People who just won’t listen

Do other people find this?  There are some people who it doesn't matter how many times you tell them what NOT to feed your child, they just don't get it.  I am getting more and more nervous about what my MIL may feed Ella.  It took quite some convincing at first to get her to realise that Ella couldn't have anything with dairy, soy, seafood, egg, nuts, wheat - this is after the child's anaphylaxis.  I realised early on that she didn't 'get it' when she wanted to feed Ella some of the apple from an apple crumble pudding, and since then DH has had a few words to her about it.  In fact, we don't let any "can't I just give her some..." slip by without an explanation of exactly why not.  (the last 'can she just have a little...' was icecream of all things!).  But then in the weekend, she was holding Ella during communion at church and Ella grabbed a tiny piece of bread as the dish passed by her.  She didn't even try to fish it out of her mouth!!!  Later that avo, Ella was inconsolable and all I could think of that caused it was that it may have been that.  Sure, she eats wheat and soy now, but most wholegrain breads like that have friggin dairy in them.  Thank god nothing awful happened as a result, but the child has been rashy, spotty and eczema-y for the last week already.  Does anyone have any advice on how to really get it through to people?  For the record, my MIL is a lovely person, and we get along fine, I'm just not feeling the respect on this issue and it scares me what might happen next.

My MIL is lovely also and if she did what you have described I would simply tell her that either she listens to what you say Ella is not to eat or she simply will not be allowed to feed her anything at all unless you specifically give it to her to give to Ella. And I'd then go on to say that if she doesn't like that, well then she won't be allowed to spend time with Ella because of her bad reactions to the food.. and then explain what those reactions are and pop in the example of the bread and all the crap its caused from a small piece.

Perhaps I'd say it in a slightly better way than that, but that would be the jist of it.

Ezi-buy have Tshirts that say "Don't feed me, I'm allergic"... maybe you should get Ella one or two to wear exclusively around the MIL... might not help, but it would probably make you feel a little better

Hmmmm, yeah I didn't warm to the idea of the Ezibuy allergy stuff... but suddenly I see how it could be useful for me!  Cheers.  I think more 'big talks' are called for, and a briefing beforehand each time she's gonna have Ella. 

My in laws were exactly the same- still are to some degree. It took them seeing her have a reaction to realise that its actually serious and not me being over protective! They even had peanuts sitting out in bowls around their lounge one time when we visited- Charlotte was still quite young then but luckily DH spotted them and told his Mum off before she got to them.

The epipen talk works wonders- it freaked out my Dad when I talked him through what he would have to do if she had a reaction so now hes really aware of not feeding her anything unless he checks with me first.

Hmmmm, yeah.  I was just thinking this morning of how Jono used to come to all of Ella's hospital appts at first, because I needed the moral support.  I'm fine without it now, but might ask her if she can join me "for, ahem, "moral support"' at one.  I can't imagine her taking time off work for it in all honesty though.  And the next couple should be for tests that the Paed warned me there is a risk of anaphylaxis for.  I don't actually expect that to happen, and the risk is very small.  But I probably will need Jono for support for those ones (and it has to be him!). 

Nah, she doesn't have an EpiPen yet - she's still waiting to reach that 10kg mark.