New mom says her mother-in-law keeps demanding to babysit her breastfed daughter, at the home of a boyfriend she’s met only three times

A stay-at-home mom claimed her mother-in-law keeps demanding to babysit her two-month-old daughter at the home she shares with a boyfriend the couple has met only three times. The woman shared the situation in a Reddit post, saying she has no plans to hand over her breastfed baby.

The story was first highlighted by the Daily Dot. According to the mom, her mother-in-law allegedly sees the arrangement as unfair because the couple often relies on the mom’s side of the family for help. She said her own mother lives 10 minutes away, which makes her a convenient option when she has medical appointments.

The mother-in-law reportedly lives 30 minutes away with her boyfriend. The mom also noted that her baby is breastfed and does not take a bottle, which she said makes the babysitting demands impractical.

Colic and a near stranger is a hard combination to say yes to

The mom said her daughter has colic, and she worries about how her mother-in-law and the boyfriend might react to the constant crying. “I’m not going to give up my daughter to strangers, especially when my baby has colic,” she wrote. She added that she fears “her boyfriend getting frustrated and possibly shaking her because she cries so much.”

The mom claimed her mother-in-law calls her son yelling and says their side of the family is being excluded. She said the relationship has been strained for six years, and she alleged that her mother-in-law made no effort to build a bond until the baby arrived. She also claimed the strain has turned into a mother-in-law’s feud with the couple over how much access she gets to the baby.

According to the mom, her mother-in-law used to send her kids to stay with relatives for the entire summer while she went out partying. She claimed her mother-in-law also kicked her husband out of the house right after his high school graduation. “She was a teacher, so she had every summer off. She just didn’t want to take care of her kids, and she expects me to hand over pride and joy so she can play house?” she wrote.

Commenters backed her choice to keep a relative from babysitting. One person suggested, “Go low contact and have supervised visits at your home when you plan it.” Another advised her to let her husband handle it, writing, “Just ignore her. I wouldn’t want to be around her at all, let husband deal with her nonsense.”

Therapists say this kind of friction is common after a baby arrives. According to Thrive Postpartum, Couples & Family Therapy, an Illinois practice whose clinicians are trained in perinatal mental health, tension with in-laws often rises after a birth, partly because a grandchild can make in-laws feel more like family, which brings more opinions and involvement. Postpartum exhaustion can also make small moments feel bigger.

The practice recommends that couples agree on shared rules for decisions about the baby and grandparents, with each partner handling boundaries with their own family. It also notes that grandparents often push harder when they feel excluded. To help with that, it suggests giving them a defined, recurring role, such as a regular walk or story time, and planning visits together.