When the grandparents disagree

Well my in laws know I am head strong and ain't got a hope in hell trying to tell me how to raise my children.

Our parents are from different generations so it is hard for them to see eye to eye on things. I'm my mum's eldest at 25 and MIL's eldest is 33 so 8 years difference is alot and back then things were done different. I have battles with my mum over Josh sleeping on his back, mum thinks its wrong as when I was a baby tummy sleeping was the way to go.

My sister tells me freequently that I am lucky that I no longer have contact with my mother s she drives her mental with her belief that everything my sister does as a parent is wrong.

My inlaws will be interesting to see how they handle it, but they are pretty good at not meddling.

I try to talk a lot about why we've decided to do things the way we have, hint hint, don't do things your way grandma!!! sometimes the hint gets through....often not. I've gone over and over to my MIL and talked about how Jake has been responding so much better to time outs than he ever did to smacking, and thought it had got through. til today when she said "Jake was so naughty yesterday I gave him a good smack". I was NOT impressed. Problem is hubby sees nothing wrong with this. while I'm not againest smacking persay, I AM againest smacking jake, as I said, it makes him more violent towards Taine and time out works so well, why bother with something that doesn't? I also try to talk about what problems my "friends" have with inlaws and get my MIL toagree that the inlaws should "butt out". i hope this also gets the message across. My SIL when she was over had a really rought time with my MIL telling her what to do, but MIL doesn't seem to do that with me so much....maybe I just appear confident in what I'm doing. I very rarely ask her for advice I must admit, but I will ask mum. Mainly cause mum is a big believer in "every baby is different" and she will say "this is what I did" but never presume that the same will work for my boys.   

At risk of butting in, I think that it is a grandparent's place to discipline a child and that it's good for kids to be kept in line by more than just their parents, but I also think it's a grandparent's role to fall into line with the methods of discipline that the parents use, and not use different methods unless the parents are happy with that. 

I can't stand my outlaws and nothing that they say to me about the kids has any effect on how I'm going to raise the kids... I have to bite my tongue alot for hubbies sake and I really deserve an Oscar everytime I have to be in the same room as them...

As for mum and dad, they are pretty cool parents and cool grandparents and if they want to offer advice well I take it on board, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'll listen and change things because they think it would be best.....

My inlaws believe in the good old saying "we did it to our kids and there fine" Well good for you because I don't agree (Df's brothers are very interesting lol) and I will do it my way.

I'm not going to let grandparents discipline bubs but thats because I know what the in laws did to their kids

Edited by BabyOnBoard

I know my dad has given Andrew a smack but it was for good reasons and it wasn't hard. I'm ok with them doing the disipline if we aren't there as Andrew knows its their rules at their place while mummy and daddy aren't there. The in-laws don't disipline Andrew at all and that can be hard when we are there as he thinks he can get away with anything.