To be disappointed with SILs decision re new baby.

[ankara]

Respecting that all parents are quite within their rights to determine interaction between others and their babies, I am very disappointed and a bit 🙄 at SILs decision to put up a big sign at baby's cradle saying no touching , no lifting, no kissing.
There are no medical reasons for this. Baby is three weeks old.
None of the family have been allowed to do the above unless baby has been handed to family to give a bottle or r change baby.
I understand; that this is their first and is of course most precious but we are all a bit and also disappointed as we love babies and we're so looking forward to cuddles .
Brother just goes along with her.
Is this a new thing? My kids are nearly teens now and I've not seen this before .

Not a loon, just respect her choice as I would someone who chooses not to care who holds their baby.

I’m lucky I have family members who aren’t like the ones I’ve read on here who find boundaries difficult and think not being able to hold a baby fresh out the womb means they can never bond with it and or want to use them as a bargaining chip for possible future babysitting. Just because you allow someone to hold your baby doesn’t man they will offer to babysit anyway.

Heck, even if OP was allowed to hold the baby, with the attitude she has about her SIL and not even living close, doubt SIL would ask her to babysit anyway.

I pressed send

i was just so worried that someone would touch them and they’d get sick etc. it didn’t happen but i was a bit strange after the birth. I was also incredibly unwell but we didn’t know that yet.

What a good idea! Message is loud and clear!

Back away from the baby.

You've had your babies and had the opportunity to do it whichever way you wanted when it was your turn.

Now it's her turn and she doesn't want to agree to whatever it is you want to do. She doesn't need a reason.

Just back off and let her get on with it.

… from the sign maybe? 😂

No thebestinterest Ops sister-in-law is neither antisocial nor batshit crazy,she is merely putting her newborns best interest first .Those of us who respect that are not the Loons-but yes there are plenty about which is why resorting to notices seems to be required.

Ridiculous. You can just tell people not to touch your baby but don't be surprised if your baby struggles to form a relationship with the wider family later.
Boundaries are okay but the sign is OTT.

Jesus, explaining to thick people..... You do know what DNA is, right? Nope, probably not. We have an inbuilt urge to protect children, you seem to be one of those awful females who don't understand that, we see your type in the news every day.

Err, do you know what DNA is?

Mankind has been living as long as it has, because our long-ago ancestors had very large families in the hope that at least a few children would live to grow up.

In the early 1800s, one-third of babies in England, and more in some other places, did not live to see their fifth birthday. Most of these died in their first year (though toddlers were hardly safe from disease); many in the newborn period.

Even in the 1950s, the infant mortality rate in the UK was about 3 per cent (way down from over 10 per cent in the early 1900s).

So THANK GOD for all the medical advice that we 'apparently' now know!

Maybe she has a health anxiety 😕 and doesn't want to say so has written it down instead Good for her- I can't stand bossy entitled relatives.

Deoxyribonucleic Acid. Break the name down into its individual components. Deoxyribose is a biological molecule which, due to its phosphate/sugar input forms a stable backbone, keeping the genetic information safe and protected. Ribonucleic acid is what enables biological functions to, well, function. DNA.

But isn’t that why the SIL is putting the sign up? I don’t disagree about protective instinct but don’t see how that argument applies to explain the family’s actions and not SIL’s?

It drives me nuts

My SIL is a lot more chatty, outspoken and opinionated than he although when he announced that ' we have decided to breast feed exclusively' followed by' we have decided no t to breastfeed exclusively as we're not happy with level of support offered' my dear mother took him aside and politely told him to stop being a dick. That it was his wife who would be doing the breast feeding or not as the case ended up and he sounded like a twat.

Does your mum really speak to her grown up son like that?

I can now see why SIL wants to keep you all at a distance tbh.

I wouldn’t talk to my enemy like that, let alone my own child.

Thank you 😂

A friend came to meet my new born, lent over her crib and said I won’t pick her up as I’ve got a terrible cold. My new born caught her cold and it was very worrying and stressful.

Measles can be devastating! I hope she recovered.

When DD2 was in NICU in Leeds, a baby who had contracted measles and suffered complications was in there. He had very experimental, last ditch surgery involving some kind of mesh supporting his diaphragm or something. His chances were not good, his parents were on the ward most of the day, every day and looked as devastated as you’d expect. I really hope he made. He was old for NICU, 4 months I think, but had contracted measles in the early weeks and they’d been battling a cascade of problems after that.

Baffling as it seems, friends and I had experience of normally rational, undoubtedly loving family minimising or even hiding illness and visiting our tiny babies and wanting a hold. “I’m over the infectious stage.” - whilst coughing away etc… Siblings bringing their small ill children because “they’re desperate to see their baby cousin.” So selfish. Sometimes these are people who were extremely protective themselves when they had newborns but Ollie and Mia’s desire to see the baby overrules all else it seems.

To take the opposite view from most posters. Everyone loves to cuddle a baby. It doesn’t do any the baby any harm and does the cuddlers a lot of good. It is still protected by its mother’s antibodies, when very young and will continue to be if breastfed. It is a natural thing to cuddle a baby as someone has pointed out. And it’s actually good for a baby to realise that lots of adults can care for it, so not anxious. In fact gets the immune system going.

It doesn’t do the baby any harm… except in all the examples mentioned where it did…

The getting the immune system is just bollocks.

Having worked on a paed ward I knew a little girl who as a baby was kissed by her uncle, he cold a cold sore which the virus was transferred to the little girl caused encephalitis major brain damage. I know this is rare but I can understand the mother’s anxiousness . Sometimes family think the rules don’t apply to them & they just need telling. This is a way of telling them.

It really is a bit insensitive to dismiss the stories of babies who have become very ill fighting germs we deal so much better with.

A friend of mine lost her new born baby when it caught herpes from a friend kissing it when they were developing a cold sore.
There was no sign of the cold sore when they kissed the baby.

I think you need to respect your SIL’s wishes. Babies are very vulnerable to infectious microorganisms. I currently have whooping cough and my son probably has a mild version that no one would suspect but it is very dangerous for babies. There are lots of respiratory diseases going around atm.

There is no medical opinion that would support not handling a new healthy baby. Like I said. People have opinions. That wouldn’t be mine, though wouldn’t describe anyone else’s as bollocks. But obviously the parents are very anxious, which isn’t a great sign for the future, and might be worth exploring what they think is going to happen and addressing that now, rather than later when the baby can move around and find its own mischief and germs.