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My mom was not supportive about breastfeeding. It was awful! She was constantly nagging me about wanting to be able to feed DS. DH was deployed and I really needed support from her. After having some feeding issues added to that lack of support, I ended up switching to formula. I still regret the switch and can't help but place part of the blame on her for not supporting me. I so know how it feels to hear those comments!

My mom isn't that bad, but I am expecting my Dad's wife to be horrible. She expressed her opinions constantly when her own daughters first had their babies and that drove me nuts (and it wasn't even about me!). My plan is to not talk to her about it. And honestly, I'm going to keep quiet about our decisions among most of my older female relatives. I'm sorry that I'm invoking a stereotype, but I think it's often the women of our mothers' and grandmothers' generation who are the worst for this. I'm keeping to vague answers to questions (even with my mom) and I'm just going to do my own thing. We'll see how it goes.

My mom is really annoying to my brother and my SIL. I can't wait to have kids to hear the crazy stuff that comes from my mom.

I'm not pregnant yet, but I have heard all about this sort of stuff from my sister. My mom is very distrustful of doctors, so she has all these theories about how they were wrong about the due date, this and that. She did BF all of us, so her judgy-ness comes more in not understanding how people can have a hard time with it or have it not work out. It's not very nice. She was also pretty judge-y about the name my brother picked for his son, to the point that she hoped they had a girl (team green). Now of course she is fine with it, but it was annoying.

For the OP, I'd say, just tell your mom you are thinking of the middle name pretty heavily, but aren't deciding anything until you meet her. Then just say, oh she just didn't look like a Harper Leigh! (FWIW, I think that's pretty adorable, but yeah, people who assume you named her after the author, so I get it).

My mom was really offended when I told her we weren't going to be co-bedding because she did it with us. My husband is a heavy sleeper who rolls and I don't want to add any SIDS risks to our lives- she told me SIDS is a myth and no one ever rolls on their baby...right.

My BIL's girlfriend also has interesting ideas, and she has no living children. She's forever telling me that you should still drink, smoke, do pot and eat all restricted foods because the stress is worse for the baby than any of that is... Because I disagree (mostly because these behaviors definitively caused her 21 week loss and because I'm not crazy) I'm apparently the whacky one.

That sounds awful. I'm sure FIL will have plenty of unsolicited opinions. DH has already told me that he's sure his dad won't be happy when we tell him nobody can come see the baby until an hour after delivery because I want family bonding time. I told him, "I don't really care."

When I was struggling with breast feeding my twins my mom kept telling me all about formal, how it's fine, and how they could help feed them. Not that I didn't know that formula was ok. My oldest son was completely formula feed nd he's fine but I relly wanted to try. One of the days I was having a really hard time and a lot of pain she kept harping on the formula and I lost it. I screamed at her in tears as I was trying to tandem nurse these babies that if she didn't want to support me in what I was trying to do tht she could just leave.

She looked at me in horror and explained that she was trying to support me. She just wanted me to know it was ok if it was too hard. I told her I needed her to tell me I could do it instead of telling me I can stop. She was much better after that.

I'm sorry! I would have to start avoiding them if I were you! I try not to bring up my more "controversial" decisions with people (natural labor, cloth diapering, etc) because I just don't want to hear unsolicited advice. Same thing with the name, we are telling no body the name for the same reasons!