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We hide a lot of things from my FIL. He has no idea we bed share, for example. He's also VERY pro-spanking, so I can't even imagine how he's going to react to the fact that we won't use punitive discipline at all. Breastfeeding didn't work out, but if we have another I won't wean till at least two. He's going to be HORRIFIED.

My mom, thankfully, is very willing to go with whatever we decide. My dad, shockingly, has done the same. Before LO was born he was very vocal about sleep training (which we would never do), but he hasn't said a word since. And he 100% knows she wakes up at night because when we were there he saw me getting up for more milk at night.

Oh, and I'm very strongly for gender neutral parenting. I don't think anyone will care much if LO winds up preferring boy clothes, but if we ever have a boy... if he wants to wear girly stuff that is his right, but oh. my. god. my family and DH's will flip the eff out. God forbid we ever have a transgendered kid; I'd have to cut most of both of our families out of our lives.

It's really funny that my Mom and MIL are HORRIFIED and go on and on about DS's bedtime being "so early" (6:30pm) but whenever they are in charge of watching him for the day and putting him down I notice bedtime is suddenly even EARLIER lol. He goes at 200% all day and skips his nap most of the time and is a tantrumming screaming exhausted mess by 6pm. It's all we can do to keep him up until 6:30!

Otherwise it's the other way around - we are horrified at things they do! Like my MIL going out of her way to drive to the grocery store with DS when she was watching him for the day to buy him peanut butter. She knows he hasn't had this yet (per our doctors instructions) and it could potentially be deadly. Oh and we left the house stocked with food, like stuffed to the gills. Then she doesn't even ask us first and just feeds it to him. Yeah..

After my LO was born my mom's exact words were "what do you mean your going back to work?"

Also, blw totally blew her mind. My inlaws struggles with the blw concept too.

My mom thinks that's very weird that we use cold bottles and cold wipes. She was def opinionated about babies only needing to be fed every 4 hrs until alllll the hospital nurses and educational videos talked about breastfeeding every 2 to 3 hours. That helped her be much more supportive. Back when she formula fed me, she only had me every 4 hours, and if I was screaming hungry besides that, she would feed me bottles of water or bottles of tea (!!!) to calm down my stomach.

My in-laws think that swaddlling is a very weird concept. They also think it's wonderful when babies suck their thumb, & I honestly think it's kind of gross in my personal opinion. I much prefer pacifiers.

My Mom is horrified that I feed LO grapes, as if I don't cut them up or something

@Cole: Your daughter got lead poisoning??

My mom and MIL are very laid back and mainly keep their thoughts to themselves, but I can tell a few things bug them.

My mom:
-I don't put socks on DD for daycare (it's a million degrees in the infant room and they come off instantly anyway)
-The possibility that I might BF past 12 months
-Swaddling (she kept commenting at how awful it must be to have your arms strapped down)
-That we plan on raising our kids in the city and taking them to parks and on hikes for their outdoor time, instead of buying a huge suburban house with a huge backyard

MIL:
-That we use natural cleaners (vinegar, thymol) instead of bleach/triclosan
-DD is taking her time with the gross motor milestones. MIL keeps making comments about how soon she expects her to be doing the next thing, or about how DH's sister was walking by 8 months. What are we going to do, persuade her to try harder? Who cares?
-That we still have the crib mattress on the middle setting instead of the lowest setting. She really does think that LO is going to spring up and start walking any second. She isn't pulling up to stand yet. When she does, we will.

Oh and this isn't that he was horrified, but my dad implied that he thought I'd be okay with taking DD on a 10-minute ride in his rental car when she was 4 months old without her car seat being installed. Like that I would just buckle her into a loose car seat that was not attached to the car. He was a little surprised when I was adamant that was not in any way an option.

@Cole: Oh my god. How did you even know to get her tested? That must have been so scary.

That I enforce a sleep schedule. The days she keeps him she delights in telling me about how he didn't want to nap until 2 p.m....and then he wakes up at 4:30 p.m. and refuses to go to bed at his normal time and he's a hot mess. It's a continuing issue.

The one we really got into an argument about was she told me I should spank LO when he was having sleep troubles and kept screaming until I had to go settle him. NO.

They're all pretty good about how we raise L. The one thing I did notice was how strict I was about his sleep schedule. We had a crappy sleeper, we sleep trained and he started sleeping like an angel. I don't think they realised how much relief I felt having a good sleeper, finally. So they would give me a hard time and say stuff like "oh, one late night won't hurt". and every late night, that wasn't supposed to hurt, HURT the next day. cranky, early risings, or multiple night wakings. So, I said no way, we aren't doing that. They thought I was nuts.

That I BF until she was 3 and RF her carseat for even longer.

My parents are amazing at letting us do our thing, but for some reason, extended RFing really threw them for a loop. It's literally the ONLY parenting thing my mom has commented on (and I've actually begged her for advice at times.) They continued to do what I asked, but I let them flip the car seat in her car at 2 (it really wasn't a good seat for extended RFing anyway). Then I read that article about internal decapitation and keeping them RFing until 4 and sent it to my mom. She got totally stressed out and said she'd flip it back around (LO is 3.5). I told her it was fine, but that's why I kept him that way.

My dad was kind of ridiculous about me using white noise. I finally just had to tell him that it was my call and he had to handle it. He hasn't said anything since. He has hearing damage from growing up on a farm, so I think he's just being protective, but holy crap, it was driving me nuts.

My MIL was also horrified that we didn't baptize DD as a baby (she will choose on her own when or if she wants to get baptized). She brought it up multiple times and was very persistent about. I think that's the only thing though. Luckily, her daughter was pregnant around the same time as me and is very up to date on what's the "norm" now, so I didn't have to worry about that since my SIL would explain everything to her.

I bring LO everywhere she's welcome (we are currently hanging out in a waiting room while my car is inspected) rather than having someone else (including OH) watch her on the weekends. Also, babywearing. I don't get that one.

My MIL will share the different ways she parented and follow up by saying, "But we were hippies!" I'm sure she had thoughts about us letting our daughter cry in her crib for a little bit b/c they did the family bed and she let them nurse from her whenever they wanted. She also seemed to get twitchy watching me feed my daughter when younger, saying, "She really wants to feed herself!" and asking me if she wanted a bunch of different types of food she had around.

My MIL is horrified that we aren't having DD baptized. She said we were being selfish. And they keep trying to get us to hang a cross in our house.

My MIL is amazing and totally supportive of our decisions. In fact, she always compliments our parenting!

My mom, on the other hand, has made comments about BLW (a common one, it seems!), the fact that we try to limit sweets, screen time, and too many toys, and especially that we're not raising the kids in the religion I grew up with. I think she feels like our different parenting choices are a direct criticism of her, which isn't true in most cases.

@Cherrybee: She'd REALLY hate me, then! Every night in the bath, I tell DD to "Sit down on your booty!" Granted, I might have to stop that once she's a little older, but... LOLOLOL.