Newbie here. This isn't about in-laws, but I've heard this board is good about no-nonsense advice and I'm at a loss on what to do.
When I was a kid she was around a lot and very clingy. I think my mom just didn't know how to say no to her. She isn't married and has no kids, so she would invade our family holidays and took me on outings a lot just me and her. I feel I was trained from a young aged to feel obligated to spend time with her. She would never correct people who assumed she was my mother and act weirdly happy about it after. She would also show up unannounced, especially on holidays if she wasn't invited and felt she should have been. She was always very affectionate with me in a way that made me uncomfortable. I would even wake up sometimes as a kid with her sleeping in my bed (her head at my feet). It was just constant, weird, needy, motherly-type affection all the time that wasn't welcome. And was way more over the top than my own, somewhat clingy actual mother.
Once I was an adult, I felt better in a position to avoid spending time with her if I wanted to, which turned into me pretty much NEVER seeing her, except really at family weddings. She's tried to be more involved, reached out a few times with guilt-trippy emails, but thankfully somewhere along the way she lost my phone number and never got my current address, and as many times as she's asked for it via email, I just pretend I didn't read that question or I don't respond to the email. Also, when I was a teen, she and my mom had a bad falling out and my mom cut her off completely. I saw her a few times after that, feeling somewhat obliged to be her one contact.
Now I have a 3 mo old DD and she and my mom are starting to speak again. And needless to say, she's SUPER excited about DD. Asking me for my address again (which I don't want to give her because she used to show up uninvited when I was a kid). I have a big family on the other side, and lots of aunts and uncles I'm closer with than her, and most of them haven't met her yet but she's begging me over email to come visit as soon as possible and send her my address so she can send all this stuff for the baby. There's nothing in particular she's done to deserve being CO, but I really don't enjoy her company, I don't want my DD to be a band-aid for her not having enough else in her life, and I really just don't want her to take this as a reason to reenter my life. My mom wasn't strong enough to protect my boundaries as a child, and I don't want to let her do that to DD.
I feel huge guilt because she only has one other niece who is definitely not going to have kids. But this woman definitely played mommy with me, and I'm worried she wants to play grandma/mommy with DD. And if I don't do something now, it will only get worse if I have more children. Should I let her visit and just lay down firm boundaries? It seems unfair to not allow her to even meet DD but I just don't want to deal with it.
Would love to know others' thoughts...