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yiiiiikes. My family lives far away, but my MIL would totally do this. Personally, Ive had my mom make the "but shes MY granddaughter!" argument once to me, and I firmly told her "I know you are well intentioned, but she is OUR daughter." You need to tell your mom that, as well as something like
"We need some space right now to bond as an immediate family and figure out the parenting path on our own. You are still more than welcome to come over, but we'd prefer to limit it until we're in a groove and have had some private time." You might hurt her feelings, but if you dont put your foot down now, you are in for a REALLY long road of her doing this more and more. By then, there will be a precedent of "Well you let me see her three times a week for the first 6 months, why do you expect me to stop now?" She will eventually get it. You need tme as YOUR OWN family, and she is intruding

My mom is like this with my nieces. She is too afraid to complain to my brother so she complains to me. She is addicted to them and honestly gets depressed if she can't see them enough. I think its normal. I think my bro and SIL have done a good job of giving her some structure. ie: they ask her to come over for an hour so SIL can do a few things around the house or run an errand. Laundry piles up so she calls my mom to ask if she can come over and help fold it. She always tries to give my mom a job when she's there -- which mom is happy to do.

Maybe if you try giving some structure to your mom so she knows she has a role to play, she'll loosen up. She's just trying to figure out her place and it's important to her to have a role, but right now she doesn't know what that is....?

@Nskillet: ooh, then you might be dealing with jealousy too. My mom has a slight jealous streak of her granddaughters' other grandparents. Even though she wishes she didn't. I think she's afraid they will end up having closer relationships with the other grandparents than with her. She might need reassurance.

I don't have kids yet, but my Mom is totally overbearing. I recently bought an apartment and my Mom is going totally nutz with suggestions and advice on how to fix the place up. Most of her suggestions are things that don't need to be done at all and would add minimal improvements if any. The last time she came up to visit she actually insisted that we go to a hardware store to talk about light bulbls and tried to pressure me into buying expensive $20 LED bulbs for my entire place that would have cost hundreds. I firmly told her no, but she couldn't contain herself so she bought one for me to try and constantly emails me about it!

She's just obsessed with doing things her way and won't accept that I'm a grownup making my own decisions. Lightbulbs (and all the built ins she keeps talking about) are so far down on my priority list I seriously just tune her out.

sigh this gets to me too, when my MIL calls Wagon Jr. HER baby (as in, "my baby is so cute, my baby is so smart".... hello, YOUR baby is 31 years old now. This one is MINE. I do not recall his 99th percentile head ripping through your vagina.

My Mom and MIL!

My Mom analyzes every picture I send her with a fine tooth comb... Why did LO look so tired? Why does she look so dull and unhappy, what are you doing to my granddaughter? You should really dress LO in long sleeve shirts to protect her from the elements. Did I see spit up on her onesie...you should really change her more often. Why didn't DH shave in the most recent picture you sent of LO...he is setting an example that laziness is ok... OMG!!!!

@mrs. wagon: LOL!

@autumnlove: OMG!!! haha!!! your mom would drive me crazy!!! my friend's mom did the same thing when they skyped-- she saw the dog walking around in the background and she FLIPPED. OUT. (p.s. their dog is a 4 lb, 15 year old toothless yorkie)

My mom is the same way. I had to tell her that I felt like I never get any alone time w/ DD (made it sound like I was complaining about everyone else). I think she finally picked up on it because she really has backed off a lot.