You always have to keep an eye out for how other people act around your kids — even your own family. But now one mom is feeling straight-up paranoid after learning her mother-in-law allowed her nephew to try nursing from her. The MIL's attitude about it has this mama worried about what grandma will do with her own son when the mom isn’t looking.
The two have a rocky history ever since her MIL showed up unannounced, three days postpartum.
It’s been about five months since the Original Poster last saw her MIL and they’ve been no contact ever since, she explained in a JUSTNOMIL Reddit post. Her husband suggested they finally go for a visit — and it was uncomfortable, to say the least.
“We went and MIL was beyond obnoxious and even insulting (tried to rip baby out of my hands twice and at one point even cornering me while Baby was asleep, told me I’m spoiling Baby, and said Baby had my attitude face when Little One was tired),” she recalled.
“The worst part is that I was nursing Baby near her and she tells me that 2 weeks prior she had allowed her grandson to latch her to realize there was nothing there,” she added.
Yikes. Awkward.
The OP ignored her MIL’s strange admission but later realized just how weird this was.
“I don’t want to sexualize breastfeeding, but she’s not lactating!” the OP wrote. “I feel like it reaches sexual assault. It has me very paranoid about my child being there so we agreed to keep visits rare, short, and supervised.”
Mostly the OP is freaked out by the fact that her MIL didn’t even realize how strange her actions were.
She “thought it was a casual way in which to relate to me,” she wrote. “My SIL is aware and thinks it’s a child issue [as] it seems they are struggling to wean him, but I think she is the adult and should know better.”
Many people thought the OP's MIL was gross.
"Don't ever leave your child alone with her. Follow your instincts, they won't steer you wrong," one person commented.
"This is sexual assault," one commenter wrote, adding, "that is not her baby, strong boundaries are needed and a call to the authorities too."
A third commenter put it this way: "If my mother, who I am very close to and love dearly, told me she let my son latch onto her to show him there was 'nothing there'….. I would raise hell. That’s very weird and inappropriate in my opinion. Definitely don’t do visits unsupervised."
The OP agreed that her MIL wouldn't be left alone with her child and added an update.
"[B]efore this incident, MIL had a 1% chance of watching baby. After this incident, she has 0% chance. I am not allowing this woman anywhere near my child unsupervised and even supervised I’ll try to keep baby away. Just wanted to put that out there," she wrote.
"I’m a first time mom and I didn’t want anyone to think I’d be neglectful and ever allow her unsupervised access to my child," she added.
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