u/Anxiousandbleh

Our daughter is 3.5 years old. Grandparents have always been involved and kind. Our daughter loves them. But every single time they babysit it’s a new thing. Not little things. This has been happening for three and a half years and we have guided and tried to have them understand these things are not ok. Some of the things (feeding whole grapes, hard whole nuts, feeding raw whole baby carrots, taking our daughter while they were watching her to a town an hour away to visit family in a restaurant without telling us they were going anywhere and letting her eat from the plate with her hands, never enforcing boundaries like full free for all) some things are frustrating but some genuine safety hazards. Yesterday we hit our boiling point. They fed our eight month old baby frozen yogurt from a shop when we all went. Shoved a used spoon in her mouth with a bunch of things mixed into their cup that she hadn’t tried yet. One pineapple which my grandmother is deathly allergic to. Then when they thought we weren’t looking my MIL stuck her finger in my baby’s mouth with a glob of more frozen yogurt. I asked her very nicely if she just fed her that and she froze I asked her again and she said yeah I said please do not do that. Then they basically bickered about how they “got in trouble” and “were just crummy grandparents I guess, sorry” my husband lost his mind and was like this has been an issue for four years and we’ve told you time and time again. Then I chimed in and tried to explain that not only is it the processed sugar and allergies we’re concerned about but your hands are dirty and you’re sticking them in babies mouth. She responds with a swift “well I’ve seen you put your finger in her mouth” to which four years of irritation boiled over and I yelled “I pushed her out of my body (not the word I used)” she said well I pushed him out talking about my husband and I said well then stick your finger in his mouth. We were staying the weekend at their house and left this morning. Super awkward and we didn’t leave the girls alone with them the rest of the time. As we left FIL made a comment asking if they were still baby sitting this weekend (we have concert tickets Friday night). We talked about it and were weighing the option of potentially prepping all the food and putting it all in one spot and enforcing nothing outside of this goes into their mouthes. I feel like it’s a lost cause at this point.