To want to meet my niece?

[AsIfIWish]

My brother’s girlfriend had her first baby 3 weeks ago. All her family has met her and held her, on day 1. None of my family except my mum (once) have been allowed to. We have all, including my mum, been told we are not allowed to visit, but that they will ‘let us know’ when they are ready to see us. We thought maybe a week or two in, at least, but no... DM thought maybe they just didn't want visitors but they won't come see any of us either. And it's not like she's scared of leaving the house, because they've gone off to a couple of places that are miles away already. Even my Dad hasn’t met his grandchild yet, as he was away the day after she was born which is when my mum was invited to go.

I never try to prescribe how anyone’s behaviour should be, but I am finding this extremely hurtful and upsetting. I have a good relationship with my brother and get on ok with his girlfriend (although we are very different). None of our family can understand why they are being like this. DB is quite under his GFs thumb which doesn’t help, i.e. everything is clearly decided and organised before any event or decision, and my impression is that he wants to go along with it so as to not hurt her feelings, which is lovely, but honestly, seems to be at the expense of everyone else, particularly in this case.

Obviously I understand that having a baby is a massive thing, and that we all cope (or don’t cope, in my case!) in different ways, but the baby is my brother's baby too, not just hers! I just don’t know what to do, if anything...

Snuggy that's another good point, especially with such a large family on op's side.

Your mum is doing a lovely thing by giving dn money but it does seem already like that gift comes with stipulations attached if it has to be done this week or not. So that would make me wonder if brother and sil sense more on the horizon.

You need to talk to your brother not get through your mum. Your brother may well have different stories to tell.

This could be all on sil because it does sound like shes never really had any family help in the past. However that made me wonder if they were invited down or said they were coming. I think you should ask db and talk to him. I agree with pp above, even if your mum is the loveliest person on earth she is biased.

I've seen many threads from the SILs perspective, and the advice is almost unanimously that this is your time with your newborn, and you can limit who visits, and how much, to suit your feelings and energy levels - there's time to meet everyone when you're ready. And that's right.

Sil probably feels very comfortable around her own family, maybe she doesn't want to breastfeed in front of yours, and/or is finding feeding hard. Or maybe she just doesn't like you all that much! You don't really have a choice but to wait. The baby won't remember this period, so it's really purely about managing you own feelings and resisting the urge to make demands.

Snuggy that would follow if they hadn't had GFs family over to their house repeatedly, many times, and they've all held the baby from day 1 onwards (it's paraded in pictures on fb ). I would ponder whether it was his GFs family that was overbearing... if not for her comments about always wanting/needing her mum there (which is obviously fair enough).

The thing with the money was that our local bank closed and now DM hardly ever gets to a branch, and she needs to go this week (it's quite out of the way) for something else and wanted to do them together. Ordinarily she'd happily wait but think she's just getting tired of all the behaviour I think. The trouble with my mum is that she's lovely but can hold grudges. I did say to her that if they said no she could always do it another time if she changed her mind (e.g if when DN is older they have a lovely relationship and she wants to treat her she could always do so as there is nothing to stop her) but she was resistant to that, which I did think a bit silly!

GF is not breastfeeding btw.

We got a christening invite through the post yesterday so I guess that's a good thing! I'm just keeping out of the whole business now tbh. Spoke to DB a little bit and he hasn't really got another side to the story which does at least confirm we weren't making it all up/imagining it. He seemed quite apologetic about the whole thing tbh. With a very 'my hands are tied' kind of attitude.

His hands are not tied though. Being a supportive h does not extend to allowing your w to treat your family badly, for no good reason.

Your family are all being melodramatic. The baby is 3 weeks old, calm the fuck down. My baby is 12 weeks and I haven't set him up a bank account yet; I certainly wouldn't want my parents nor in-laws doing it and I like all of them. Your mother sounds like an overbearing nightmare, how dare she be demanding a birth certificate on a specific date!?! Even the legal system don't require them to have registered for 42 days. 6 siblings are a lot, plus presumably partners and kids; babies should be held be a very small number of people only in the early days and this alone could put her off if she feels you'll all want to "help" by holding the baby. That isn't helpful by the way, the cleaning / cooking is helpful but in my recent experience most visitors bring food, then leave the washing-up for parents! My family can be overbearing in buying too many gifts and got very offended when I asked them to stop (I want to buy some of the clothes for my baby, I don't always like what they pick!); contrast with my MIL who comes out with me and asks exactly what we want instead; so much nicer and less imposing. So, I think you should send a card saying you'd like to visit when they're ready, be nice and back off.

His hands are not tied though. Being a supportive h does not extend to allowing your w to treat your family badly, for no good reason.

This. His hands are not tied at all. He is choosing to support his wife, so if he actually thinks her unreasonable then he is not saying it. In fact his actions state the opposite.

I wonder if he says one thing to placate you and another to her? Every time i hear of someone blaming their spouse the truth is either 'i agree with them but shit will hit the fan if i say' or 'im not that bothered either way.

Oh come on OP, you aren’t accepting what people have said about someone finding their own family much less stressful visiting then in-laws.

Without having actual examples of your SIL being “rude” towards your MIL, you do just sound very melodramatic and all this nonsense about your mother giving an ultimatum and the account HAS to be open now because she doesn’t often go to the bank...come on...

You are being a drama queen. Their lives have just been turned upside down. They probably aren’t getting any sleep and panicking twelve times a day about whether or not they can keep the baby alive until tomorrow because they know fuck all about parenting.

Unless you’ve done it you don’t have a clue.

If you want a good relationship with your niece and brother later ( I would say that ship has sailed with his partner by the horrible way you write about her) then give them the space that they need. I have never forgive my MIL for the way she behaved when DD was first born. Relations are still frosty and she has no one but herself to blame.

Send food and warm love. Step back and realise that this:

Ultimately this will bite her child in the bum, because the first month is critical to help families bond with a new baby.

is bollocks and the best bonding is when they are toddlers and can play and talk to you. Don’t get yourself booted off the guest list before then. Right now all your DN wants is mummy. She still think that they’re the same person (random baby fact for you).

Maybe OP's mum is just keen to treat the new baby the same as all the other dgc, or to do something meaningful, since she hasn't been allowed to see the baby much.

OP you come from a big family so you have/will have other DNs who you will be close to and who’s parents may do things in a way that clicks more with you. There are obviously family issues with this DN and her parents and that will take quite some time to sort out. I think I’d just back off now on this DN and focus on and appreciate your close relationship with your other DNs until you are invited back in by your DB and his GF.

Another one for just backing off and tell your DM to back off and not to issue ultimatums about money however kindly meant. Yours is a very large family and it must seem overwhelming to anyone from a much smaller one. It's not even three weeks which you say you were quite happy to accept if the ILs hadn't got more of a look in and your DM hadn't reiterated how badly she felt she was being treated. If you haven't already a congratulatory card/present (especially if something nice for DSil - babies get far too much clobber) by post would be fine - and then leave the poor SIL and DB alone until they get in touch with you.

Am I the only one feeling confused by all this?
I have 2 DC and a huge combined/blended family between DH and I. I had one emergency and one planned caesarean.

Both times my DM and PILS came to see me in hospital that day. My Mum admittedly stayed a bit longer and, after the emergency c section , the PILS only stayed 15 mins or so as I was very tired but they all got to see the baby and me.

Whilst I was in hospital and for the next week at home, my siblings dropped in and brought a pressie or prepared a meal or some shopping.

It was all very relaxed and each baby met the family early on. I don’t think it did them or me any harm and certainly when DC2 arrived, help from the family was a god send with an active toddler. I have done the same for all my siblings, ie popped in to congratulate the parents, meet the baby and offer whatever help is needed. We even filled the freezer for each other in the last few weeks of pregnancy.

If anyone in my family started putting things on Facebook about how we had to keep away etc, we would be genuinely worried about them.

@Categoric it depends a lot on how close you are to your family. When you are learning to be a parent and hormones are flying around it can be quite overwhelming to have people around you making unhelpful suggestions and wanting to wake the baby up when they have just gone to sleep. Also when your baby has been screaming for hours and then goes to sleep after 10 minutes of being cuddled by grandma it can make you feel rubbish.

We had a no visitors rule with dc4. He'd been in neonatal for 4 weeks and I wanted to wait until he felt like my baby and not the hospital's baby before introducing anyone else. He had 4 weeks of nurses deciding when he would be fed, bathed, choosing his clothes and bedding. It was little things like that but it felt really significant at the time. After a couple of weeks of being home, wearing the sleepsuits that all my dc had worn and me being more confident in caring for him I was happy for his grandparents, aunties, friends etc to visit.

I agree with the comments re. 'hands are tied'. I was a bit

IWannaSeeHowItEnds
Maybe OP's mum is just keen to treat the new baby the same as all the other dgc, or to do something meaningful, since she hasn't been allowed to see the baby much.

Yeah, this, I think. Although my mum can be a bit dramatic which doesn't help, hence the ultimatum... I did try to reason with her but didn't get far that particular time!

To all those telling me to back off: I haven't done anything. Me and all my siblings are patiently waiting (we're all pretty much the opposite of DM), doing nothing except the occasional supportive message or action, but haven't actually seen them yet. (Nearly 5 weeks now.) We feel we are forbidden to go near their house.

I have 3 kids btw so I know exactly how it feels being a new mum. (I was lonely and felt very unsupported as DM was still pretty busy being a mum herself (youngest DB was 10 at the time) and we'd just moved so I hardly knew anyone else. Also had a cesarean that healed badly so felt housebound.) And as stated previously, I would never impose myself on anyone. I was mostly trying to understand it, and wondering whether, as per title, I was BU to think that generally speaking families are allowed to drop by for 15 mins in the first few weeks.

No other nieces/nephews on this side of the family, btw. Most don't even have partners yet. So it's not MASSES of people, and we certainly wouldn't all drop in at once and demand cups of tea/to hold the baby while GF cooks us a meal etc!

OP, I think a lot of people's responses on this thread have been influenced by how their own ILs/parents behaved but your situation is entirely different to one where a baby has been in special care for weeks and the mum needs to bond so that the baby feels like it is actually hers.
My own ILs were pretty full on when I had my first dc and I did have to lay down some boundaries, but they were good people, not abusive or toxic so I wouldn't have dreamed of denying them a visit for 5 weeks! To me your brother is being very unkind in allowing this situation to continue and eventually the rift will be too big to fix.

OP this is the first nephew/niece?? So other than your 3 this is the only new baby on your side of the fam? For some reason I thought "your side" were quite the tribe.

Hmmmmmm. I'd be feeling rather pushed out too I think. Seems weird.

I'm sorry it's nearly 5 weeks and you're feeling like this I hope it resolves soon.

When I had DD my then BiL GF was a complete cow but I sucked up having her visit Best I could for the sake of the faaaaaaamily. It's only a quick visit after all...

Wishing you well. Hope your DM doesn't lose her temper.

He is completely passing the buck OP. I would suggest you call him and be honest and ask if anything has happened, or did your mum upset them when she saw them because you really hoped to see dn.

If he implies its SIL and oh poor him what can he do, tell him to pull his finger out his arse if he disagrees with her since it looks like he and she are a team in this.

He might also open up if its your mum who has caused issues...

I don't understand why you haven't contacted your brother yet AsIfIWish or are you hiding his response? You've been complaining about everything third hand from your mother. There are plenty of ideas above about why there might be an issue, isn't it a lot easier at this stage just to call him?

viking yes this is the first nephew/niece on our side; aside from my 3 there aren't any others, despite the size of family. (I'm one of the eldest so they others are mostly still at uni/just getting started in life/not interested in kids yet.)

user I don't think so, DM said it was a nice visit, she only had a very quick hold with the baby as she could see that his GF was starting to look a little anxious to have her back in a new-mum way but seemed genuine about it being nice. She hadn't expected to be invited so early on as the messages even then were "STAY AWAY" so had had some trepidation previously.

DB is being very closed-book tbh. If i ask him a question that he doesn't want to answer he just doesn't answer it, and talking to him has been funny, like he's super-keen to get us all to meet DN and everything's going to be fine. He said things a bit like this around the end of week 2 as well. But... no go as yet...

I may be projecting here but I would be weary of thinking your db doesn't feel the same way as his gf and then feels awkward to tell you.
My dh's family think I call the shots and make the decision, which is so far from the truth. I can understand how they think that though because he would say one thing to me and then act very differently when he spoke to his family. He didn't even realise he was doing it and didn't consider the damage it caused. So 15 years and 3dc later the whole relationship between us and his family is a mess. He should be supporting his gf.

I have nieces and nephews and can imagine how difficult it is to miss out on this time with them but for the sake of your long term relationship I would back off and wait until they are ready for your family to visit.

I've just re-read and realised the baby is now 5 weeks and you haven't been able to visit. I can't stand my dh family but I would not expect them to wait 5 weeks to meet our baby! Good luck op, hope the situation is resolved soon

Really none of this reads about wanting to meet the baby. It’s more about I’m granny, aunt etc I deserve to... You are all fighting for importance/status.

All quite embarrassing really.

I think it’s such a shame the gf really wants to shut you all out. It’s not unheard of for a gf to be the controlling one and your brother may feel especially now the baby is here that if he dosnt abide by his gf wishes she may stop him seeing the baby. It does happen. I’m sorry it’s been so long, I hate my ex fil but he came to the hospital and the house after and he held all my babies I would never have stopped that. A baby is an addition to a family and others love them as well as the parents I feel very sorry for you and hope your brother does get a grip and stop this nonsense

@AsIfIWish have you met your niece yet?