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Thank you ladies for all  your replies. Visit is coming up tomorrow, and I have some ideas now of how to deal with this. I'm hopeful to at least stop the snarky comments and guilt trip about going back to work (I do that to myself enough!), that's what I have the most issue with.

I think the jealousy end of it may be something she's going to have to come to terms with on her own. I've made a point to not bring up any time my mom babysits or helps me out, and either ignoring her when she pries about it or telling her I don't keep track of how often my mom sees him. It's truthful without directly answering. Telling her how often my mom is here is going to set off comparisons.  I find that DH tells her when my mom helps when he's out of town or has babysat so I think I'm going to have to tell him to stop that. I do feel for her that's it's difficult to be away from her only child and grandchild, and I have a son and may very well be in the same situation someday. I'm hopeful that maybe as my son gets bigger and able to communicate with her (and remember her from visit to visit) maybe he won't have the bad reactions to her that he does.

Thanks for the perspective Pen. I'm trying to understand where she's coming from because I'd like to find someway to resolve it without making it worse. I'm not into the drama and can't for the life of me understand people who are.

We have the first grandchild on both sides, I've found there was a tremendous amount of expectations from both grandmothers about how things were going to be after he was born. My mom had a harder time in the beginning because we disagreed about a lot of things and she wasn't around very often, but things are much much better now and she's been great. My MIL was great in the beginning, but as I've already explained things are not so great now. I'm hopeful we can get back to the way it was.

I sort of let it slip a few weeks ago that I'm having a hard time with people being critical of me as a mom and that it seems no matter what I do, someone thinks I'm wrong.  When DH pressed me about who specifically, I did mention his mom among other people but didn't get into specifics. She tends to say most of these things when DH isn't listening or in another room. She's coming to visit on Sunday, and I'm a little wound about it I do find it easier to deal with on my own turf. The last visit I found sticking close to DH kept a lot of comments at bay, but I can't stay next to him the whole time. I'm nervous to talk to him about because he doesn't hear most of it, and I'm not sure if he'd believe his mom would be like that. Heck, 6 months ago I didn't think she could be like that.

I think she is jealous of my mom, although I don't know what to do about that. I'm close to my mom but it's not like she's here everyday or I even talk to her everyday. The reality is my mom lives close by and my MIL doesn't. I tried so hard to make sure she was included as much as possible and now I feel like it was all for nothing. It makes me sad, I used to tell my friends how happy I was that I had a drama-free relationship with her, and that I didn't believe in that DIL vs MIL stereotype.

Hi, I was hoping to get some advice about my MIL. I'm interested in what some of you can help me understand from her side and what I can do.

I thought I had a great relationship with my MIL - my husband and I dated for 7 years before we married, and currently have been married for 2 yrs. We recently had our first child 10 months ago. DH is an only child, and his mom lives an hour away from us. Up until about 4-5 months ago I had no issues (I thought) with her at all. She was always very respectful of our relationship, during wedding planning she would always say "whatever you two feel is best, etc" and was never critical or rude. I honestly didn't think she even had it in her to be like that. My mother lives about a 5 minute walk from our house, and both my parents and ILs are divorced.

In November (my son was 6 mo) it seems like she did a total 180 and now picks apart every little thing I do, right down to the spoons I use to feed my baby. She's obsessed with how much time my mother spends with my son, and how my son reacts to my mom. My son doesn't always react well to my MIL, she frets and hovers over him constantly, despite us assuring her he's fine she'll prevent him from playing with certain toys, rolling around on the floor or sitting up.  He frequently ends up in tears because she's hindering his movements.  She's criticizing decisions she was previously supportive of, ie we use cloth diapers to save money, which initially she said was great, now it's supposedly going to make him bow-legged and she doesn't know how he can stand wearing them. I made a point of trying to make sure she felt included during my pregnancy and initially when my son was born, because my husband is an only child and we do live an hour away. She was the first person I ever let bottle feed my son besides my husband (he's breastfed), I frequently suggested to DH to invite them over or that we should go visit those first few months. I printed lots of pictures for her (I don't even do that for my own mother).

I'm not sure exactly what started all this, but here's my theory: Halloween weekend we were supposed to go visit but had a snowstorm. The highway to the city were she lives is notoriously dangerous so if there's any remotely bad weather we don't go. We told her we'd reschedule and she assumed it was going to be the next weekend. However DH told her that'd we'd be up the weekend after that because he was away on business, didn't get in til 2am Saturday morning and was exhausted and the next day was my mom's birthday breakfast. The comments towards me started with at the beginning of that visit, and really intensified when I asked her not to feed my son ice cream (with frozen chunks of chocolate and peanut butter) and DH backed me up when she turned to him for permission to feed it to him. That was the first time we'd ever gotten into a situation like that, and the snarky comments have been coming fast and furious ever since. All mostly out of earshot of DH. She's picked on his diapers, clothes, spoons, food (she yanked his food out of my hand one day), how he sleeps, told me I couldn't go check on him when he was crying, breastfeeding (which she also was previously supportive of), his carseat, where I sit in the car, my going back to work, his toys, how I cut his toenails etc. You name it. After the first visit where she acted like that I think my mouth was hanging open the whole drive home. I could not believe it.

I never used to bat an eye when we visited with her, but now every time one is coming up my stomach is in knots and I can't sleep. Do I say something to my husband? Do I wait her out and hope she comes to her senses whenever she's over what's made her upset in the first place? I ignore the snarky comments and try to be polite as possible, but I'm wearing thin, especially since my return to work is coming up and she's very critical of that.