We live with my parents. My parents like to act like my son is their son. So they’ll just come and grab my baby as and when they feel like it and stay in their room. Now every night they just keep I’m in their room to make him sleep, when I already told them I want to sleep train him and also read stories to him before bedtime. Last night I went down at 8.30pm to collect him back and my dad still dare to question me ‘why so early take him?’
My mum will insist on bathing and cleaning up my boy everyday, and most the time I need to fight to get a chance to bathe my boy. They talk as if this is their son, and whatever I wanna do with him, like read to him, do flash cards with him or do tummy time, they always intervene when my baby starts whining. Even when I let my baby start smelling food and things around him, they say I’m abusing him.
Things improved alittle in the sense that my mum no longer comes up at 4am daily to take him to their room. But When I ask my helper to take my baby back for me on other occasions, or when I tell my helper to do things for my baby, my mum always override me & ask my maid to do otherwise.
They keep questioning my ability to take care of my child even though I’ve proven to them time and again in that can do it. My dad like to make idiotic comments on days that I take care of him when I wfh like ‘oh why your son keep whining? He got sleep meh?’ When clearly my son only whines when he’s hungry, and my son is sleeping whenever I’m with him, so he exaggerates like this infront of my husband and my mum and me & them add on to tell me ‘you see your mum is experienced, won’t have such problems one’. So my dad likes to discredit me and say how well my mum is taking care of him; my mum does things in certain ways with my son so I should follow; he sees me cleaning up my son and he will hover around to tell me what my mum will do and question me; when My boy is crying, I know he’s tired, but they will say he just wants to be carried etc. everytime I wfh, my son sleeps well and takes good naps, but somehow when I leave him to my parents cos I go office on most days, he hardly sleeps.
And my dad is so annoying, he likes to say to my son infront of me when I wfh, ‘wait po po come home then she can clean you up.’ And other remarks as if I’m invisible and as if I am incapable of taking care of my son. Like hello, I can clean my son up myself, tyvm. I’m really annoyed, and our own place is only ready end of this year. Does anyone else here face this issue? Maybe cos my baby is the first and only grandchild to my parents. I mean I love my parents and appreciate that they’re helpful, but sometimes I really wanna take care of my boy. And when I told my sis this, she said I’m unappreciative of my parents. Now I’m starting to bring my son out cos he’s bigger, then my dad and my sis come and attack me and say I’m ungrateful to my mum cos I don’t let her spend time with my son by bringing him out on weekends. I actually feel guilty when they say this, but I really wanna have some family time with my son. Am I wrong; am I being ungrateful for whining like this and wanting to have some alone time with him and my husband?
Anonymous