AIBU to not want MIL to descend on us on my due date

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MIL has just phoned to say they 'happen' to have been offered a college course interview 2 days before my due date for my SIL and that will mean they can travel to that an then on to us just in time for the baby!

She is difficult at the best of times and we don't really see eye to eye as our genral outlooks are very different and the thought of her wading in to what I see as a special bonding time for our new family is really stressing me out .

Now, while I have no intention of denying her acess to her grandchild AIBU for not wanting her there at that particular time? (I have tried telling her the baby might be late but she says it would only be 4 days max - don't ask me how she knows!!).

You are absolutely right Fanjo...it always staggers me when people take the passive aggressive route of saying nothing and seething and fuming and stressing (not saying this is what the OP is doing but it sounds like she might be headed in that direction) rather than coming out with a straightforward suggestion like yours. As I have said elsewhere, I am far from being the sweetest person around but the kind of thing you say would be fine by me.

Lovely as it is to know your baby is so eagerly anticipated, YANBU for wanting a degree of control over who's waiting at your elbow.

I am quite surprised your SIL will be keen to come along after her interview, hope MIL won't sit tapping her foot and wanting to hurry over to your place asap.

The travel involved means that my MIL and SIL would need to stay over and I imagine it will be for a few days to make it worth their while.

Er, not staying under your roof it doesn't. DH may like additional support and who better than his family, but if you aren't that close to MIL, and feel stressed at the thought, it's not really helpful.

Thankfully living in the modern age with communications it will be very simple to let everyone know your baby's arrived safely and you'll be glad to have visitors at hospital at such and such a time. There's usually a space limit so both families will have to ration time anyway. If you'd rather wait, it's so nice to have special closeness just the 3 of you to begin with and welcome family in at your own pace.

The majority of my friends had pfbs after the due date not before, if that is any way reassuring.

As someone who lives with her in laws, my advice is to do what you can to ensure you have some privacy. While there was nothing massively abnormal about my labour, I firmly believe it was harder than it needed to be because it was in front of an audience.

I also nearly gave up breastfeeding because my MIL kept entering my room without knocking, making skin to skin very difficult. I was fed up of feeling violated and yelled at my husband to go buy formula.

She's not a malicious person and cares a lot about her grandson, but I felt very vulnerable during labour and the first two weeks post partum and couldn't deal with an audience. I didn't leave the bedroom if my PILs were home, even to get a drink, and that didn't do my health any favours. Babies make people go a bit nuts and they almost forget you exist. Even now, if I have my son in a sling my MIL will adjust my clothing to see him, seemingly unaware of my personal space!

I didn't mind anyone visiting me even in the labour room after the birth. It was dh who kept bloody trying to invite everyone around when I was in labour the first time. Luckily most people had the sense to stay away. I felt very self conscious in labour and told him to stop looking at me. I just wanted to hibernate. It was my own mum who pissed me off. The day after giving birth to dd2 I went to sit down to feed her (bottle). My mum comes over and takes dd and bottle off me and says "Here, I'll do that." then rather than saying that I should rest, sleep or have a shower she says "You make me a ham butty and a coffee." I stood there not knowing what to do for 10 seconds before I gathered my thoughts, gave myself a mental kick up the arse and took dd back off her and told her to make me a brew and a sandwich.

I can totally understand where you are coming from and think your MIL is unreasonable.

Slightly different perspective, my PILs were on standby to come and stay when I went into labour with DS2 - at our request (amd ot was just before Xmas, born late on 22nd Dec). They did a good job of looking after DS1, and were delighted to meet DS2 when I brought him home from hospital. I think they stayed 2 nights and then went home. We had Xmas on our own, which was lovely. Wapping my boobs out in front of FIL was a little uncomfortable...he would dash off to the kitchen to make tea!

No MIL bashing from me!

anyone else feel a bit sad for fathers that THEIR parents not welcome to see the new baby

I was in hospital before DD was born, and when they finally gave me an induction date I didn't want to tell MIL as thought she would camp at the hospital. Then realised that as it was a Saturday she may have just turned up to visit me (DD was induced 3 weeks early) so we did tell her & promised to call as soon as baby arrived (which was the Sunday).

She was good and did stay away until regulation visiting times on the Sunday, so she did see her the day she was born - just was not there throughout labour. She then visited lots but always phoned first. I was amazed actually :) (It was her first grandchild so she was understandably very excited).

We have had our moments but overall she has been a great MIL - much better than I expected.

I must have misread, I didn't see the OP saying her family would be encamped at hospital and home ready to see the baby as soon as it appeared. I absolutely agree, exciting for both sides of the family, sad if anyone feels excluded, but without being precious about it, as thrilling as it is to be grandparents, this is the couple's firstborn, can't they have a say in who comes to visit?

Not unreasonable at all! You have no idea how you will feel, if you have to have an emcs or anything, plus bf with expert onlookers is never a good thing at the beginning. My mil and fil descended and stayed for a week, as dh wanted them to be part of it. It was a disaster as I was very poorly afterwards and had to keep quiet and try to bf my huge baby. She drove me mad trying to make me do controlled crying on a newborn, fil took control of the remote and was bored out of his head. Also, I bf and cuddled my baby all the time. She wanted to help, ie feed with a bottle so she could sit all day and do it and I could push off into the bedroom and sleep leaving her to the baby.

Babies bf / bottle feed and sleep. That's it. And it's boring for onlookers with you in yor pjs doing it then sleeping too, not wanting to go out or let them do it.

Grim my inlaws were welcome. To stay the hour or so my parents did on their first visit to us in the hospital.
Not to stay all day/evening the day we brought ds home to begin our new life as a family, not to refuse to leave when directly asked (after repeated hinting had failed), and certainly not welcome to tell me to leave my brand new baby to cry 'because he has to learn'.
Nope, don't feel slightly sorry for telling them they couldn't do the same for dc2.

I wouldn't want anyone's parents there during labour! Mine or DH's! Although if I had to choose one I'd probably go for MIL because she was a midwife for years

But it isn't that DH's family are not welcome to see the baby - they're just not welcome to invite themselves to stay at the home of somebody about to give birth . Few people labour comfortably with an unwanted audience. And if the baby arrives early then OP won't want to have to deal with house guests as well as a newborn. And it's not great preparation for SIL's interview either, to be fair.

OP - YANBU. Say no to this.

Lavenderhoney, every relative we had in the first two weeks seemed amazed that DS was asleep the entire time. It was painful watching them prod and poke himto wake him up! And if he did wake up, they'd be too excited to return him to me for a feed. A couple of relatives would even say 'oh you're not hungry' to him when I said he needed a feed and it broke my heart to see him hungry.

FWIW I would have wanted my own family around even less than my PILs. God the thought of it makes me want to heave.

i'm not a great reader of threads, so i hope that somewhere along the line, op, you said a big 'no!' to your mother in law. only that one word needed. say no and stick to it.

you aren't being cruel or unloving. you just want to get on with your birthing your own way.

my daughter was born in june, on a saturday. my mum arrived on tuesday, stayed two nights, left, no trouble. i thought that was perfectly right. she was going to france on sunday and didn't want to die (they were flying) without seeing her grandaughter (she's still with us, my mum, by the way. not in the house though). in laws didn't bother at all. we took daughter from the iom to lancashire to see them when she was about six weeks i think - i still think it was dereliction of duty on their part. but if people had wanted to arrive and stay for their own amusement, i'd have told them no.

i'm not surprised that people have trouble with mother in laws. you were brought up by your mum, grew into independence, and here is some other woman thinking her way is right and she's the boss. no. sack it. i'm the boss in my house and my word is law.

in this case - that's your house, and your word that's law. rightly so.
good luck with everything.

My Mil stayed at ours whilst I was in hospital (ELCS so dates easy to work with) to mind our DS1. This was on the condition that she did not stay when I was in the house, and she was able to come to the hospital to see her newborn grandson. DH was a diplomatic genius.

MIL saw baby and was gone before I came out of hospital.

With a natural birth, when labour can happen anytime, I would say no house guests at all, but a brief visit to meet the baby when you are comfortable.

So in other words YANBU.

I never had a problem with either my parents or ILs regarding either DC. But I had a friend who's inlaws invited themselves to come and stay when she had her DS by ELCS.

There she was, trying to bf and recover from CS, and her ILs expected her to be up on her feet attending to their every need while the ILs simply sat with the baby being waited on hand and foot.

Luckily, her DH realised what was going on, but when her asked his parents to leave and give them some space to recover, he got tears, etc from his mum and accusations of being selfish from his dad.

This isn't MIL bashing, but selfish or nasty people don't automatically turn into pleasant and reasonable people simply because they've just become grandparents. I think those people who are at people wanting firm boundaries with potentially toxic grandparents, maybe haven't had to deal with parents or ILs who are not reasonable enough to accept the intention behind a request like All these women just need to say to their MILs "actually I'd prefer not to arrange your visit till after the baby is born". And then if the MIL is the lovely kind well-meaning person that you are imagining, she'll reply "oh yes of course dear, I remember what it feels like"

A friend of mine was horrified when her mil asked the Mw if she could stay to watch the birth, and not even ask her or look at her!! . Mw said " not really" and mil was bundled out still shouting she was entitled to see her gc being born.

We went for no visitors after dd was born, but dh boss turned up with all his family at the door the day we got home. They just walked in and sat down! I was bf half naked on the sofa watching cbeebies with ds1 and dh was horrified and still holding the door! They drank us dry, moaned about the lack of snacks and left:) couldn't make it up.

@ Mr Lavenderhoney's boss! That is awful!

I had my SIL come for a weeks vacation when I was 38 weeks pregnant. then give out about the weather and the fact I couldn't drive. I am 5'0 tall and could no longer reach the pedals. Then I ended up in hospital for a week with pre- eclampsia.
Then after the baby was born I asked for 6 weeks to get us used to the baby etc. I knew I was having a c - section ( I feel a bit bad about that now for MIL and FIL ) and she flew over for the day! She had to be the first to see DS before MIL!
I have no issue with people visiting for an hour or so but there is enough to contend with , without having to run after other people. My Pil's were already mid 70's and wouldn't be fit to help and SIL was ust a PITA.
When my other SIL came over when DS was about 8 weeks old, she was a blessing , just could see what needed done and took over.
I think it depends on the person !
It is an exhausting time with your hormones fairly raging that last thing needed is trying meet other people's needs. IMHO

i'm always a bit about the whole 'seeing the new baby' thing. Newborns are dull and they aren't madly different at 12 hours old and 72 hours old. All they want food, sleep and their mother.

This thread makes me very thankful for my mother and PILs! For DD1 my mum was there (traumatic birth and I wanted her there - she was great) the PILs drove up the following day, saw us in hospital and then went to my mums for dinner. This time (DC2 due christmas eve) DH invited them for christmas - MIL was very unsure about it but actually it makes sense (for us) as DM will need to go to her very old and frail dad and our DD will need looking after. They won't expect anything of me and are incredibly helpful. I really am very lucky (yes, being a bit smug - apologies to all who aren't so fortunate - but good PILs are out there!)

Sorry if I made this a MIL attacking thread. I will be having the same conversation with my parents, asking them for space, but they live close enough that they can go home / I can send them home at the end of the day!
DH has spoken to his mum and we have asked her not to make plans. Not just for our benefit but also so she doesn't miss anything should things not go to plan. She did admit that she probably made it sound earlier that they would just 'descend'. DH discussed a short visit when baby is born/around the due date and then maybe a longer one about a month or so later. Think that is agreeable for all concerned.
(oh and she did admit that she might have suggested the rough date to the college!)

That's good OP. Sounds like the same sort of situation I had with my MIL - she was just chancing her arm. Glad you sorted it out.