Mom Says Her Mother-in-Law Snuck Photos While She Was Nursing — Then Said She Was “Ruining” the Baby Pictures

A mom of four says a tense visit with her in-laws turned into a full-blown privacy fight when her mother-in-law revealed she had been secretly taking pictures of her and the baby from strange angles — including at least one photo taken through a cracked bedroom door.

The 37-year-old mom explained in a Reddit post that her family was staying with her husband’s parents for two weeks. She and her mother-in-law did not have the easiest relationship, but she said her MIL had been trying to act nice since the birth of the couple’s fourth child, a 4-month-old boy.

That nice act did not last long.

The poster said her mother-in-law had already been pushing buttons during the visit. She had allegedly rummaged through the poster’s clothes and complained that the baby should be bottle-fed instead of nursed so she could have a chance to feed “her baby.”

The mom tried to bite her tongue because her husband loved his family and the visit was one of the only times he got to see his siblings. But then one morning, while the family was eating breakfast and the older kids were outside, her MIL stormed downstairs and announced they needed to talk.

The poster expected to be accused of breaking some household rule. Instead, her MIL slapped her phone down on the counter and started scrolling through photos.

They were all pictures of the poster and the baby.

The mom said the photos appeared to have been taken without her realizing it. Many were blurry or shot from strange angles, including low angles that looked like the phone had been angled upward from the MIL’s lap. One photo had apparently been taken through a crack in the bedroom door.

That detail alone was enough to make the poster angry. But then came the reason her MIL was upset.

The mother-in-law wanted pictures of the baby she could post online, but the poster does not want her infant son’s face plastered across social media. On her own Facebook pictures, she covers his face with emojis.

Her MIL did not like that. She complained that she did not want to put “those stupid pictures” over the baby’s face. She also said the poster would not put the baby down long enough for her to get photos of him by himself.

The baby had been contact napping, and the mom often wore him throughout the day. So the MIL apparently tried to get her own pictures anyway — from across rooms, odd angles, and even through a doorway.

Then she insulted the poster’s body.

According to the mom, her MIL said she could not post the secret photos because the poster looked “huge” and was “ruining” them by looking ridiculous. The poster said she is on the heavier side, and because some of the pictures were taken from low, unflattering angles, they showed her with a double chin while the baby was pressed against her in her arms or wrap.

But the poster made it clear that the weight comments were not the main issue.

What bothered her was the sneaking. She said her MIL did not respect her enough to ask for help taking photos she would actually approve of. She also believed her MIL did not want to follow the rule about covering the baby’s face online, so she tried to capture images behind her back instead.

The most upsetting detail was that she was nursing the baby in one of the photos.

Her husband backed her up. He started getting in the way when he noticed his mom trying to take more pictures, and he distracted her so the poster could leave the room.

But other family members were dismissive.

Her father-in-law said the MIL had a right to take photos of her grandchild and argued it was not his wife’s fault the poster was insecure about her weight. Her husband’s twin sister brushed it off too, saying their mother had always been catty about weight, so the poster should not act insulted like it was new.

Even the poster’s own sister acted like she was making too big a deal out of it, pointing out that the MIL had been like this before.

That frustrated the poster because, again, she was not mainly upset about the body comments. She was upset that her MIL had taken secret photos of her and her baby, including a private nursing moment, and then acted like the poster was the problem for making the pictures unusable.

After commenters reacted, the poster added that she had not even thought about leaving early until people suggested it. She had been ready to simply grit her teeth and finish the visit because they had only taken one car.

Then she started packing.

In an update, she said her husband came home early from fishing with his dad and brother. She and her husband had been texting while he was gone, and he agreed to drive her and the baby home. They also planned to talk on the drive about what future visits with his parents would look like.

By the end, the mom had gone from wondering if she was being dramatic to deciding she did not need to spend the rest of her postpartum visit dodging a secret camera in her in-laws’ house.

Commenters overwhelmingly told her she was not overreacting. Many focused on the fact that her MIL had taken photos without permission, including through a cracked bedroom door and while the poster was nursing.

Several people said the husband needed to do more than physically block the photos in the moment. They said he should set clear rules with his own family so the poster did not have to be the bad guy every time.

Others encouraged her to report any unauthorized baby photos if her MIL posted them online. Some commenters said parents have the right to decide where their child’s image appears, especially with infants.

A lot of people were angry that family members kept reducing the issue to weight. Commenters said the body-shaming was rude, but the bigger problem was the lack of consent and respect. They argued that calling the poster insecure was a way of dodging the real issue: the MIL wanted online photos and did not want to follow the parents’ rules.

Many commenters also told her to leave early. They said she did not need to spend precious postpartum time in a house where someone was sneaking photos, insulting her body, rummaging through her things, and calling the baby “her baby.”

The main reaction was blunt: grandma does not outrank the parents. If the parents say no face photos online, that rule stands. And if someone has to sneak pictures to get around that rule, they already know they are crossing a line.