MIL told me not to feed my baby

MIL came over the other day to pick some stuff up, we told her she could stay for an hour to see LO but then had to leave.

For some context my baby hasn’t started solids yet and EBF. She is perfectly healthy and in the 80th percentile. MIL has previously made comments about LO’s weight and feeding habits. She says she much prefers ‘little’ babies and often compares LO to her own kids who were below the 10th percentile.. she also says things like my baby should eat less because she’s a girl and girl babies don’t need as much milk lmao. We obviously always tell her we don’t need her advice and that baby girl is perfectly healthy as her doctors/ health visitors agree.

A little while into MIL’s quick visit LO became fussy and I knew she was starting to get hungry. I said I’d take her to feed.

MIL instantly started with the tone of ‘I know best’ and said we shouldn’t feed her, that she needs to learn to wait for food and it’ll be good to stretch out her feed times and make her wait for 30 mins.

‘MIL she’s a baby she knows what she needs best, I’m not going to ignore her cues and starve her for 30 minutes when she wants feeding’

She again says no ‘she can wait 30 minutes, I’ll distract her’ bear in mind if baby was truely distracted she would not be fussing and becoming uninterested in MIL like she had been.

DH agreed with me and told his mum to let me feed her. I know he didn’t mean anything by his phrasing but I wanted to remind her where she stood ‘she doesn’t need to let me do anything DH, I decide what happens with my child at the end of the day’

I go to pick up LO and MIL starts shoving toys in her face and pressing buttons on them she wails like a child herself ‘let her play she wants to play’ meanwhile LO has the most unamused expression on her face. Something about her shoving toys in babies face while I was trying to pick her up pissed me off so much for some reason, I don’t understand what she was trying to do. Maybe hoping baby would crack a smile so she could say I told you so, but it obviously didn’t work. I picked up baby and went into another room to feed. I don’t usually move rooms but I was pissed off and wanted to get away from MIL.

When I came back our the hour was nearly up, MIL was obviously pissed off at me because when she left she didn’t even acknowledge me to say goodbye. SIL on the other hand gave me a big hug and said she’d see me soon and thanked me for having them around.

I honestly don’t think her wanting to put off the feed was anything to do with her being oddly fatphobic towards babies and was more to do with the fact she saw it as something that would cut into her visiting time. I’m sure if I’d have given her a bottle so she could feed LO there and then she would have done happily, but she hates the fact I breastfeed because it gives her less opportunity to try and hog my child.

Tbh if she wasn’t being such a mega bitch I would have been happy for them to stay a little longer to make up for any time I spend feeding LO. But her outrageous behaviour doesn’t incline me to be nice. I do feel bad for SIL being caught up in it all as she is genuinely very good to me and I wish she could spend more time with LO without MIL being there and bringing the bad vibes but I know any invite to SIL without MIL’s involvement would be taken as a personal attack and I don’t think SIL would ever have the heart to have secret visits because as much as she thinks her mum is a narcissistic nutcase, she also cares deeply about trying to keep her happy and be fair to her.

Any other breastfeeding mums have JN stories to share about people getting upset/ wanting you to starve your baby for their own sake? 😂