or is this what family life is like?

[tillymint1924]

I am finding it really hard to cope with the constant stream of visitors (mainly in laws) to my house ever since my now 6 month old baby was born. Until he was born no one ever came here and that suited dh and I fine. I had an arms length type relationship with PIL's in that I could pick and choose when I saw them and it didn't seem a problem on either side that we weren't particularly close. I am very close to my family but often saw them without dh, again no bad feeling, I used to go to see them when he was working etc.
Now though, I am a sahm and PIL's seem to think it's their right to pop in as and when as they want to see the baby. As I said we are not particularly close, I know they want to see the baby and not me, but I just find it really intrusive.
On top of them it is also dh's brother and two sisters who call round every weekend (all at different times, they all want to have the baby to themselves so purposely call separately).
Dh and I have had no end of arguements about this. He knows I think it is too much, but he is happy to see his family happy (first granchild and nephew for them all). I see my family during the week when dh is working so he rarely sees them, but I feel like we have open house to his family and as a result get no quiet family time at the weekend on our own.
So, is this a familiar scenario with anyone and how did you deal with it?

Why not ask your PILs if they would like to have your baby at their house for a couple of hours on the odd midweek afternoon? I did this when DS was about 6mo and the PILs loved it. I would go and do the supermarket shopping and have a coffee and read the paper in a cafe (luxury!) before picking DS up. I would have a cup of tea and a chat with them before leaving but it was the baby they wanted to see anyway, not me.

If you do that you'll sound more reasonable if you want to say you're not about so much for visits to your house during the week.

I lived for weekends when I was at home with a 6mo. I loved family time just with DH and DS. If I was having an endless stream of visitors at random times I would definitely have had to say something. Ask them to visit at certain times, if they turn up when it's not convenient tell them you're about to have lunch or go out. They'll soon catch on.

And as a PP said, once one of the SILs has a baby they'll all be round hers and you'll wonder what you've done to offend them