always talking about being a 'textbook mom' and how it's a bad thing... I like researching things! lol. Oh well...