To be so sick of post-birth visitors

[Goshi]

I had a c section two weeks ago with my second child. My family live abroad so planning for newborn visits was very stressful and complicated - trying to balance their requests for long visits with our need for quiet family time, but they all reassured us they would be a great help and would spend their visits helping around the house and taking our older child on long days out to give me time to recover at home. They were all staying in hotels rather than our house so I figured it wouldn’t be too intrusive.

Well turns out that was a load of rubbish. Parents were here for the first week and drove me mad. Their idea of taking the child on days out was half an hour in the playground then a trip around Asda to compare the prices with products in their home country. Then back to mine to sit on the couch for 6 hours playing candy crush on their phones, only occasionally speaking to tell me how cheap food is over here compared to home. One of the days I asked them if they could be here for 10am to take the older child out as the midwife was coming over. They told me that was too early and they couldn’t guarantee they would make it on time (they didn’t). They also spent every evening of their visit in the pub until closing time, so were constantly exhausted and hungover and didn’t have the energy to play with DC.

Second set of visitors are my brother and SIL. Lovely people and much more helpful with our older child - fully engaging with him and have taken him for long days out. But today they’re just sitting around the house and it’s draining the life out of me. I’m exhausted, sore, bleeding, baby is cluster feeding, I’ve barely slept and they haven’t so much as offered to make me a cup of tea. They even watched me take in a grocery shop delivery with no offer of helping me carry the bags (DH had to work for a few hours so wasn’t here at that time). I’m not sure what the plans are for meals - I’ve told them to help themselves to anything in the kitchen but I think they’re both far too polite/awkward to actually go and eat anything I haven’t specifically handed to them on a plate. I’ve left out biscuits and crisps but aside from that I don’t know if they’re expecting me to cook for them or if they’re just going to starve to death out of politeness. When they’d been here an hour the baby finally finished feeding and I asked if either of them wanted anything, to which they both asked for a glass of water… why on earth they didn’t just go and get themselves a glass of water I’ll never know. It’s exhausting.

please tell me your tales of useless newborn visitors to help me feel better! I just want some time to sit around with my boobs out watching shit telly and not worrying about pleasing anyone else. 😭

Do NOT cook for them. If you do you will look back on this and be really annoyed with yourself. You need to be more specific and detailed. ‘BIL, please can you do a round of tea, make DS a cheese sandwich then sit and play with him until 12? I’m going for a nap as I don’t feel very good’. Honestly I had this after DD was born and it pisses me off to this day that I let my guests loll about doing bar drinking tea/coffee I had made for them for 6 hours when all I wanted to do was sleep. Be assertive and if they can’t keep up with your very reasonable requests, tell them ‘I think we’re going to spend tomorrow just us, because I’m very tired, so see you the day after’ etc.

I've had almost the opposite experience - no one bothering to visit at all!

DD is almost a month old now. We drove two hours to visit my parents at their house. We drove two and half hours in the opposite direction to visit my sister and her DH. We drove an hour and a half to see my aunt, three times (who I'm very close to). We drove two hours to see my brother and his fiancée. We drove an hour to see DH's sister and her DH. Tomorrow we're driving two hours to see my best friend and my mum. I think we've spent more in fuel than our mortgage this month!

However, I know exactly how you feel about polite guests who don't help themselves! SIL and BIL are like that and it's so hard. You desperately want them to be comfortable but it feels like a game of Cluedo to figure out what they actually want and it's much more work than if they just said what they want! However, my other SIL is the opposite and constantly "helps out" - leaving a trail of destruction in her midst. I wish she'd sit in silence and not touch anything.

I guess I'll never be happy haha.

You’re just going to have to tell them. You can’t cook for them. The kitchen’s full of food - they saw it arrive. Ask them to cook dinner for all of you, put a wash on, run the hoover round.

Use your voice.

Tell them you are tired and sore.

Ask them can they either help or leave and give you a rest.

Thanks for the replies - luckily it’s their last day today. I’ve just managed to get it out of them that they plan on eating at the airport later, so that’s a relief. I feel bad bitching about them because they are genuinely lovely people, but the fatigue of my parents visit combined with their over-polite awkwardness has worn me down.

I told myself I would be assertive with useless guests this time, but in reality it can be really hard , especially when I see my family so infrequently so don’t want to create any tension.

@Rapples I think I feel the same - if someone was overly ‘helpful’ I would probably find it difficult too! I think I have a one hour limit of tolerance for guests no matter how helpful or unhelpful they are!