"Baby hog" and proud
Our first LO is now 6 months, and as a sahm we have only had one person babysit once. We have had multiple people on both sides of our families break our one concrete rule of no kissing, so I don't really trust many people to babysit. Not to mention with my PPA I don't do well when she with anyone other thany DH.
My in laws live 20 min from us and ask for us visit them frequently. During these visits I try to allow them to hold LO as much as they want but when I ask for LO back to feed or put to sleep I'm either ignored or they stall. My parents live two hours away and still visit a few times a month. My sister had the first grandbaby on my side as a teenager so they got accustomed to having my niece around every other weekend or for a week at a time since she was born. Now a few years have passed and I have a baby now, and ever since LO was born they ask for her to come spend the night or come for the weekend (ebf by the way). At first it seemed like a joke but as more time went by it came off as serious.
My MIL recently talked about how I shouldn't get to hold my baby during visits since I "see her all the time". Not the first time my MIL acted like this so I brushed it off and tried to ignore it for the sake of my DH. Now my own mother called me a "baby hog" and my older brother who still lives at home called me "stingy" with my own baby. Soon I'm going to be in my career after graduating, and we plan to put LO in daycare. And my grandmother who live with my parents criticized us saying we'll reconsider or back off of daycare and let them watch the baby when we see how much it costs. We refuse to let their entitlement from the first grandchild be transferred onto us and our child, especially since my sister who is on her own with her partner + child now is TOLD by my parents when they're getting my niece.
When me (26F) and my DH (30M) were growing up our grandparents did a big portion of raising us. And now our parents think they will be the same with my parents expecting to have my 6 month old all weekend and my in laws having enough baby items to stock a nursery and asking how much longer I'll continue to bf. While I appreciate their excitement and love for our LO, its simply not as important as our own. And while not all grandparents behave this way, the ones that do need to realize it's not about them anymore and they had their chance. It was their choice to permit their own parents to act like this with us as children.
Side note: We've wanted to move somewhere that has better pay for my soon to be career for years and are planning to move to a different state in a year or two. And now my in laws and SIL plan to follow us wherever we move and that terrifies me, as this is also an opportunity for us to create a little distance and solidify our family from weekly visits and attempts to steal milestones.
Posted May 8, 2026, 3:51 PM UTC