If you're standing right there, and your MIL is trying to take over, I'd speak up.

"No, DD, you need to wear your jacket," for instance.

Or a, "Hey, MIL, I've got this. DD, put on your jacket."

PP. That's fine and thanks for sharing. I just put the subject like that to stop someone from assuming I hate my MIL to post this.
Your post is also helpful. It's totally depends on MIL personality I guess. Other PP said it works for her when she doesn't interfere with small stuffs so that her MIL listens when it is about something serious. But for you it is obvious that that way won't work. It's good to know to watch for signs like your MIL has.
-OP.

Anonymous wrote:OP, you might need to show your MIL that you are the authority in your house. In my case, if I don't push back or contest MIL's decisions, she quickly takes over and won't listen to anything I say or do. When DC was just born, I followed some of her suggestions just to make her feel appreciated. Well, her suggestions quickly turned into commands. She'd call in the morning and say: Did you do this and that? No? What, do I need to come check on you?! She also loved to berate me in from of the other family members or friends just to show who's the boss; not once, but several times she physically pushed me away from the stroller saying that my presence is disturbing to DC. I had to loose my "respect the elders" mentality and started pushing back, giving her directions, and demanding she follows my rules. Of course she did not give two figs about my rules and made sure I know that. I stopped letting her babysit, and now she sees DC only in DH's presence. I can't make myself visit her every week, so DH goes with DC and stays there.

Sorry, I did not see the thread is only for those who don't not hate their MILs. I guess at this point I harbor enough resentment that I should not have posted here.

OP, you might need to show your MIL that you are the authority in your house. In my case, if I don't push back or contest MIL's decisions, she quickly takes over and won't listen to anything I say or do. When DC was just born, I followed some of her suggestions just to make her feel appreciated. Well, her suggestions quickly turned into commands. She'd call in the morning and say: Did you do this and that? No? What, do I need to come check on you?! She also loved to berate me in from of the other family members or friends just to show who's the boss; not once, but several times she physically pushed me away from the stroller saying that my presence is disturbing to DC. I had to loose my "respect the elders" mentality and started pushing back, giving her directions, and demanding she follows my rules. Of course she did not give two figs about my rules and made sure I know that. I stopped letting her babysit, and now she sees DC only in DH's presence. I can't make myself visit her every week, so DH goes with DC and stays there.

Just be thankful she is feeding your DD the cucumbers you wanted her to eat. My MIL will give the kids cookies while I am trying to get them to eat their dinner. Thankfully, we don't see her much.

Yes, my parents always think my kids don't eat enough and are constantly trying to feed them.

I think in many cultures, feeding the children is a common thing to persist on - spoon feeding well beyond when the kid can self feed, always insisting on other serving after the kid is full from the first plate. It's common and comes from a different time & context.

The sock & jacket thing - eh, I find that grandparents want to fawn over and fret over little things like that with grandkids. It's a way for them to feel like a caretaker even though they're not doing the day to day caretaking. I bite my tongue with most of it if it's not upsetting my kid. When there's too much of it, my kid starts regressing, claiming she "can't" do things for herself that she certainly can do and do well when grandma isn't there. At that point, I ask my mom or MIL (they both do it) to let DD exercise a bit more independence and suggest other ways they can spoil her with attention that don't infantilize her.

If there's a special issue we're working on that requires not deviating from the routine (and I try to have only 1-2 special items like this at a time), then I let them know as soon as they arrive for their visit. My DD has had some eating issues, wasn't growing, and we just now found a happy medium in which she eats & is growing again, so the grandma's are happy to not rock the boat in that regard, but wouldn't have known if I hadn't given them a headsup.

OP here.
Thanks for all the replies. So I know these are normal things grandparents do. I am not making a fuss with these minor things, I want to know if others are the same . I just find it strange with the dirty socks. Well, who would pick a pair of dirty socks out of the bin to put it on kid!
I'm not worrying about feeding much, DD is not over weight and MIL usually feed healthy food like veggie, soup, fruit, etc. MIL is nice and kind but she usually feed DD too much and sometime before dinner (wonder why DD eat little dinner?). DD will stop eating when she really wants to. I just feel terrible when DD's tummy is huge when MIL visits.

Anonymous wrote:Haha! Love this post! Sounds just like my parents and ILs. If it's something like dc will be too cold if she takes the coat off, I'd stand my ground too. I just try to ignore all the other little stuff. I just assume it's their remnant instincts from when their kids were little. It's almost cute.

yea this

My MIL and FIL are the opposite - they NEVER try to get my kid to eat and indeed say things like, go easy on the cream cheese, when fixing her a bagel. She's 2.5 and not overweight (duh). FIL is significantly overweight and has appalling eating habits and I'm positive that's where it comes from. It's just funny to watch the grandparent generation project their issues onto the little ones (like all the PPs whose moms/MILs don't eat anything but try to stuff their kids).

But in any event, seems normal to me.

Anonymous wrote:My MIL is the queen of trying to put infant DD in some overly warm outfit. Usually looks like something people in Siberia put their kids in. DD ends up a sweaty mess. I finally just told her that DD runs really hot and she dropped it.

This is my mom! So annoying. We had a huge fight about this once. I haven't found an answer for it yet. My MIL is the opposite where we have to tell her not to let the kids do whatever they want like eat huge pixy stix of sugar or play with knives.

If she's generally a constructive feature in DD's life, I'd roll with the little things. There's worse things than gran handing over cucumber slices while she's watching TV right? She probably just wants to be involved and to help. I love my MIL because she's a gorgeous, warm welcoming person but she does things that I wouldn't necessarily do. She wants to overdress the kids, underestimate their tiredness, let them out of doing chores (much to the amused chagrin of my DH who got the earlier stricter version) etc. But she's part of the fabric of our lives and we love her to bits. She has her own room in our house although she largely lives in a retirement place and I love that I'll often find my little ones curled up with her in the morning hearing family stories that have only a tenuous relationship to anything that actually happened. She likes the kids to say grace in our religiously ambiguous household. Last night's was classic. Ms five said "dear God. Thank you for all our food but I wish mommy had cooked more fish and please help me to be better tomorrow because today wasn't my best effort and by the way I don't think I washed all the conditioner out of my hair." It's all fine.

The only thing I'd be careful of is if behaviour changes. My mom became quite demented (medically!) before she died of a stroke and the first signs were odd anomalies in her behaviour. Like giving my four month old whole grapes. And opening all the windows in the house on a really cold day because "the sun was out"

Totally normal- these are minor things. I get that they are irksome as my MIL does lots of the things PPs mentioned. I try to allow it all as long as it's not a safety thing or something that DH and I have been making a point of for DD.
My biggest challenge is not to interpret it as her trying to fix my parenting or finding faults in my parenting.

The first thing my in-laws and my parents do after we walk in is to feed my kids (2, 5). Then, they get upset when the kids eat little dinner, duh?! Yes, socks are a big deal, but they've learnt to let it go as my kids will take them off repeatedly. Yes, we are all Asians, and I just sit back and watch and find it all very amusing =)

My mom always thinks my kids don't eat enough and always thinks they are not dressed warmly enough. My mother-in-law, who tends to run hot, always assumes that if she is warm the kids are and will undress my kids, even when they were infants. Everything you say seems like typical grandparent stuff to me!