No touching newborn for 1st 3 months?

It's a little bit of an over the top/precious first born reaction, but you should realise that they don't want your opinion. The more you insist to force them to do it your way, the more you risk to have a fall out.

By the way, the first three months is not the best time to do their immunity. The baby will have a lot of time for that, after 6 months, when they lick toys that other children have lovingly licked before at playgroups or when they lick bins or eat grass. I always wash my hands before touching a newborn, expecially if I come from outside.

I would also want you to wash hands

We live in London so the majority of visitors would travel by tube or bus to our home. Those places harbour germs. Even before children we always washed hands on arriving home

What about breathing over them? Do you have to wear a mask as well?

While it does sound a bit PFB, it's their child their rules.
Just smile nod and use the hand gel.

I think you have to smile, nod and comply.

He seems to be completely misunderstanding the NICE hospital rules on infection control, and has wrongly extrapolated them to the home.

What he is insisting on is not required, but it's not dangerous either. Lots of new parents have unrealistic ideals of what they will do with their new babies, or that they'll never have a toddler who does that, or their teens will never go off the rails, or whatever. Some stick to those ideals, many crumble rapidly when actually parenting.

I suspect this is starry-eyed idealism, not the start of manifestation of controlling tendencies.

Ds and I went to visit a friend who had just had her first baby - we washed hands before touching baby as previously instructed and then watched as their dog sniffed baby and lay it's head on baby. It was bizarre.

Why would you even have a row about this? You are risking them thinking that you won't respect their views on anything to do with their child. And yes, it is a normal precaution and hardly amounts to a sanitised environment.

Just do it. Honestly 3 months will zip by and if you annoy the new parents your could end up not seeing your grandchild thatmuch in the first 3 months anyway.

I insisted everyone washed their hands for the first 3 months
With DS. I am glad that I did. Later on they can get immunity. No need to start straight away.

Some people will be carrying serious bugs on them, especially if they work in healthcare. You are only reducing the chances of something by washing your hands, not eliminating it.

When my dd2was born I was visited by two friends, seperatly who are nursery nurses and they both went and washed their hands before having a cuddle with dd2. Both had worked in Denmark not sure if that is relevant or not.

Can't do any harm

Say yes and smile sweetly, then

Unfortunately your son has grown up and now it's your turn to do as your told!

Just do what they say, they have total control over the baby and I have seen with my own eyes any unwanted interference from Grandparents does not go down well. Not on MN anyway!

Congrats on becoming a gran (hopefully they will actually let you be one)

They want to ensure that people have clean hands when touching their baby. If you knew how many people dont even wash hands after using public toilets, I am sure you would agree they have a point.

Is fighting for your right to touch their baby with possibly germ ridden hands really worth it?

If you kick up a fuss over this, I suspect you will come across as controlling and interfering grandparents who wont respect the parents wishes, and you may thus jeopardize your relationship with your son and daughter in law.

Not worth it.

Do you smoke OP?

Washing hands with soap and water is better. Hand gel doesn't kill all bugs. As a maternity nurse I always wash my hands before picking up a baby.
Getting used to bugs good for babies 3 months plus. Very young babies need some protection. It's not your baby, so either grin and bare it or accept you won't be invited round.

Definitely their baby their rules. Tbh i would be furious if my mil or mother refused to do something I wanted to do cos they don't think its the right thing to do. It's nothing to do with them how I want to raise my child. This is minor really, and not worth having a heated argument about. What's more important, having to sanitise your hands or keeping the peace? It's not worth it

I'm on your side, I agree it sounds completely ridiculous and OTT (in my humble opinion) but as others have said I would roll your eyes in private but indulge their requests in person to keep the peace. Good luck :-)

I dunno, Orangeis

If my parents had dismissed concerns in a similar offhand manner AND made it into a heated discussion I wouldn't easily turn to them a few week later for assistance.

Most people I found automatically washed their hands before holding DS when he was very small. So that's kind of fair enough. To 3 months is a little extreme, but it certainly won't happen, they'll have other things to think about!

I have always washed my hands before holding my friends' newborns. It just seems like a sensible thing to do. It's not something anyone has ever requested that I do but then I've probably washed my hands before they would have to ask.

Give it a few days weeks. They'll be begging you to take the baby for a bit, hand-gel or not!

It is really stupid but as others have said I would just privately think they are just and do as they ask. It won't happen as when your child is crying you don't pop to get hand gel before picking them up. Likewise when shopping and you need to pick them up you don't reach for hand gel first. They will get over this quickly and in years to come you can remind them of their temporary insanity.

I can't stand hand sanitiser. My understanding is that it is no good for norovirus either.
My mum actually wanted me to do this when I had DS1. There is no way I would have asked my grandad, who died before DS was 1, to antibac before holding his first great grandchild.
If your baby has health issues, etc, it is perfectly reasonable however.

I would be pissed off at the 'heated discussion' if I were your DD. It's not up to you. Be careful or they'll start limiting contact with you as they won't want to hear your opinion about every minor or major parenting decision they make.

Newborns are vulnerable to infection. Your title is totally inaccurate and suggests you're going to be a difficult granny I'm afraid.

Asking people to wash their hands before holding the baby is a perfectly reasonable precaution, I suspect hand sanitiser is an alternative.

Either way YABVU to make a big deal out of this. Even if it was completely unnecessary it would hardly inconvenience e you to do it just to set their minds at ease. If you take this combative attitude towards their parenting decisions you may end up seeing your grandchild very little and the parents won't listen to you even when you have something sensible to say.

Expect to smile and nod a lot in the first couple of years. It will wear off when the child becomes a person with ideas of their own.