To ask you how long you waited before visitors

Wrong.

Grandparents are certainly immediate family in mine!

Both of my children allowed visitors the day after they got home from hospital. No reason they wouldn’t. I also visited one in hospital.

I’ve never heard in my life anyone not refer to their parents as immediate family. This is OP’s son’s and DIL baby. In my eyes she is immediate family.

People came too soon for me. I didn’t want to say no but I wish I did. I was exhausted, she’ll shocked, upset, stressed. Nobody who visited was helpful, it was just exhausting hosting everyone while trying to establish breastfeeding, bleeding, in pain, and the rest.

Immediate family is the people you live with, usually spouse and children. Extended family is grandparents, aunts, uncles etc.

How is a grandparent not immediate family?

My mum and my son's grandparents visited immediately (well, I actually requested my mum be at the birth as I knew she would be the best advocate for me). They were welcome to visit me at home at any time.

My daughters grandparents I allowed to visit in hospital as it was quite brief, it was quite a while longer before they came to the house.

The difference was my mum and my son's grandparents would visit and obviously cuddle him etc but they also helped themselves to drinks, brought food round, washed up after themselves etc. My daughters grandparents would expect drinks to be made for them which I wasn't prepared to do and my ex wouldn't have thought to offer and they were his parents so I said he could invite them round but I wouldn't be waiting on them.

So it depends what the grandparents are like.

You’re not immediate family. You’re extended family. It’s really normal for a new mother not to want extended family visiting until she’s had a chance to rest, recover and meet her own baby properly. This is a great opportunity to start as you mean to go on, by respecting boundaries and being patient.

At 9 the next morning. The nurses took one look at my mum and decided not to protest. You wouldn’t have kept her from DS if she’d had to drag dad over a landmine field.

I can understand the disappointment too but the new mum's feelings has to come before the MIL's feelings and I think that is partly what has changed. It is more 'acceptable' now to say no instead of gritting your teeth and putting someone else's feelings before your own when you've just given birth which I think used to be far more common.

Of course, many new mums are happy to show off baby etc which is absolutely fine as well.

ANYONE visits when the mother says she's ready.
It's really that easy, even for myself who never had children.

Well I suppose in the situation of meeting new grandchildren, it is ultimately up to the mum if she wants visitors or not & a husband over-ruling their wife on that would be flamed on here.

And whilst I totally understand that you a new mother is very vulnerable and might only want to see their Mum, I can also understand why the MIL would be disappointed in that scenario.

I’d give it until Sunday then send a message about popping over.

My C-section was afternoon & we missed visiting hours so my parents & in laws came they day after, then the day after that it was siblings. I loved having everyone over to meet baby and also find it odd when people make their families wait ages.

I follow an influencer that made her family wait 3 months !!!

She hasn’t been at all rude.

I had my in-laws at the hospital that day and my family at home the next day, I knew that by having in-laws at the hospital it’d be a shorter stay as there were more of them coming and I didn’t want a house full. We then had the 2 weeks of DHs paternity leave with no visitors. DC2 was in the first lockdown so it was months and honestly it was lovely, DC3 we saw my parents that day as they had the older 2 but DHs family had the flu so they had to wait a bit.

You mentioned you have young children yourself, are you expecting to visit with them? Just thinking you may get asked to visit sooner if you make it clear it’s without young DC, they may not be feeling up to that or wanting to avoid young DC with colds around a newborn, particularly at this time of year with the flu going round if they’re in nursery or school.

My first baby was in NICU so unfortunately no one could meet him until we got out of hospital but as soon as we were discharged I was straight on the phone to my parents to tell them to come home. All other family members visited for the next couple of days/weeks.

With my second baby it was during Covid so some restrictions were in place but as soon as it was possible everyone came. I don't understand keeping family away.

My immediate family and in laws saw the baby in hospital 2 hours after birth:) I found it so exciting. Baby girl is now 17 😅

Yeah and it’s possible that I can still feel like it’s cringe (in my opinion) and still understand that people feel differently. Not sure why you are making this personal - the OP asked about how long before visits and I responded to someone else about the cringe when they said it so it’s not just me either.

Less than an hour for my mum, by sheer coincidence she was on a train going through my city and rang me to ask if she could hop off. The rest of the grandparents came the next day and a steady stream of friends and other relatives in the days after that. I wasn’t precious about it; they were all really excited!