Hellobee Boards

I think your husband may surprise you. I thought my husband would get really defensive about me wanting to implement pretty harsh rules to protect LO from my in law's smoking. But it turns out he is totally on board. My husband is typically very defensive about his family but the safety of our baby is more important than not hurting feelings when there is a legit concern.

My LO will never be left alone with my mother. She was abusive when I was growing up and I don't trust her to look after a child. (I started a thread about this awhile ago.) She lives across the country from us so I only have to worry about twice-a-year visits when she'll be staying with us or us with her. I think it will be easier to "keep an eye" on her that way, but I still plan to be very vigilant. I don't want her to even stay in our house when she visits, but that's a battle I'm still working on.

My husband had a hard time agreeing at first, because he had wonderful parents and doesn't understand what it's like to have a parent you can't trust. (Especially because to everyone else, my mother seems like she would be the perfect grandmother.) He wanted to let her come stay with us right after LO is born and I put my foot down and said no. He came to understand my perspective over the course of several conversations because in the end it is about LO's well-being, which always comes first.

@rahlyrah: I completely feel your pain. My IL's gave DH's nephew peanut butter as a baby, specifically because SIL told them not to, and how dangerous peanut allergies are. They just blatantly don't care about other people's parenting methods, and what is actually safe! There's no way I'll let them watch our LO. DH flip flops about it, but honestly, I don't care. I'm going to stand my ground.

@RAHLYRAH When I was growing up my Grandmother was bipolar. She was a hoarder and wouldn't take her meds (when I was 16 I remember her being in the psych ward in a hospital, angry about something, bashing her head against the wall, which I would assume was padded, it was very strange). She was never ever nasty to me or abusive, but my parents were very very very protective of me and my siblings when it came to her. We almost never spent the night at her house, and my parents have even said that when we were toddlers one of them would be three steps behind us to take things out of our hands etc.

I feel like they handled the situation well, because I grew up having a relationship with my Grandmother, but it was one (I now realize) that was protected and completely on my parents' terms. In fact, I didn't even know she was sick until I was 16 with the hospital incident.

I would imagine that you have a bit of a battle with your MIL, but once your LO gets here and DH is head over heals in love and goes into protective mode, just talk to him about it. There is no way he won't see your side of the story. Maybe you could even start planting the seed in his head, so that it becomes his idea that she shouldn't be alone with the baby.