My MIL was great when Jack was born. So when she offered to come and stay when Tom was born we agreed (and paid for her airfares to boot). She was due to arrive on my birthday, 2 weeks before Tom was due. Tom then upset the apple cart by arriving 3.5 weeks early. DH paid more money to change MIL's flight so she arrived the day I got out of hossy.

After the first couple of days at home, Tom became colicky. He was crying a lot, day and night. MIL was downstairs, we were upstairs, but she kept saying she couldn't cope with the crying and she needed sleep. In one breath she told me I was "insane for feeding him so often" (this is after she overheard me telling my cleaner that he had been feeding every hour that morning - around the time of the 6 week fussy period) - in the next breath she told me I wasn't doing enough to stop him crying. She told me I was not thinking clearly and should be trying other things like formula and taking Tom to a GP as clearly he had reflux (this was in her mind as her niece's DD had just been diagnosed with reflux). I told her it wasn't reflux as he could lie down comfortably. I told her I had spoken to the child health 24 hour help line and the ABA 24 hour help line and she said "that's no good, he needs to go to a doctor. All you do when we ring the nurses is keep in them work" - WT??? The crunch was at 4am one morning when she stormed up the stairs and screamed at me "I need some sleep, you need to be a better mother and take that child to a doctor. And give him some formula. Why are you so stubborn? You don't know everything".

I bawled and bawled, I am crying now remembering. I had been such a confident Mum until that point. That turned me into a blubbering mess and made me start resenting Tom (lucky that didn't last long once I was getting some sleep again). My resentment towards MIL however remains. Why did she have to make me feel so bad at a time when I most needed emotional support? Why am I still crying about it?