'AITA for telling MIL to get out when she came over to do me a favor?'
"AITA for telling MIL to get out when she came over to do me a favor?"
Long story short, my husband asked his mother to come over today and watch our daughter (3mo) so I could take a nap because lately, the baby hasn't slept at all and I'm just exhausted. She's super colicky and throws up in her sleep too so I'm just up almost always because she has choked on her own vomit before.
My husband is a trucker and is currently on a week long trip away. She agreed to come over for a few hours and even offered to make dinner. I appreciated it so much. She got here at 2:30pm. I got the baby down for a nap and took a quick shower and then went in to take a nap.
Well, I woke up at 4pm to my daughter screaming. I immediately rushed out of bed and found her still in her crib, diaper not changed and she had been crying for awhile by the looks of things. I went in to the living room and didn't see my MIL anywhere. So I went to my bedroom to grab my phone and realized it wasn't on the charger where I left it.
The baby monitor was also unplugged from my wall, which would explain why I didn't hear my daughter at first. Well, I went back in to the kitchen and happened to see my MIL through the window on the back porch, talking on the phone.
So I go out and she's literally talking on my phone. So I interrupt her and ask why she has my cellphone and how long she had left my daughter screaming in the other room when she was supposed to be watching her and asked why my monitor had been unplugged.
She goes "well I heard your phone ringing and it was my son so I answered it and took it outside so I wouldn't wake you and I unplugged the monitor so they baby wouldn't wake you if she did start crying.
She wasn't crying when I walked outside." I asked her how long she had been on my phone outside and she looks at the time of the call and says "37 minutes." I immediately told her to get the f out. She starts to protest and I simply tell her to get out again and that my daughter had very obviously been screaming for awhile.
Her eyes were puffy and when I picked her up, she was hyperventilating and sweating. She had been crying for at least 10 minutes, if not longer. She started in with the whole "it's not going to hurt a baby to cry! I didn't hear her or I would have gone in to get her" talk.
So I said "yeah but instead you decided to steal my phone and go talk to my husband for 40 minutes and fail to do the task you came here for. Leave." She ends up leaving.
But now my husband is mad at me because "she didn't even have to come help and you made her feel f&^%ng stupid because she didn't grab the baby as soon as she started crying. Don't be surprised if she never helps again." I don't think I'm the AH but my husband is making me feel absolutely insane here. AITA?
EDIT:
Whether or not the baby will be fine after crying for 10 minutes isn't the problem. The problem was that she was at my house for an hour and a half (20 minutes of which I was awake) and out of that time, she spent 40 minutes outside on my cellphone instead of watching the baby like she was supposed to.
She did not check on my daughter at all for 40 minutes. (Knowing she's colicky and has a history of spitting up in her sleep AND unplugging my monitor so I couldn't even hear her).
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
HeimdallManeuver said:
“She didn’t even have to come help you…” Well, she didn’t, so mission accomplished. NTA.
Ipso-Pacto-Facto said:
NTA. What was so important she had to go outside and talk for 40 minutes?
AquaticStoner1996 said:
Your husband needs to wise up quickly and realize who's side to be on. He needs to support you in this because MIL is completely in the wrong, and so is he. And he's behaving PATHETICALLY defending her instead of you. NTA, and I would NOT let this go.
Longjumping_Dish6000 said:
NTA. During that time, your child could have spit up, choked on it, and it could have gotten dangerous. There’s a reason you’re struggling with sleep, because she needs to have someone keep an eye on her when she does.
That was the whole point of your MIL being there. The fact she can’t even take accountability, too. I wouldn’t trust her alone with my kid again with the complete lack of concern with the child’s wellbeing.
SenatorBus_ said:
NTA. You're the parent and you set the rules. I would not not leave a 3 month old unwatched for so long and the only way they have to communicate something is wrong is through crying. Ignoring a child that upset isn't going to make them cry less, it's going to teach them that they can't trust you and need to complain more.
OtherwiseAmphibian75 said:
NTA. Your mil and husband definitely are. I wouldn’t let the MIL near her again. And your husband should be on you and your daughter’s side. He isn’t so you should wary of him.