AIBU to say NO visitors?

[LouBlue1507]

Hi all, Just been having a discussion with OH about when baby is born (8 weeks hopefully), we're trying to decide what would be best when LO arrives!

I'm not keen on visitors as it is so the thought of having visitors after giving birth is making me anxious. Would IBU to tell people not to visit for at least a week and if I feel up for it sooner, we will let them know?

This will be the first grandad child on both sides and as you can imagine everyone is VERY excited! The thing is OH has a lot of family as his parents are separated with new partners, step brothers etc. The thought of so many people coming and going overwhelms me, especially seeing as I don't know how the birth will go and how I'll feel after! (It's going to go nice and smooth, if I keep telling myself this it will haha!)

My OH is very supportive and says its up to me and how I feel, but I know people are going to be impatient and pushy!

The other thing worrying me is if we do say no visitors, what if I want my Mum here to help? This might put out MIL?

Thanks for bearing with me! So AIBU? Would telling people not to come right away be unreasonable?

I have similar worries, only with an added difficulty - my dad lives in a different country, so he can't really just pop over for an hour and then go away again for a few days!

I am compromising by saying absolutely no visitors for three or four days, giving us a little time to get settled. Then my dad is going to come and stay in a B&B nearby, on the understanding that when he does visit, he will Be Useful. He did try to start saying that he could Be Useful by holding the baby, but I told him that what I meant by Being Useful was cooking his sleep-deprived daughter and son-in-law a tasty dinner and helping with the washing up! I think he gets it now...

I must admit I am still nervous about it, though. It is so hard to balance your needs with everyone else's needs, and I don't want to offend anyone - after all, they are only excited because they love us! But I don't want to feel stressed at a time when I imagine I will already be a knackered, nervous wreck...

I'm assuming ilive's nephews parents didn't mind him cuddling him :) I think a week might be a bit long, could you not let the grandparents in for half an hour each? I would be a bit upset if my kids excluded me for a full week after the baby was born.

Having no children of my own I feel like giving my opinion on this issue. I think that the time just after your baby is born is the one time in your life, if any, that you and your DH should be completely selfish and do exactly what you want. TBH, I feel like any GPs who cannot see that having this time to yourselves (if that's what you want) is important are being very very selfish. I don't really understand posters saying it would be unfair to ask them to wait for a week - it's not their right to see the baby the minute it's born! As for having your mum, but not your MIL, there - your choice although it would help if your DH feels the same

Nope it's up to you. We didn't have anyone for 2 weeks. I learned the hard way with my first, having to sit in absolute agony while people passed my baby around was grim and I wasn't keen on a repeat. We had a lovely two weeks with our second and it gave our son time to get used to his sister too.
Anyone that wanted to "go nuclear" about it could fuck right off. We didn't have a baby for anyone else. Luckily for us we don't have deranged family members like iliveinalighthousewiththeghost
Set your ground rules right away and stick to them. You don't owe anyone anything, it's your time now.

I loved gp and others coming to visit me. They were all perfect visitors, I loved showing our new baby to them and have lovely memories of that time. I didn't realise how much I would enjoy that until it happened.

I have only ever seen this on MN and don't really understand it, tbh.

We have nothing but happy memories of those first few days after our babies were born, because we had so many visitors. I sat on the sofa and enjoyed all the attention. Dh made tea/poured champagne - it was all wonderful.

I had a 6 hour discharge after my 2nd. I came home from hospital to a houseful of visitors. They had got the key from a neighbour. It was lovely!

Iliveinalighthouse: I think everyone understood you very clearly.
Hopefully your nephew's patents were wanting visitors commandeering the baby 20
Mins after the birth, and that's fine. Threatening to go nuclear on a new Mum who doesn't want that sounds full on psycho.

I invited everyone to visit me in the evenings in hospital when DH had gone home to see the other DC/get some rest - it was great, I had a different friend every evening, some different chat - someone to hold baby while I had a drink or a bite to eat. It worked well for me. When we got home - nobody bothered us at all! Perfect :)

When my nephew was born. I was down there about 20 minutes later. Cuddling him and kissing the face off him. Wild horses couldn't have kept me away. I'd have been nuclear if they tried.

that is truly horrific.

That's a free tip to all future Grandparents our there...

thanks for that but some of us have managed on our own not just once but 6 times to suss out this grannying lark.

I read some of the absolute and utter nonsense posted on threads like this I'm so glad my children, and I include their spouses in that, are the people they are.

Oh. Firstly I had someone threats to basically put me in hospital, And now there is someone mocking mental health. Nice .
I'm hiding this thread as I actually have a life. That does not include arguing with faceless wonders.
Good luck with your baby op. .

Do people really believe Ilives nonsense?

Thank you Elli. No they didn't mind at all.

Nobody is mocking. I'm deadly serious. You're deranged.

Could you not go a third way and say to DHs parents that they are welcome to visit, but please could they keep the visit to less than an hour? Newborns are not that interesting bar seeing what they look like and giving them a quick cuddle. They may well be happy with that. Maybe even GP only and no partners?

I would at least try and let his mother have a quick visit if yours is there. From what you're saying about his mother previously being upset because she feels you push her away and isolate yourselves from her, I suspect if you go for the week it's going to cause a great deal of hurt.

God, you can't even chat on here anymore without someone jumping down your throat.

YANBU.
When I was pregnant with DD the 3 sets of grandparents were told that we would let them know when the baby was born and when they could come and visit. (They live 75mins, 3hrs and 3.5hrs away)
My in laws had originally thought they were coming down when I was in labour - no chance.
In my mind it all depended on when in the week DD was born as most wanted/needed to visit on a weekend.
As it was DD arrived early hours of Thursday morning.
We had two lovely/exhausting days at home and then opened the floodgates.
My mum came on day three and had done the washing up before me and baby made it downstairs to say hi. I liked the company and the cake that kept arriving.
Put DH in charge of keeping visits at a manageable length.
Another good tip when you've had enough is to announce you're going upstairs to feed the baby and you'll say goodbye now as you WILL be gone when I get back, say bye to baby as well.

Maybe nuclear was the wrong choice of word. I think a better way to put it would have been. I would have been upset and hurt.

I think you'd be really out of order not to allow grandparents to see you. They'll be worried about you too!

Also- when I came round from my emcs all I wanted was my mum and begged them to get her until the drugs wore off and DH looked upset and I am by no means a mummies girl.

I love love loved having visitors to admire my beautiful baby and tell me how amazing I was. You say you don't like people so maybe you'll feel the same after birth but you never know- don't put too many rules in place!

When my nephew was born. I was down there about 20 minutes later. Cuddling him and kissing the face off him. Wild horses couldn't have kept me away. I'd have been nuclear if they tried.

No matter how excited you are about a baby, you really must always respect the views of the baby's parents first and foremost. I hope you're joking about kissing the face of someone's 20 minute old baby!

OP- I think it's only fair to let GPs see the baby. BUT it is your baby ( and your OH's) and your recovery time too, so maybe find a way to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe have open house for one afternoon where everyone gets to come and meet the baby, and you get it all over with in one go. The grandparents meet the baby, and then you get peace and quiet until you're ready for more regular visits.

Alternatively, if you're up to it, take the baby to visit them. That way, you're in control of how long you stay and you still get your house to yourself with nobody outstaying their welcome. You needn't stay long, but this only works if you're up to it and if people live within a reasonable distance.

The other thing to think about is that if you do end up in hospital for a few days, especially if it's one with limited visiting hours or midwives that are happy to turf out visitors when you want them to go because you're tired, even if it's still visiting hours, then it can be a great place to have a couple of visitors (like your mum, your PIL) - because they can come in for a little while (make sure you pre-warn them, dh and the midwives that you only want them in for a little while - take a kitchen timer or use your phone if you need to so that it beeps and you can say 'time's up') and then they have to go.

It's not like them visiting you at home and expecting you to look after them when you're not up to it. You'll still be in hospital (and thus a patient who needs looking after) - often new grannies forget that it's very different for new mums compared to when they had their dc 20-30-40+ years ago - they would have been in hospital for a week if not two (or maybe transferred to a maternity home for a week or two), strict visiting hours, gently learning how to look after a baby if it was your first one. Lots of bed rest. Food brought to you at meal times and so on. No cleaning. lots of bonding. Just them and baby. You'd have got past the baby blues, sorted out feeding and bathing and changing, had time for the worst of the bleeding to calm down a little (or at least learnt how to deal with it). So by the time you got home you would be excited to see it again, you'd be nice and rested and ready to start life as a new mum.

These days you can be out of the hospital in hours rather than days (I was at home 4 hours after ds2 was born) - so all you want to do is rest, feed, sleep and so on. And yet the parents/pil are thinking back to when they left hospital and thinking that that is the time that visitors get to go,forgetting that they would have been in hospital for days to come at the same point...

So make sure you remind them of this fact if you get pushed too far to do things that you're not comfortable with (remind them that it must have been much easier for them when they had a baby being able to stay in hospital being helped for so long!!)

Good luck!

I think people are being harsh to iliveinalighthouse. All families are different - mine all descend on newborn babies as soon as possible, and no one's ever had a problem with that. I treasure my memories of my family all round my bedside cuddling my babies the day after I gave birth. Some families obviously don't do that, and that's fine, but it's normal for some to be there as soon as the baby's born.

I think you'd be really out of order not to allow grandparents to see you. They'll be worried about you too!

|||||| this, totally. I only ever see this on mn and it's weird.

I understand how you feel but banishing gps from seeing a new baby for up to a week seems a sure fire way to cause a family rift. Is there anyway that you can grit your teeth for an hour or two and then request that you have some time to recover as a family unit? It may save you a lot of hassle in the future.

I couldnt bear to deprive my parents and pils from the joy of a new baby, especially a first grandchild.

Don't underestimate how boring new babies are. Yes, lovely to gaze at, thinking 'wow, I did this', but they don't really do much and sleep a lot in the early days and I craved a bit of 'normality' after both of mine.

My DS1 was born on a Sunday and my ILs didn't visit until the Tuesday evening (this was convenient to them due to work commitments and the fact they lived 90mins away) and to be honest by Tuesday morning I was DESPERATE to show him off. He was long-awaited (first grandchild/niece/nephew) and it never occurred to me to put people off so that I could stay tethered to the house doing nothing but watch him and feed him.

FWIW, I had a vicious 3rd degree tear and didn't have a straight forward (or in any way pain-free birth) so I felt shattered and battered beyond repair, but I was able to forget about all that for a bit while they cuddled and cooed and told me how fantastic I am. I bloody needed that!!

I appreciate that in the grand scheme of things I had a straightforward labour (despite 2 days of back-breaking contractions and the afore-mentioned tear), but I find this tendency to approach childbirth and the early days of looking after a baby as somehow 'traumatic' or an ordeal to be 'come to terms with' really odd. It's a baby. Ride high on the triumph of childbirth and having created something miraculous (and give the gift of sharing that) as pretty soon the relentless drudgery (and REAL sleep deprivation) that comes with having a baby, will kick in and no bastard will want to know

Usual caveats apply - not everyone thinks like me, this is only my experience etc etc