When's right for family to visit newborn?

[York12345]

Hi all,

Got a bit of a family friction going on over when my parents (I am Dad) will meet our first baby. Would be grateful for your perspectives to gauge whether partner and I are being unreasonable.

Our beautiful baby girl was born 2 days ago. We've been quite keen to have just us 3 in a newborn bubble for a few days from birth to enjoy each other and recover physically + emotionally. Part of the reason for this is that we've had several miscarriages so savouring these few days by ourselves is valuable to us.

Unfortunately, my parents cannot understand this and we've fallen out because we think asking for space and a little time to ourselves is reasonable but they think they should be able to visit baby v. soon after birth. We've invited them tomorrow so they'll meet her when she's 3 days old. No other family or friends have met her. It will be their first grandchild and they live 20min drive away.

I can appreciate their perspective, but really struggling with how I feel they're putting themselves first. I feel like if there's a time to be selfish, it's in the immediate period after having your first child, but maybe my wife and I are taking that too far. All other friends and family have been so happy for us, so this contrast from my parents is difficult to take.

I know there's no right answer to this, but I'm keen to gauge if we need to adjust our perspective.

Thank you for your thoughts!

Seems a bit much for them to advise that for all new parents across the board, the advice usually is just to limit visitors i.e. all day long stream of visitors as obviously need to get rest in when up all night feeding. Not don’t let grandparents pop by for half an hour. I didn’t find having close family members and a couple of close friends pop in on short visits in the those first few days interfered with breastfeeding at all. People were very considerate and always asked what time would suit etc. However if really did feel that would interfere with feeding etc or other issues then I would have been honest and just admitted really struggling and asked if they could delay for a bit longer. Obviously the normal recovery, establishing feeding etc is a struggle enough, hence the usual short visits and no expectations on the new mum of most reasonable people when visiting

When you are ready at at no other time. Please put your foot down on this because I made the mistake of keeping quiet and it stresses me out no end!

Ours just came to the hospital had a cuddle and photos and then let us be for a few days when we got home. I'm not daughter in law of the year (they annoy me quite a lot of the time!) but I think why not let them have their moments?

Thinking about it is always a bigger deal than the reality I find.

Oh just let them see the chuffing baby. But for half an hour only and they shouldn’t expect to be fed/ watered

Not sure he’s healthy for mothers to be given the message that they should have to handle the early days of motherhood without family and friends around them apart from their partner. Quite isolating. Surely there’s a balance between being at the beck and call of a constant stream of visitors and locking yourselves away without any support network.

Why not read the OP to find out??

When did this fad for having your mother at the birth of your child re-start because it sounds like something out of the days when births took place at home? Can't imagine anything worse, either as the person giving birth or as the mother of the person giving birth! Doesn't it get very crowded?

Agree with this. ‘New born bubble’! How self absorbed! Guaranteed to make each and every relative think you don’t care about your wider family any more. Get over yourself.

Three days sounds about right to me. You’ve had time to come home from hospital, get settled and starting to get a bit more used to feeding baby. Grandparents on both sides were really good with us and made a point of saying we would love to see baby but for first few days our priority is making sure you are okay - so they didn’t stay too long knowing we were trying to get any sleep we could & brought bits of shopping. You don’t need to be overdramatic - GP’s will be excited to meet baby!! A “thank you for holding off a few days so we can get ourselves a bit more settled with baby - looking forward to seeing you, how about Tuesday?” should work :)

i was at the birth of both my DDs girls…very normal where I live ….. why would it be crowded…..she asked me to be there ….was lovely to meet both my GDs as they were born and be a support for my DD …..how can it be a fad when it’s been happening for years and years ?

It always used to be a quick half hour visit at the hospital to welcome the new arrival. I cant understand this idea that no one should see the baby. Its a total of 1 hour for both sets of grand parents to congratulate the new parents and get a quick pic with a much wanted grand child. It does not seem too much to ask.

I'd had a large grade three tear, and a post-partum haemorrhage. I was in the hospital for one night. When I came home, unbelievably, I had a great support network - even without having visitors.

Firstly, my husband was at home and was also supportive of this recovery and feeding time - he also didn't feel like he was lacking any support. Secondly, we had midwives and health visitors pop in very regularly. Lastly, whilst parents didn't come into our home, it didn't stop them from calling or video calling.

We made the right choice for us, and I stand by that.

Do what is right for you and your wife. It doesn't matter what anyone else did with their babies or how quickly they wanted to be with various family members, it's not about them. The only people being precious are those dictating what should be allowed with a baby that isn't theirs.

Maybe lockdown and the rules around covid started it 🤔.

My mum and in-laws arrived 3 hrs after ds was born, they had a quick visit , a cuddle and left after an hour. This meant dh and I had our time together when we got home.

with dd she was born at night and my mum visited when she was 15 hrs old, in-laws visited when she was 22 hrs old.

id never deprive our parents a quick visit to meet their grandchild.

dh and I still had plenty of us time bonding with our babies after the initial first visit .

id hate to wait 3 days to meet my first grandchild.

our only stipulation was do not just turn up at our house as we would not be letting anyone in who didn’t text to make sure it was convenient to visit x

3 days to see your grandchild. Torture.

And yet if the grandparents didn't want to meet the baby, you would be the first person to complain.

Never understand the people saying crap like pfb like an insult.
of course ones first born is precious? that's not a bad thing.

Also the entitled and self absorbed ones are the people demanding to see the baby immediately. It's never just one or two people expecting this and where do you stop then.
And I say that as having had my in laws in the hospital the following day, but that was fully my choice, though not one I'll repeat next time as I felt horrendous, but still, that was my choice and they never demanded anything.
If it's not your child you can wait a few days honestly. Three days is nothing.

I'm intrigued that it's viewed as hiding away. When we didn't have visitors, we absolutely didn't view it as hiding. We were still contactable, still had phone calls/video calls. We were still utterly joyous that our little one had arrived safely.

We were also very grateful to have time to convalesce, bond with our new baby, establish breastfeeding and enjoy a whole new period of change. I think back to that time really fondly.

I'd also wonder why if feels so much more important to give a baby a could on day one vs day three or seven. If it's less special for a grandparent to hug their new grandchild after waiting a few days, rather than fresh out of the womb, surely that says more about them?

My parents visited little one at two days old in hospital. A quick 30 minute drop in. It was also my birthday so it was nice to see them.

My in laws met her day 5 when we were home and they stayed 4 hours!! As they were leaving they then said “we’ll pop in tomorrow” and they stayed another 4 hours!! I’d had a c section and couldn’t really walk or go to the toilet without having my husband to hold onto and I hated them being around and they did nothing to help out… other than my MIL scurry out the room to watch my husband change baby’s nappy because she wanted to check he was doing it right… despite him having done 90% of her nappies at this point due to my c section.

I know for next time to have firmer boundaries with them.

My advice is only meet people when you’re ready. 3 days old is quite early to meet little one so I don’t know why they’re making such a fuss!! It’s not like you’ve made them wait weeks.

Congratulations!

Personally, I had 13 miscarriages over 10 years and couldn't wait for our immediate family/best friends to meet our DD.

Both sets of our parents came to visit in hospital and I loved seeing everyone cuddling our much longed for baby, it made me burst with pride however, I truly believe it is a personal decision x

I hope you have greater empathy if/when any of your children have a child.

I’m 59 now …..been a granny 9 years….all my kids have children….I was there when 2 of them were born and saw the other one at 2 hours old…..all by invitation…..none of our family are into ‘baby bubbles’ 😂😂😂