Who do you let have a bath with your child?

Clarebear - no you haven't offended/upset me in the slightest. In fact, I think I may have unintentionally offended you! I am not suggesting you are neglecting your child at all (in fact, the bathing thing wouldn't personally bother me) however, if you have a serious issue with the care your child is receiving - even when with family - then I, me, personally, would avoid leaving them in that particular care. I can't recall ever leaving my DD (12mths) alone with my inlaws and maybe 1-2 times my DS (2.5 years) as I don't like the way they interact with my kids!

Tiff - No I'm not upset by your post, but so as to perhaps explain why I feel so strongly about my MIL's actions - I think the main reason for me not wanting my MIL (or anyone else for that matter) bathing with my son is that to me - it is precious bonding time, the closeness of that skin-to-skin contact is something which I don't want anyone else other than DF and I to share with him. It's not that I find it dirty or sinister that MIL has bathed with him, it's just that as a Mum I want to be able to have that experience that is only ours and no-one elses..

Sorry Jac, I think I may have just found your original post a bit confronting... can't blame the pregnancy hormones on my reaction :redface:

I think that Winter's last post hit the nail on the head... I was just curious as to whether other ppl thought that some boundaries had been unacceptably crossed.

Also I am now having to deal with a very snappy and curt MIL who appears to have taken offence to my request for her not to bathe with my son anymore...

MIL's are a PINA ;)!! I applaud you for living with yours without going insane.

I wonder why she is so keen to have a bloody bath with him?

I think I'm headed there just quietly :rolleyes:
This time next week I will be glad when the wedding is over and I can relax on the honeymoon with both my new husband and my son ;)

I can understand the bonding as I love my baths with Phoebe although there are nights like tonight where more water ended up on the floor than in the actual bathtub that make me shake my head lol

It just shows the difference in our little worlds we live in and situations hey. For my PIL and my own parents it is also a bonding thing. We lost our son and that makes bonding with Phoebe so much more important to them(Our sons name is also Lachlann John), I guess that's partly why I personally don't have a problem with the topic.

Sorry to hear about your Lachlann :hug: losing a child has a ripple effect through a whole family (I know as my sister died in a car crash when she was only 21months old), but yes I agree everyone's different resulting in different lifestyles/opinions/choices - and if we were all the same wouldn't it be a boring predictable world..

Wow, just got through all of that!
First of all, I have no problem with normalising nudity and not creating any taboos about 'bits'. DS has baths with his cousins, and sometimes his older cousins who have been raised in a home where nudity was very normalised and has very much taken the wind out of those sails for the eldest kids who are now entering early teen years. It's been very healthy for them :) I grew up in a prude household and have no intention of passing this on! Oddly enough, my mum is fine with showering with DS, and I'm glad. Not sure if MiL has, but I'd be fine with that, too.
I also tend to believe that keeping my child to myself after a certain age is counterproductive to the human tradition (till modernisation) of sharing the job of raising children. Yes, for a certain amount of time it's the mummy (evoluntionarily it's not even the daddy!), then after that kids are intimately involved with grandparents, aunts, siblings, cousins etc. That kind of interaction builds neural pathways in kids that enhance emotional wellbeing and independence later on. However, I seriously doubt this was ever the theoretical motivation behind your MiL's actions!
MiL does not play at subversion of my parenting or intentions for my child. My own mother does subvert in some ways, but ends up fessing up or being outed by DS (so she's only started since he was older - like the way I know she takes him to Maccas...:rolleyes:).
The subversion in your MiL's case has got me really offside. It's very immature to take the photos and hide them. An evolved approach would have been to bring it up with you and talk about the possibility and why they wanted to do it, and then accept whatever decision you make about it after that discussion.
You're getting married - you'll have more 'leverage' to put your foot down about subversion, especially as your DF has demonstrated he can back you up. I think they'll listen up a bit more from now on. It doesn't matter where you're living, they know you don't like it and they can't seem to understand that when it comes down to it, a bit of respect would go a long way in enhancing their relationship with you AND your DS.
Don't put up with that kind of subversion (pick them up on their snide comments - in a nice but firm way), and be constructive about how you approach things - you still want them to have a relationship with DS, just not a secretive one, and if you go hard at them, more things will go 'underground'!

I agree with the others that the secrecy is the issue moreso than the bath.

FWIW, I am happy for my parents or my sister to bathe with DS if they wanted. I'd be fine for PiL to do it, or BiL or SiL or Niece or Nephew - although might think twice about Sis's boyfriend, but that would be fine too. Baths with Liebling are fun! But ONLY with my permission.

Hope you can get the in-laws told off very soon.

My parents and MIL live in the next suburb to me and I often leave DD with my parents when I pop to the shops near them MIL works full time so her not so much (it is a pain in the backside getting DD in and out of the car 5 times to go the the post, then the bank, then the petrol station, then the library, then the video store, and finally the groceries! all different locations and I won't leave her on her own in the car for even a minute! Plus I think it is a wonderful thing for grandparents to get to see their grandchildren without having to tag along with me while I do chores, they love it, DD loves it, it does not make me any less of a caring mother to not have bub attached to me 24/7 and I think she will grow up with even more love and more secure because of it. Having said that, if any of them were to decide to strip naked with my baby for no reason (like you said, he'd already had a bath) I would think they were psycho's and would be telling them so but we are probably more prudish then some :lol:.

WRT leaving your baby with someone, I mostly wanted to bring DS with me everywhere, and when he was a bit older I was happy to leave him for short stretches to do things (then there were the times I HAD to leave him, like for exams!) and because I'd had him to myself when I did, he was not so insecure to be left for these times :) We had amazing bonding (so I hear you there) and this made leaving him possible.

I too would be very mad at this especially the secrecy part it doesn't matter who thinks u r right or wrong in this because he is ur ds so ur decision. Grandparents don't get to make the decisions it is their job to support ur decisions. And even though down the road it might not matter so much to you it is still a first and they belong to you.

If it was me I wouldn't leave ds alone with them because they already said they knew you wouldn't like it and did it anyway so what will telling them again change (don't get me wrong I would still tell them off) and also what other things will they do that u don't like i.e feeding him things not putting him to sleep on time etc etc and next time will they know to hide the evidence better iykwim?