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@Happygal: SAME re: a little bit of CIO. My MIL actually said when she babysat E once: "I mean, I just can't handle it. I can't let her cry like that in there." I'm not saying it's easy, but I know for a fact that it would have been over within five minutes. Ha!

It's pretty hard to horrifying my mom. She's very laid back, though she did CIO in a way, and was not opposed to a smack on the button when we did something dangerous. She imparted her attitude on us, and I'm grateful!

I horrified my little sisters by pumping/nursing for months, nursing in front of them, my dad, and in public, and our co-sleeping. But they like being righteously shocked, Soooo

Oh man, where do I start?

- breastfeeding. My oldest had reflux and trouble sleeping as a result. My mom constantly told me it was because she was strictly breast fed. She thought formula was the magic solution to reflux and rice cereal was the only way to get a baby to sleep. She said, "You'd have trouble sleeping too if you were on an all-liquid diet." LO was about 8 weeks old at the time. Um, no.

- not using blankets, pillows, or crib bumpers in an infant's crib. In response to any sleep issue, she would say, "Well, you don't use blankets or pillows, so..." as if that were the problem. I finally cut out an article about infant sleep safety and mailed it to her, grandma-style. She still brought it up a few times after that, and refuses to believe me that crib bumpers aren't recommended.

- not giving my kids unlimited sugar and screen time. She said I "took all the fun out of Halloween" because I didn't let my 2 and 4 year old have unlimited access to their bags of candy. And don't even get her started on the cookies I made for them with wheat flour and honey instead of white sugar and white flour. She was aghast that I expected them to enjoy such a thing, "without any icing on it or anything?!"

But my mom is overall very supportive, so I shouldn't complain. She just likes to voice her opinions!

I should add that my MIL hasn't said a single word of criticism to me about my parenting, even though I know we have very different parenting styles. I definitely appreciate that!

@LML: I loved reading through this!! Thanks for resurrecting it! Haha
My MIL is dead set that M must not suck her thumb or use a pacifier. She's only a month, so she can't find her thumb most of the time and I nurse on demand, so the pacifier use is pretty minimal. But it's nice when she has the hiccups or bad gas. But MIL will physically pull her hands away from her face. She was horrified when I asked her to give M a pacifier when we were driving and she was fussing.
My parents are pretty good, but my dad is convinced that M is always cold !

@winter_wonder: yeah, I've had some issues with her and boundaries, but she lives very far away, so it's not too bad! And she's not here often enough to have much of an impact in M's habits

My mom has been surprisingly 'go with the flow' with our parenting choices with 2 exceptions. - ERF in the car seat (there is no room for his legs!) and giving DS antibiotics when he got sick. I finally lost my sh*t at her one day after lots of 'I never gave you and your sister any of this stuff' type of comments. She has since dropped it My Dad says nothing other than how beautiful the kids are and how much he loves them. Being a grandpa has turned him into a big sappy mush, which cracks me up because its a totally new side of him to me.
MIL has definitely had a harder time and FIL has been a LOT more vocal than I ever expected. They are both convinced the baby is always both cold and hungry. They were horrified last week when we were at DS's TBall game and I had DD outside not wrapped in a blanket. I kept answering 'she's fine' to each comment about the breeze or whatever (it was 80 degrees btw!). I finally lost it when my MIL took the burp cloth that was in the car seat and tucked it around her like a blanket. I took it off and said 'touch her! Touch her leg and her arm, she is WARM' So they stopped. The baby make any sort of noise and my FIL is all 'baby is hungry! Time to feed the baby!'. I know it all comes from a good place and they love my kids dearly but it makes me grind my teeth damn near flat.

DH made a comment to me about just letting them make their comments and ignoring it - but I pointed out that when people (I don't care who) say over and over right in front of my that my baby is hungry and cold they are saying I am not adequately taking care of said baby, and as I clearly am taking care of my kids - it upsets me to hear otherwise.

The ILs are also horrified at a sleep schedule and get upset that we wont bring the kids over late or that we leave in time to get home for bed time. At the same time they will make comments about how they are amazed at how much/well the kids sleep and none of their kids ever slept like that. ummmm...yeah, be there was never any sleep skills taught and my husband has a bunch of sleep related issues to show for it.
Overall both sets of parents love the kids dearly and I consider my kids and us lucky to have them close by and a big part of our lives. But we still drive each other a little nuts sometimes, because you know...family