To think new mums are sometimes misled with the amount of ‘help’ to expect

Not just the time in hospital but seems very little support from midwives when you get home. I had a week in hospital with my first, then the midwife came in twice a day for two days and was then happy to do once a day for the next five days when I was handed over to the health visitor who visited me two or three times and then I would see her at clinic, I think she'd have visited more if I hadn't gone to clinic regularly. Similar set up with second except I was having trouble establishing breastfeeding so health visitor was coming in on her way into work, lunch time and on her way home. She did that for 2 days until she was happy all was well. That sort of support doesn't seem to happen now.

Bcs no one is entitled to photos of my children? 🤷🏼‍♀️
My parents are quite hands on and offered a lot of help. If they visited once, did shit and never showed any interest appart from social media updates I would sure as hell not act as a supplier of cute baby photos.
Relationships go two ways

Shakeyourbaublesandsmile · Today 08:17
You may have had a terrible experience but unless you felt unsafe and in a life threatening situation you did not have ptsd fgs…..ptsd is a really debilitating condition.

Oh yea, it's only MEN in wars that can claim the PTSD status cos they had it so bad.

Meanwhile it is men that are the cause of a lot of PTSD in women - domestic violence in around 25 percent of marriages

The symptoms of PTSD are very similar in women - being abandoned with a new baby while believing that a deadly virus is all around does feel life threatening.

I believe that PTSD is rife in mothers. Overstimulation from kids for at least a decade can wreck the nervous system, the feeling of being trapped too and left to get on with it by the world...

Perhaps new parents don't want visitors precisely because visitors are an imposition, rather than a help?
If people only want to come and hold the baby, be served a cup of tea, tell me how tired I look - why would I want that?

My mum, MIL, DH aunt and my aunt all bought food, did the dishwasher, took washing home with them to wash and dry etc....i didn't ask but they just did it

Yes emotional support, which might just be someone popping in and having a cuppa and a chat, is really valuable. You can leave the dishes, at least for a while, but when you feel so alone you need someone.

Hmm rose coloured glasses and the passing of time soften things somewhat

Plus everyone’s different. A week long maternity admission is quite different to 24 hours or less. Some people’s birth injuries make walking different.

If you or your friend qre taking all parenting advice from social media sites i would be very concerned for all parties reasons being is the adults obviously have zero common sense and cannot think for themselves at all and will not do anything unless social media tells them to therefore raising concerns for the childs welfare

We are now in the position of new parents being encouraged to actively push away the very people who should be their main source of support in the early days.

Yep. All the way through this thread I've been thinking of the many many threads on Mumsnet about keeping visitors away in the first weeks.

This! She sounds like an entitled idiot to me (sorry to be so harsh!)

I’m going a little against the grain here, but I work with new mums and see the vulnerability very regularly.

Before I had a baby, I would never have thought to do any of those things or really understood their value. As it was, I had a Velcro baby who I struggled to feed, no family close by and hadn’t met many other mums yet. None of my good friends lived close to us.

These days, if a friend has a baby, or a subsequent child, I’m all over it. I never have expectations of baby cuddles (mine never went to anyone) and I 100% offer to do chores, and either bring food or book a COOK delivery or vouchers. I also talk to new mums both personally and at work about managing expectations of themselves. Something we are in my opinion often misled with is how hard it is to adjust to things being very different once the baby arrives, especially once the adrenaline has worn off.

I think she has been misled, those videos are usually targeted at the child free people as an attempt to help them understand what a freshly postpartum Mum needs. Here’s the thing though, the algorithm will not show that to them cause they aren’t looking at pages upon pages about having a baby, things they need and so on and so on.
I remember seeing hundreds of those videos when I was pregnant, mixed in with videos about how we shouldn’t have visitors at all and be in the newborn bubble and then all the demands we should have for them when we do allow them to visit.
Honestly social media is toxic as fuck.

I think it’s a shame she was mislead to expect this. Maybe a mum or sister would do this but not a work colleague popping in to see baby. But it’s not realisitic. Unless you’ve had a very traumatic birth four weeks off for dad should be enough of medical recovery for basic day to day life (I don’t mean ironing or spring cleaning, I mean fed and washed) we had no family, you muddle through, nothing has to be perfect

If people want hep with a baby in the early days - then they need to pop their bubble of no visitor rule

also sort it out at the baby shower, make tickets of help and let people take a ticket at the abby shower of help they can offer int he first 2/3 weeks for the couple or 4/5 weeks for the new parents after birth.

You don't want to have several guests turn up with a cottage pie or help with the laundry of you want a nap.

And not just these people - all the neighbours she's run errands for, family that she'd helped, friends that she'd been there for....

It depends, I see some grandparents helping a lot, running themselves ragged and doing more than should ever be expected. Then some grandparents who don't help at all. A healthier balance would be somewhere in the middle.

Also found older generations were shocked at how little time you spend in hospital after birth now and how little help you get when you are there, but then don't realise how it impacts the first few weeks when you are exhausted before you even begin. They forget that you've not had time to recover before you even come home.

I didn't think of nursery from 9.30 to 12.30 four mornings a week as a luxury but as a necessary developmental mechanism. Both children went from 2.5 until they started primary the September after their 4th birthday. But yes we had to pay for it.

There was state nursery provision from the September after the 3rd birthday but not all primary schools provided it and it was only for 2.5 hours (9am to 11.30).

What a weird attitude. They have to earn photos of their grandchildren by helping?

Most people who p opped round for a visit were interested in holding the baby. I don't really know where all these books get their ideas from but very few people offered to help beyond washing up their tea cup. Dm did come to stay for a week when dh had to go away and tried to help a bit and when our second dc came along and had to go into hospital my inlaws came and mil did all the washing and ironing for me. Neither my parents or inlaws live nearby though so maybe if they did they would've been round to help more.

I had a 2020 baby, born on the day our area went back into local lockdown. So no village - although my MIL did the washing that built up during the week DD and I were in hospital, and a neighbour dropped round a lasagne when we got home. I had made sure the freezer was stocked anyway, and used the time stuck in hospital to do an online shop of easy things to eat too.

I did miss having visitors and was very sad to have to hold my baby up to the window to ‘meet’ her grandparents/ my sister at first. On the other hand, I did appreciate not feeling any pressure to get dressed or host any visitors.

The thing about the village that people apparently had in the past - it very much came with strings attached. You had to accept well meaning and not so well meaning advice from aunties and mothers in law etc, deal with everyone knowing your business and the judgement you’d get for not scrubbing your front step or whatever it was. You also had to play your part being the village for other people. Nowadays we’re all about boundaries and ‘our own little families’ and going low contact etc etc - so can’t expect the village to just materialise at the drop of a hat after previously living in such an individualistic way.

I do actually feel like I have a bit of a village these days - but it is the result of some pretty conscious choices. E.g we purposefully moved back and stayed close to family when we were thinking about ttc. I’ve always helped out my own family with childcare amongst other things and make the effort with in laws even when they drive me mad sometimes. I went to local baby groups and toddler groups and built friendships which I put some effort into maintaining rather than just dismissing them all as ‘not my thing’ or ‘too cliquey’. Have continued to support and volunteer where I can at such groups, and generally be as much a part of the local community as we can. We’re still not overflowing with offers of babysitting or anything like that, but I do feel confident that we would have quite a few options in an emergency which is probably as much of a village as anyone can hope for really. Not everyone can do those things or have those options though, I know we’ve been lucky.

This is lovely and I hope I can do the same for my DC.

I had the opposite, my mum kicked me out when I was pregnant at 18 and refused to come to the hospital and have no support ever since.

When my SIL gave birth she went to the hospital just to ask my brother to borrow money.

My sister is now soon to give birth and my mum has said she won’t have anything to do with the baby because my sister won’t let her live with her (it’s only a 1 bedroom).
My mum has somewhere to live she just refuses to pay rent so gets kicked out.

I’m not going to lie I do get a bit jealous when I hear about supportive parents but I still enjoy hearing about them as I think it’s just lovely.

It also helps me to see what is ‘normal’ and gives me ideas of what I can do to help other people, as as silly as it sounds, unless you’ve had that support yourself, it’s sometimes difficult to know how to help.

What a beautiful post, and very much agree with your last paragraphs. And yes, everybody should have at least an angel in their lives, like your lovely grandfather. Bless him. Thank you for sharing, it really made me emotional 🙏💐

I don't think it's too much to expect close relatives eg mum, sister, mother in law to say something like "would it be useful if I ran the hoover round?", "do you need someone to hold the baby while you shower?" or "can I get you any shopping?" if they visit.

On the surface it’s a lovely idea that visitors will help out but comments like this one upthread show that - maybe subconsciously - it’s women who are expected to be the ones helping out. And that often this ‘takes a village’ mentality is more about making women feel guilty, giving them additional tasks, and adding to their mental load.

Where is the expectation that someone’s dad or father in law bakes a casserole or does the washing up?

Pre-my own children, I have supported new mum friends. I always take a meal and snacks, usually something easy or even just bread and dips and something they can eat cold and one handed. I would do this if they had a partner or not, just feels the right thing to do. I have done laundry and doing the bins for a friend who was a lone parent post c section as I didn’t want her lifting. I had another friend who had a traumatic birth and I helped her with a few household tasks because her husband wasn’t able to take paternity leave. Always happy to help a friend within reason but I would absolutely be shocked if I was expected to help with basic household tasks when there is another fit and able parent in the home. I would offer to wash some stuff in the sink if I was there and making a cup of tea. I wouldn’t be impressed with being asked to run a hoover around if mum and dad were both at home, or even if he was at work quite frankly! If she dropped something on the floor and it needed cleaning, of course I’d help a new mum friend but I’m not doing routine chores for a woman who has an available partner. Things like “can I get you anything on the way?” and “let me wash up your cup” is normal but the entitlement of expecting visitors to do your housework is ridiculous.

But nursery back at a time when men didn't routinely get paternity leave (I'm guessing since you say your dh only had a week off as it was Christmas?), probably was a bit of a luxury?

Anyway, my dc1 was also 3 when dc2 was born and was at nursery part time. Dh did take paternity leave though. He'd have been gutted not to tbh

I agree with op that a lot of the traditional messaging about it "taking a village..." and how visitors should come and take the baby while you sleep or do your hoovering are less true for a lot of families now, but we also get better parental leave, which balances out. Dh and I didn't get a lot of help from family, but we did get things like Cook and M&S vouchers to make meals easier. My family aren't even on the same land mass, so no point expecting them to come and hold a baby