A Young Mom Kisses Her Baby in Front of MIL Who Is Not Allowed to and Gets Asked to Stop

While many mothers-in-law offer love and assistance, others perpetuate an atmosphere of negativity and strain in the family. Their excessive control, criticism, and lack of respect, along with meddling in their child’s marital and parenting choices, can lead to unnecessary problems. Here’s a recent Reddit post where a mother shared her own encounter, seeking support from the community.

She wrote:

“My husband (M25) and I (F25) have a six-week-old daughter. She’s our first baby and the first grandchild in both of our families. We were advised by our pediatrician to not allow anyone besides ourselves to kiss our baby for the first 8-12 weeks minimum. This has been communicated to both of our families who have been respectful of this (as well as our other boundaries/rules) despite a little bit of grumbling about it from his side.

Last weekend, we were over at my in-laws’ house and I had just finished breastfeeding my daughter, so she was all sleepy. I kissed her forehead before settling her to nap on my chest. My mother-in-law noticed and immediately remarked on it in a super passive-aggressive manner: ’Oh, I’m so glad that we’re able to kiss [baby] now! Did your pediatrician update the rules?’”

“I was super confused and asked her what she meant and that the pediatrician’s recommendation hadn’t changed. She then accused me of violating the rules by kissing my own baby. I told her that the recommendation was that no one besides myself and my husband kiss our daughter, and she argued and heavily implied that I was being dishonest because I’d previously said, ’Nobody can kiss the baby’ rather than ’Nobody but husband and I can kiss the baby.’

She went on and on about this until I snapped that it should’ve been obvious that the rules we told her regarding our baby were about what we would/wouldn’t allow OTHER PEOPLE to do. She called me a hypocrite, so I got up and shut myself in the guest room while my daughter continued to nap on me.”

“A little while later mother-in-law came in and ’apologized,’ claiming it was a knee-jerk reaction, and she was just confused and upset. She said she understands now that the rule only applies to other people. She then asked me if I would avoid kissing my baby in front of her until she’s allowed to do so as well, because it’s upsetting to see me doing that and knowing that she can’t.

I told her I can understand that it’s frustrating to have a strong urge to kiss a baby and not be able to. But I am personally not going to stop kissing my own baby for the sake of her feelings. She is now calling me disrespectful and a hypocrite and has gotten my sister-in-law on board with this as well,” the Redditor concluded.

Other Reddit users joined the discussion to support her:

• This is absurd. You need to just limit contact with these people until your baby has had her immunizations. Your husband needs to step up here and deal with his relatives. Incidentally, when YOU kiss YOUR baby, you pick up bacteria and viruses on her skin. Your body, with its mature immune system, creates antibodies which are delivered to her at her next feeding. © Traveler691 / Reddit
• What’s next, is she going to ask you to stop breastfeeding in front of her since she doesn’t get to do it too? She needs to back off. © Swirlyflurry / Reddit

• She sounds incredibly possessive already. Just watch out for any increase in this kind of behavior. My partner’s sibling recently had to cut off their mom from seeing their baby because she repeatedly wouldn’t respect their boundaries. She would wake him up throughout the day and enter the house without asking. © Open_Description9554 / Reddit
• You are literally following medical advice, and also giving your baby the necessary skin contact that infants need. If your mother-in-law can’t take this, your husband should be mediating the interactions, not you. © AceyAceyAcey / Reddit
• In all honesty, your spouse needs to deal with this. The rule should always always be: “your parent, your problem” (excepting those handful of situations where the in-laws like the spouse more than their own kid). © Zthehumam / Reddit

As we have seen, this is not the only problem in the relationship with the mother-in-law that a young mom can face.