The MIL

MIL - forum/internet code for Mother-in-law.

Mine is very religious and very old fashioned, so you can imagine how well we get along.

She also espouses a very different style of parenting to what I believe in, and practice.

On Christmas day, after the dinner when the menfolk had gone into the sitting room and the womenfolk remained in the kitchen, E asked to get up on my lap and had a guzzle. I let her, of course.

MIL, while making herself a cup of tea into which she poured rice milk, as she doesn't take dairy:

"Do you not think she's getting a bit too old for that now?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "She'll know herself when she's ready to stop," I said.

MIL: "But would you not just give her a drink of milk?"

Me: "Why would I give her cow's milk?"

Cue....silence. No response, until hubby's aunt, her sister, started to ask some genuine questions about whether E is ok with not having guzzles when I am not there, which I was of course happy to answer (she's fine without when I'm not around, but when I am with her she tends to ask often enough). She couldn't argue with me - she doesn't take cow's milk herself. Hubby's nephew, her grandson, is very dairy intolerant, and has spent years with constipation or diarrheoa any time he takes anything with cows' milk in it.

I don't think she'll ever see, or admit to, the benefits of breastmilk and breastfeeding. She isn't the kind of person to change her opinion regardless of the facts. But at least I shut her up. Hah.