Hellobee Boards

Definitely been there with the car seat issue. They have NO CLUE because it just wasn’t a thing in their generation. My mom gave it up about the rear facing thing when I told her to go look at crash test videos to prove rear facing is safer I go over installation and putting my son in the seat every time I have DS1 travel with my parents or in laws and I don’t care if they roll their eyes. It’s either that or he doesn’t get to go in the car with them. My grandma still says oh poor baby has to look at the seat the whole way. But she also thinks I should put cereal in our 4 month olds bottle, asleep on stomach, breastfeeding is weird, etc. so I ignore that.

Over the holidays my parents were pretty good but my mom did make a comment that maybe we should switch to bottles when DS2 was giving DW a hard time during a nursing session. She thinks breastfeeding is ridiculous because she FF both my brother and I They also seem to think that when I was a baby, I just stayed awake all day and then slept all night through. They constantly make comments that DS2 (4 months) doesn’t look that tired and we’re taking him away from the fun and whatever when we need to have him take 4 naps during the day.

I sent my mom a video or article about internal decapitation when my parents wouldn't stop harping on rear-facing. She apologized and stopped asking

The first is just ignorant but I’d just insist and let them think what they want. I had a similar experience with my dad and just said “once you’ve done the research on safety I’d be glad to discuss this with you. Until then, I’m done discussing it.” For the second, oh hell fucking no. No one is allowed to undermine me in front of my children. Period. I’d honestly sit them down after my kid goes to bed and say “you are welcome to disagree with my parenting decisions, but if you’d like us to visit, I need you to commit to not ever undermining me in front of my kid again. Can you do that?” I feel strongly enough about it that is honestly be prepared to leave and stay in a hotel if they didn’t apologize and agree not to do it again. I know that’s a bit nuclear, and I’m ok with extra treats and bent rules when grandparents are babysitting (because it’s so rare) but downright ignoring a limit I’ve set is not ok at all. I’m lucky neither my parents nor my in laws have done that, but if they did I would 100% call them out and be prepared to draw a firm boundary with them over that.

@peaches1038: ugh. Definitely been there with the car seat thing. My mother would watch my son 2 days a week and didn't know THE STRAPS TIGHTEN. she would make them relatively tight and just try to squeeze him in. Ridiculous.
Her house is a death trap. Medications (closed but still), stairs, glass, fireplaces, literally an old dagger we found in a cabinet (?). But my son is not a "getting into shit" kind of kid. We never babyproofed, just kept a close eye on him. It seemed to help him respect space and danger. Or maybe we just got lucky. But I have relaxed about certain things. There's only so much you can do and parents are so absurdly stubborn and clueless.

My parents aren’t living, but I have grandparents who are a trip. We only live 1.25 hours away, but we haven’t visited them in their house in a year because, despite my reminders before each visit, they couldn’t remember to 1. put all their guns and knives away 2. Lock the gun cabinet and 3. Remove the key from the cabinet. They aren’t even right in the head 100% of the time, so it is beyond my understanding why they should even be allowed to own any. Then there are the dozen medication bottles with caps turned upside down, stored on the coffee table of all places. I brought it up every time, and they never moved them, even temporarily. A visit to their house was always so anxiety provoking for me. Now that I have two mobile kids, I simply cannot visit because I can’t physically keep them both in arms reach at all times. I wish it wasn’t this way, but here we are.

@Iced Tea: this sounds like the visit from hell, wow, that's awful...

@peaches1038: Aww I’m sorry mama! How frustrating!! This is very common grandparent behavior 🙄 My mom brings C junior mints when we meet her out for breakfast. ??!! I think they just want to be liked...

@Becky: I don’t sneak- I blatantly double check. I do it for DH sometimes too. Whatever. I’d rather offend than have my kid not properly secured. If I have a problem with the way DH did something I show him too. I also just say car seats are my crazy area and humor me even if you don’t agree- I’m not strict about screen time or sweets, but this is my area that I am strict. Since my three siblings have different areas where they are “crazy” it works out with my parents. They also say things like “oh your nephew was just in the seatbelt and a thing underneath him when he was 3” to which i respond “well, recommendations have changed in recent years so maybe they changed since he was 3... but also he was in that seat too soon. And it’s called a backless booster.”

@LadyDi: my mom does this too. She gets him to do whatever (get dressed, get in the car, etc) by giving him a jelly bean. He doesn't pull that crap with me so it's not a huge deal but I like really, did you forget how to parent??