To not want the MIL to visit our newborn straight away?

[floppops]

Our second DC is due in a few weeks.
When our first was born I had a very traumatic birth and was discharged the next day when I wasn't really well enough..
My MIL was on her way to see the baby within hours of DD being born ( 2 hour car journey for her). She got my husband in a right flap with constant phone calls and arranging of times,parking arrangements etc. It really wound him up and he went off at me. She arrived - opened a bottle of wine, drank it with my husband and left quite quickly after photos and holding the baby. Didn't help in any way.
I would really like a couple of days with first DD and baby at home to settle in before visitors this time. I'm a having a csection on a Monday and was thinking of telling MIL that the weekend should be ok for a visit?
But my husband thinks this is unreasonable and she should come when she likes. He refuses to support me. So I'm thinking I will have to tell her beforehand. Just worried she'll see that as confrontational or worse disregard my wishes and come anyway...

I lol at how often this comes up and the same arguments occur.

Someone said up thread that on MN DM's are prioritised over MIL's. but of course they are- its MUMS net, if it was DADS net than the reverse would be true, because usually, people prefer their own parents to their PIL's, because, they're, you know, their parents?!

The DP is important, but what is most important is the babies welfare and the mums recovery. So visits should be tailored to what is best for that. If mum doesn't want MIL there until day 5 them so be it. I imagine hungry babies and milk supplies affected because of new mums who are scared to bf, and that makes me sad.

And you know what, every one of us will have a different viewpoint, because we all have a different relationship with our parents and PIL's. what is right for one family is not for another, because all families are different.

OP, YANBU to want time alone with your baby. All the very best

What about getting his piles cut out, a bit similar?

You could dress the bum grape in a wee onesie and watch the grannies fight it out for a cuddle.

In all seriousness - I reckon one of the underlying issues is families unconsciously expecting that all other families are like theirs, have the same assumptions of 'normal' and feel the same. And often you don't find out those differences until you are into the marriage/baby stages where one side is saying 'why on earth wouldn't you do x' and the other side is saying 'why the fuck would anyone ever do x'.

Naturally, the best time to broker compromises is when emotions are running high and people are excited/stressed.

DH and I have negotiated some bizarrely tricky differences around siblings' birthdays.

Bowlersarm which bit of a woman is often affected by birth?

FGS.

I am starting to think that people are doing this on purpose.

Or maybe some on here haven;t had children, or something

@ SaucyJack

This thread is going in a truly strange direction..

OP'll be a bit when she clicks on tomorrow.

Saucy

Mintyy pertinent question.

Nothing wrong or selfish at all about wanting to see a grandchild, something very wrong with being all distressed if your asked to wait a few days

They are choosing not to get it Tabard, typical Mil behaviours, only choosing to see what they want to see, sorry typical of some Mil behaviours.

Harold, I'm holding out for his spleen. I reckon you could squeeze a spleen into a babygro and stick a hairband round the top. Just so you could tell the top from the bottom.

NiceTabard - the Ops tummy is being affected by the birth.

So the argument is that some on here

Cannot understand that there is a difference between a parent / child relationship and an in-law relationship

Cannot understand that a man who has not just had surgery is in less of a vulnerable state than a woman who has just had surgery (and is catheterised, on opium, bleeding buckets, unwashed etc etc etc).

Right.

Definitely people being silly.

It's absolutely right that the person who's just given birth gets to decide who she can cope with as a visitor and when.

But that doesn't mean that a MIL or FIL's hope to see a dgc as soon as possible (even if only briefly) is fundamentally unreasonable in itself.

It's a perfectly natural thing to want. Whether you get it or not is going to depend so much on individual circumstances that there simply isn't a one size fits all rule as whether you should get it.

What's depressing about these threads isn't people saying that the DIL should get to keep the MIL more at arms length than her mum - it is natural for her to want that straight after the birth, and right for her to get it if that's what she wants at that time.

What's depressing is the retro-fitting of actual unreasonableness to the parents in law who want to visit, based on the fact that the DIL (reasonably) gets to decide who she sees.

People seem to be working back from the reasonableness of the DIL getting the final say, to conclude that any visit she blocks must by definition have been an unreasonable demand and oh look, is another example of just how crap MILs can be.

The whole point surely is that as the person who's just given birth you get the final say regardless of how reasonable it is for the person to want to visit, so there's absolutely no need to demonise MILs or any other kind of wannabe visitor or prove that they're unreasonable before exercising that right to the final say.

I do think for what it's worth that that right to the final say should still be exercised with some caution and consideration. If I'd waited until I felt comfortable and relaxed seeing my MIL, she might easily not have seen her gc for years. At some point you have to get over that discomfort and just let the visiting happen - that's when all the stuff about it being her gc too, and the dh's child too, become relevant, and where I'm pretty sure some MILs may get unfairly excluded for a bit longer than is strictly necessary. Whether that point is two days in or two weeks is going to depend so much on individual circumstances that you simply can't give a one size fits all rule for it.

Mintyy, who are the MIL-haters? I bloody love mine, and I still don't think OP is being unreasonable.

Sorry I was going to add - my paternal grandparents certainly loved my aunts children more than us.

Why? They saw them all the time. They saw us - oh, once in a blue moon. Then my mother died and two people who could have given us immense comfort were strangers to me.

I don't doubt it's trying but I would plead with the OP to let as many people into your DCs lives as possible, to love them. They are annoying I have no doubt but its never a bad thing to want to love a child.

Rain is for sure a MIL hater.

I don't think the OP is being unreasonable, this thread has taken on a life of it own though.

Bowlers lots of women end up with a section after labouring / getting a reasonable way along with the birth.

Even if women have a planned CS they are bleeding heavily vaginally.

All are catheterised.

Why the insistence that it is reasonable for a woman in that situation to have to have visitors they do not want?

When I think in any other situation where someone was very ill / post-operative people would say they should see who they are comfortable seeing.

Minty, the DGD is the loveliest thing ever and I will love all of them the same.
It was just so fantastic to see her and have a cuddle on the day she was born.
She's nearly two months now and changing all the time and it is the BEST!

Typical DIL behaviour.

Hate the MIL.

Rain is not a mil hater, Rain is a selfish person disliker, but more than that, a pro woman who has just given birth, has ultimate say - 'er.

What Rain said.

"Just for interests sake, I have a question for all the mil-haters on here. If you become a mil and then a dgmil, do you think you will love your dd's children more than your ds's children?"

well, my MIL told me its exciting when your DIL has a baby, but so much more exciting, nerve-wracking and precious when your OWN DD has one... so I guess I was told there!

NiceTabard-I doubt the ops mil wants to witness the cs. She would probably quite like to pop in to see her son and new grandchild though. She may just want to make sure her dil is ok too. There's an alternative thought.

My PIL had stacks to do with the children, they loved them and wanted to and I knew how important the DGCs were to them. So that;s what happened.

Just not in the first 36 hours or so after a section.

I don't need to try and chat politely to anyone while I am on opium, with a piss bag on show, in loads of pain, unwashed, and trying to learn how to BF.

Fortunately my in-laws and DH were perfectly fine with that. I guess because they had a little empathy.

The 'D'H in this case seems to be getting off lightly!!!!

come

where did you read that op doesnt want to let people into her dc's lives.

she will let them in, just a few days after major op