to want to keep my new baby healthy?

[BabyBoyBlues]

I am a new mum, had DS two weeks ago. My family and I are close, but DH's aren't. My family have been to visit us with DS, as has DH's mum, but DH and I have agreed not to let his brother, who has small children, come and see DS until he's a bit older, because we don't want him to catch any germs. BIL and his family live abroad, and are visiting this month, then going back, not likely to be back until Christmas. MIL thinks we're being really OTT.
Am I being over protective? DS is so small and not vaccinated yet, I just don't want to risk anything.

YABU

This level of anxiety is not normal.

Please have a titter of wit.

You will utterly offend your BIL and may cause a rift that will never heal between your ILs and you.

What should I have done with my other children when I had DD2? Farmed them out for the first year?

I know they are tiny and precious but YABVU - you will presumably have to take your DS out to the supermarket at some point and see other people, so unless he is particularly vulnerable or there is a concrete reason (i.e. that the relatives are actually sick when they are here or really likely to be carrying something dubious if they come from somewhere very exotic!) it's just daft to refuse to see them and you will cause all sorts of aggro for along time to come.

FWIW my niece & nephew (technically DH's) visited my DD when she was 5 days old - they were 5yo and 20 months at the time and nothing came of it apart from a handful of very lovely photos.

And I thought I was the most precious new first time mum....I'm not sure you can actually be serious!

Er, YABU.

And a little nuts. It's the hormones. We've all been there.

You can't protect your DC from evything, so focus on the big stuff not the small things.

Congratulations though!

Letting his cousins visit won't be compromising his health, you know.

Babies are tougher and more resilient than you think; they do have a quite effective immune system really! Otherwise the human race would have died out years ago...

I give up posting on here. I hope you enjoy your life without your in laws in it.

Your baby will be exposed to germs from you!! Plus your DH. How do you plan to go about that then?

If you ate breastfeeding not only will you be passing on your antibodies but every time you come in to contact with any kind of virus or cold, you start making the antibodies against it within minutes and your ds will get them in his next feed. It's that quick

Please listen to the responses on here. You are being a little ott. He will be fine to be around your ils children regardless of whether you like them you can't use 'germs' as the reason to keep them away. It really isn't a big desk in the grand scheme of things. If you're that bothered how about giving them all a squirt of alcohol gel as they arrive?

I would also strongly agree with Dozer. When mn is unanimous, listen.

So you want to do the best thing by him? Let him meet his cousins. You might not like the wider family but that doesn't make them dirty!

If you are breastfeeding

There is a theory, quite possibly inaccurate, that goes -

asthma, eczema and food allergies are more common in first born children than their younger siblings, because eldest children don't get their immune systems primed at such an early age as their younger siblings do, because they have less contact to other snotty grotty children, and so only start catching common ailments when they reach nursery/preschool age. Thus their immune systems don't develop 'properly' and as a consequence they are more likely to suffer from atopic ailments.

Now of course all of the above may be untrue, but I have read the same theory in a number of sources. I have 2 DC, my eldest has severe food allergies, asthma and eczema. She didn't have so much as a cold until she was nearly 2. My youngest has no such health problems. He caught his first fevery cold when he was 9 days old, and of course we were worried about that, but he survived it OK, then went on to suffer from everything else big sis brought home. So from my sample size of one, the theory might just have some truth in it.

YABU
But I dont think you are the first or the last new parent to feel like this.

Most of us go a bit squirrely when we have our first baby

Your baby will be fine. You dont have to let anyone kiss him if you dont want to. You dont have to let the children hold him. He is really little so that would be perfectly reasonable.

If you dont get on with your IL now, banning them or their kids from your house is not going to help matters much is it?

YANBU I cant believe people have given you such a hard time!! oh my christ, cut the girl some slack, this is her first baby and he is two weeks old!!!

I wouldnt let anyone, and i mean ANYONE see my DD when she was born, apart from my DP and DD1. But, it turned out that i had PND, there was a slight health concern with DD and i just wanted her to myself because i had convinced myself i was going to lose her. I was being irrational, but i just didnt want to see anyone.

He's your baby, if you dont want them to visit, then stick by your guns.

Just posting this then leaving thread

www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfoforall/problems/postnatalmentalhealth/postnataldepression.aspx

ridiculous. Theyre children, not farm animals

Oops, I took DS2 to plaguegroup before his first vaccinations, the possibility never occurred to me that letting children near him would compromise his health. I even let DS1 kiss and cuddle him...

It never ceases to amaze me the ridiculous things people find to worry about on MN.

YABU and mad as a box of frogs.

Yabu.
Fucking hell let his family see the baby, nothing will happen.

by breastfeeding, your baby has a better immune system now than it will have in the next 5 years!! ie.... yours, built up over many, many years.

Its painful, isn't it? that new feeling you have of worry and fear. Its the flip side of the love you have for your beautiful new baby.

Congratulations and welcome to being a parent

YABU you should realise that by now, bless your heart, weve all been there, many congrats on your lovely boy. Boys are ace!!

Just make a joke of saying that you know you are being pfb mother, but could everyone wash their hands before having a cuddle? You could say that was what everyone was asked to do on the post natal ward and you would like to keep up that habit until precious ds is

That might give you a bit of reassurance?

And no, you cant say ok to bil but not kids. Someone up thread made the good point that the kids may show the effects of colds more ( think of typical snotty dribbly toddler, pre schooler) but the adults are JUST AS LIKELY to be harbouring the germs but perhaps better able to fight them off and not show the signs of infection. So in fact BIL may be a bigger risk! So invite the kids but not him??

And yes you will look back and laugh.

YABU

Congratulations, but YABU.
DD2 had her two year old sister admiring her when she was 3 minutes old and her sisters two BFs and their parents by the time she was 8 hours old.

Ok she was born at home and the visitors came to take DD1 off for tea do DH, DD2 and I could sleep.

Is your ds in some way more ill or vulnerable than any other baby? Is his immune system or a major organ damaged?