To be disturbed by this comment from DM?

[greenvelvetcouch]

My sister had a baby last year, and due to covid-reasons and a pretty lengthy stay in NICU my DM didn’t meet her baby until she was 37 days old.

I was discussing my Dsis with DM at the weekend and she said to me that my sister was fine and had dealt with it all brilliantly (I disagree - I think she is very damaged by the experience and her husband and I both want her to talk to someone about it all), but DM was still “traumatised” by the experience because it’s not natural for a baby to be kept from its grandmother for so long.

I didn’t call her out on it at the time, but I found this comment so disturbing and it made me worry about the level of entitlement my DM seems to have towards her grandchild. I don’t think grandparents have any “right” to their grandchildren, and I wouldn’t want her acting like that at all when I have my baby. I’ve never had much cause to worry about her beyond her being a bit of an obsessed granny/slightly lonely widow who loves her family but I can’t cope with her being suffocating about seeing my child/ren. I was expecting to ban any visits for 2-3 weeks at least when I have my baby and this would include her.

Is this comment a worrying sign of what’s to come? Do you agree with her?

The entire thing sounds overly dramatic. You think your sister has been damaged by the birth and needs to talk to someone. Your mother thinks a grandparent not seeing a baby for 37 days is traumatising. And you don't want anyone near you baby for weeks so that you can be calm and bond. Mum is suffocating because she wants to visit, and you are being intrusive for visiting when invited. And you don't have to care what anyone else thinks because you don't want or need childcare from the family to you don't have to keep them on side. That's an awful lot of baggage out of one small thing.

To be honest, I am wondering what the real issue is. Because you seem to be massively over-reacting and quite rigid.

There really isn’t any backstory - DM and I broadly get on very well and have a pretty standard mother/daughter relationship. I just don’t want to feel smothered by our extended families. We’re not going to be constant WhatsApp picture sending parents who do constant days out as a big family like some of my friends or my husband’s sister. It’s not our style. We live a few hours away and have independent lives. I talk to my DM on the phone almost daily so we’re not distant, just she’s not going to be a popping round all the time Granny, none of our family are.

Absolutely that. My favourite photos in the world are of my DDs' grandparents holding them for the first time. There's a look of deep love and awe on all their faces that is almost unique to that moment.

I was expecting to ban any visits for 2-3 weeks at least when I have my baby and this would include her

Yes, she was being OTT but you just sound very, very unkind. Seriously, how on earth do you think she's going to feel hearing this? Just really shitty.

You need help and support when you have a new baby. Visits from family can be extremely helpful because they can bring bring hot meals, put the kettle on for you and cuddle the baby for an hour while you catch up on sleep. You don't have to entertain or feed your relatives, it's a time to lean on them for help.

My parents didn't see my baby until she was 6 months old due to Covid and distance. I desperately wish they could have come sooner.

Lol. I can see where you get your precious hysteria from.

Are you even pregnant OP?

@saraclara This is a really interesting and eloquent response, thank you for your insight. My sister-in-law said something the other way around - she didn’t know how much she’d want her Mum in those moments. So maybe I’ll have a change of heart! I’m not ruling it out.

Be prepared to be bored shitless. Newborns aren't really that exciting company. A friendly face is a godsend in the early days and it's lovely to show off baby to it's grandparents. OK, I get that no-one wants to be overwhelmed with visitors but not letting granny come round for a cuddle seems really harsh to me.

There’s seems to be a not very nice dynamic going on here between you and your mum. You seem very invested in putting your mum in her place.

Im glad that when I’ve had babies, granny (both grannies) visiting was exciting and happened as soon as possible. They were soooo excited, I was exhausted but excited to introduce them to their new grandchild. There was no need to assert myself in any way.

So what your post says to me is that there’s something not quite positive in your relationship with your mum and you have some anxiety over being obliged to do anything for her.

@worraliberty as said before, yep!

We live a few hours away and have independent lives. I talk to my DM on the phone almost daily so we’re not distant, just she’s not going to be a popping round all the time Granny, none of our family are.

Even less reason to ban her for weeks, in my opinion.

I don't see why you say anything about her being suffocating re your children if this is the case. She's hardly going to take an early visit as a green light to pop in every day.

I’d think the upset and drama that banning grandparents will cause will make your first few weeks of being parents much more stressful than the odd short visit from them would.

I found it helpful having close family around in the first few weeks, both times but especially the second. My mum came and helped with cooking, cleaning, shopping, holding the baby to give me a break, entertaining the toddler…

Unless there’s reason to expect she’d be hard work, I don’t see why you’d want to “ban” her from meeting her grandchild for several weeks.

Sorry but the OP will have a very big shock when the PFB arrives and she tries to put her first time mum ideas into place

@qpmz I don’t really do “leaning on people for help”. It’s not something that makes me feel comfortable and my husband is the same. I can’t really imagine either of our Mum’s doing that - partly just due to distance! They’ll have to stay in hotels or drive for 4-6 hours for a short visit. They won’t be able to bring hot meals etc.

This is exactly what I thought!

OP, how traumatised will you be if your expected weeks of calm bonding don't materialise?

It's up to you how long you want to wait until family members visit!

As to the MIL, you both sound very over dramatic - traumatised and disturbed are both major over reactions!

So your solution to your mum who is upset that she didn't get to meet her first grandchild for 5 weeks because of external forces is to deliberately bar her from meeting her second for 3 weeks?

That strikes me as extraordinarily cruel

I find all of this bat shit. Who dictates no one can see their baby for 2 to 3 weeks after birth? Especially when they don't even have a baby.

This site makes me regularly get down on my knees and give thanks for my normal adult kids and in laws. I can't imagine one of them bunching me in with Randoms when it comes to my grandkids. I would find it very, very hurtful

But I won’t - that’s my point! We won’t have any grandparent childcare or anything like that at all.

I had a lovely relationship with my grandparents but I think by modern standards they’d be considered distant - they didn’t babysit and I think I stayed at theirs twice my whole childhood. We saw each other once a month or so , and went on a couple of very lovely holidays together so I have wonderful memories of them, but they weren’t “involved” in my upbringing in any way. That’s the relationship I wish to foster between my child and their grandparents.

Your mother is clearly overly dramatic with her "trauma" but I wonder if she's conflating her feelings of missing our on her granddaughter, a poorly baby in NICU, a daughter who couldn't be physically supported etc into one painful homogenous "trauma".

We aren’t expecting any childcare or practical help from our extended families so it’s not a case of having to keep them on side. that's quite a bold statement to make about the next 16 or so years of your child life. It's also really sad that you consider access to your child so transactional.
"if I needed them for something, they could see my child but as there's nothing they can do for me, they can't see her"

I suspect that you'll feel differently once your baby is born. I so desperately wanted to show him off to everyone! I loved the visitors as, as someone up above mentioned, newborns are frankly quite dull...! Some adult conversation while they tell you how beautiful your baby is was a welcome break!

Oh my goodness OP … you sound horrible. Even if you have 1 set of visitors every day, that still leaves you oodles of time to bond exclusively with your baby! It’s gonna hit you like a tonne of bricks! I feel sorry for your family, I really do.

Your baby isn't even born and you're already working out how to keep everyone at arms length for their entire childhood