I MARRIED my husband after a long love story, and we are a Relationship Advice – This Week’s Columnhappy couple. Before I gave birth to my baby girl, my relationship with his parents was good. After the birth, when my baby was four months old, my mother-in-law wanted to interfere in my way of bringing up my baby. She wants me to feed the baby every three hours. This is impossible because my baby gets hungry a lot, and I breastfeed her. Breastfeeding shouldn’t be scheduled. My baby takes three naps a day, which is normal for a six-month-old. My mother-in-law doesn’t want her to sleep that much. She thinks I force her to sleep, which is not true.

My baby sometimes has stranger anxiety, and cries when her grandparents hold her. My mother-in-law says that’s because I imprison the baby at home and don’t take her on outings, which is totally untrue. When I try to take the baby and tell her she has normal anxiety, my mother-in-law refuses to let me have her.

When I say we shouldn’t let her cry, or she will get negative associations, my mother-in-law tells me I should leave her to cry and that will help her. Every time my husband and I try to explain things to my mother-in-law, she insists we are wrong.

Now when I visit my in-laws every weekend I become depressed. It makes me angry, because I’m losing control as a mum, and my baby suffers due to the need for feeding and sleep. What can I do?