'AITA if I tell my MIL she can't visit my daughter if she brings her other grandkids?' UPDATED

"WIBTA If I Told My MIL She Can Only Come Visit My Daughter if She Doesn’t Bring the other Grandkids?"

My husband’s parents live 2 hours away and they are the primary care providers for their other two grandchildren, my nephew ages 3 and 5. My husband and I both work weekdays so we try to go visit them with our 1year old daughter at least every other month on weekends. The only problem is my MIL works weekends so we often don’t get to spend much time with her during our visits.

There have been a few occasions that my MIL has told us that she’s coming to visit during the weekdays, but it presents challenges for me. I work from home while simultaneously caring for my daughter and I’m also pregnant. It’s hectic and hard and it’s only a temporary thing, but for now it’s my only option and I’m struggling through it.

When my MIL comes to visit, she wants to spend time with my daughter, which I completely understand, but she sometimes has to bring one or both of my nephews with her. She also never tells me or my husband which nephew(s) she’ll be bringing. She just shows up with one or both of them. That leaves me pretty much babysitting either one or both of my nephews while I’m trying to work.

I end up having to entertain them, trying to find food for them (and they’re picky so it’s not a quick thing) and last time I’m pretty sure my 5yo nephew peed his pants on my living room couch while my MIL was taking a 3 hour nap with my baby leaving him completely unattended. It’s not conducive to me being able to work at all and I am irritated that these visits are making my life harder.

I’m now 35 weeks pregnant and everything is hard. We visited our in laws somewhat recently and my MIL pretty much told me that she’d be coming for a visit sometime soon on a Tuesday.

This means that I will be trying to work and I’m genuinely concerned that I will have a meltdown if she leaves me in charge of watching my nephew(s) at all while I’m trying to work. Would I be the a$$hole if I said she can come down but can’t bring the kids?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

EStewart57 said:

That doesn't work for me. Hubby needs to be there. Tell her no more visitors until you say so. Do not answer the door.

grayblue_grrl said:

NTA. Your husband should tell her - "Bringing the nephews doesn't work for us. Wife has work to do and can't babysit or entertain them while you are here. Maybe another time when I am home too so I can help."

United-Manner20 said:

NTA - just let her know you’re really trying to focus on working while you’re getting last-minute things done prior to having the newest addition.

Ask if she can please come without other children because you will not have the ability to help watch them and you’d like her to be able to just focus on your daughter before she is no longer an only child. you’re not wrong for feeling that way, but you have to think about the way that you present that information to her.

Srvntgrrl_789 said:

NTA. You’re about to give birth FCS. Your MIL is being incredibly insensitive letting her grandsons run riot like that. She probably comes over to get a break from them, and figures you’ll have no problem watching them. That’s extremely entitled of her. Your husband needs to set a firm boundary with her.

Altruistic-Bunny said:

Just tell her no, it does not work with your schedule. If you give reasons, she will counter

- you have to work - she will help by watching your daughter

- you cannot watch or entertain the boys, oh they take care of themselves

Just say no. NTA.

OP responded:

You hit the nail on the head! I think she really thinks since the boys have a routine at her house, that they will not need too much help when they’re here.

OP replied to commenters:

Thank you all so much for the encouragement. The responses I’ve gotten make me feel soo much more confident in approaching my husband about this.

Later, OP shared this update:

I spoke with my husband. He read the post and most of the comments, some of which made him laugh out loud, He’d love to take time off work to help me, but he owns a business that is slightly short staffed right now which makes it impossible to take extra days off aside from when the baby is born.

We agreed that if MIL brings it up again and tries to come, that we will tell her that my work has been very hard lately and I’ve been struggling to manage with low energy. Given my workload right now, the options are for her to come on a weekend when he’s off work, come on a weekday without either grandchild, or wait until I’ve had the baby and had some time to recover, then come when it works for me.