Even the most baby-averse among us know infants can’t eat regular solid food—to say nothing of mothers who’ve raised their own children. One woman’s mother-in-law, however, decided to flout that well-known rule, and it’s left the new mom profoundly angry.
As she explained in a post in the “r/JUSTNOMIL” subReddit, a forum for complaining about your mother-in-law, the incident has left her feeling unable to forgive her husband’s mother after what happened to their baby.
A new mom’s mother-in-law fed her 10-week-old infant ice cream.
Feeding babies solid food of any kind too soon—before they’re six months old—can be dangerous, as detailed in the video below.
But the new mom’s mother-in-law did so anyway. She says her mother-in-law “has never truly liked me” and has always been disrespectful. Her mother-in-law referred to her as “just the incubator” throughout her pregnancy, and only ever checked on the baby while she was carrying her but never the mom herself.
She also says her mother-in-law’s behavior towards her has escalated so much in recent years that her husband’s grandmother has even intervened to tell the mother-in-law to be nicer. And she insists on insinuating herself into the new mom and her husband’s decisions.
“She’s always had this thing of trying to control my husband,” the new mom writes, “and make my input or advice seem wrong or like I don’t know what I’m saying/doing.”
The mother-in-law has been talking about wanting to feed their newborn ice cream since before she was born.
“I have no idea why,” the new mom writes of this bizarre fixation, adding that the mother-in-law also wants to feed the baby frosting. Obviously, both she and her husband have told her “no” every time. So on a recent visit, the mother-in-law took things into her own hands.
“Yesterday she turned her back to me and gave my 2-month-old ice cream,” the new mom writes. “I know this was true because later on she told my husband she did it.”
The ice cream made the newborn baby violently ill with a rash and gastrointestinal problems.
The mom writes that this is “TMI,” but her baby girl “had two blowouts after a night of nonstop grunting” and horrible gas. The baby also had a terrible rash that thankfully went away after she stopped pooping.
She assumes this was all “a reaction to the ice cream,” since infants’ digestive systems are unable to tolerate regular food—that’s the whole reason for breastfeeding and giving babies formula, of course. And as the video below shows, introducing babies to regular food is a delicate business that must be tackled very carefully.
The new mom says she ‘can’t forgive’ her mother-in-law for what she did to her baby.
Thankfully, her baby is okay. But she writes that her mother-in-law “knew it was wrong or she wouldn’t have hid” when feeding the baby the ice cream. Plus, she and her husband have already been worried their daughter might have food allergies.
They had already been discussing with their doctor switching their baby to soy-based baby formula before this incident happened because she seems not to be tolerating conventional dairy-based ones.
She went on to say that she’s tried so hard to get along with her mother-in-law. “My own mom abandoned me when I was 3,” she writes. “It’s why I’ve given my MIL so much grace in the way she acts towards me but now that I have a child I can’t let her dismiss mine and my husband’s parenting choices.”
She then asked if she was wrong to “cut ties temporarily” with her mother-in-law.
People on Reddit agreed the new mom had every right to be angry at her mother-in-law.
And some of them were even angrier than the new mom seemed to be. “If it had been my child I would have called her a fu-king piece of sh-t to her face,” one person wrote. “How dare she presume that was OK.”
“Ooo this got me so heated,” another mom wrote. “This is foul behavior from your MIL.” And some wondered if the new mom’s mother-in-law might even be a safety risk. “Your mil should never be left alone with your kid,” one person said. “Seriously. She has shown herself to be unfit.”
“She hurt your baby after years of trying to hurt you. You are very much under-reacting,” another mom advised. “I would cut ties until she indicates remorse for her behavior.”
If there’s a silver lining to this, describing her daughter’s reaction to the ice cream resulted in lots of moms on Reddit informing the new mom that it sounds like her baby might have a food allergy or sensitivity. She and her husband have since begun discussing with their pediatrician whether they should switch their baby to soy-based baby formula since she seems not to be tolerating dairy.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.
