In-laws visiting too soon

[Castlebouncey]

I gave birth to my beautiful son a week ago and I'm wondering if my feelings towards my MIL and FIL are justified (more MIL).

We asked for some time after the birth for just three of us, but they turned up at the hospital. I had to have stitches and stay the night on a ward. They turned up on the ward didn't ask me how I was, and practically ignored me. MIL picked up baby without asking and without his blanket. This lead to him having a low temperature and having to stay longer whilst his temperature regulated.

I'm now feeling quite negatively towards them and am not rushing to have them visit again, and feeling quite protective of our son. MIL has now made comments about not being able to bond with him as they haven't seen him since (he's only a week old and I'm still recovering!).

I'm I being unreasonable?

And don't you think it's rather immature to reject a child because of decisions made by their parents?

It's tosh either way, unless you think that no lockdown grandparents will ever bond with those babies.

They shot themselves in the foot, when they decided to go against your wishes and visited you whilst still in the hospital!
What the general public don't know is that newborns are unable to regulate their body temperature in the first 3 months of life and need to be kept wrapped up well for the first 24/48 hours of extrauterine life. Any activity, including being picked up and passed around for cuddles, can cause a drop in temperature and needs to be acted upon sooner rather than later. Not every delivery room or post-natal ward keeps their temperature around 25°!
I agree with PP's, that grandparents don't need to bond with babies in the first few hours/days of life. They aren't going to be the ones getting up in the middle of the night to breastfeed are they?!
You stick to your guns OP and get DH to deal with his parents.

Exactly. My MIL didn't see our son for a two weeks after he was born (she caught covid and was self isolating) and now he barely recognises her. He thinks Grandma Pig is HIS grandma. Sad really.

I do think that it is good for children to have bonds with family members, other than their parents alone - surely the more loving people they have in their lives, the better. And developing those bonds does matter.

But the most important bonds, by a long, long way, are those with the child’s mum and dad, and they should absolutely be the priority, especially in the early days and weeks. Anyone, other than the parents, talking about ‘rights’ in terms of getting to see a new baby needs a reality check.

Your MIL sounds pushy. To pick someone else’s baby up without invitation or seeking permission is unacceptable, especially a new born in hospital, even if the baby is a grandchild. Grandparents should not barge in bearing entitlement.

I find this rush ‘to bond’ quite over the top. A relationship with a grandchild happens over time, gently, naturally. Parents bond, grandparents are more of a second tier love and support. - unless they are the primary care-givers, that situation is quite different.

I would ask both sets of grandparents to give you some space for a few days. Ask them in a kind way (and definitely treat both sides the same - don’t favour your side over your husbands as that’s really unfair). If you ask them in the right way you won’t burn any bridges.
it’s important for your child to have good relationships with both sides of grandparents and your may well find you need to call on them for emergency childcare/a break/school events you can’t attend.
Just keep it equal.

It’s not the lack of contact, or even the bonding.

it’s making it very clear that one set of grandparents, mums, are more important.

if your son had a child, and his wife’s parents were there from the start, spending time with them as a family and the grandchild, while you are told no, you must stay away for x amount of time, we don’t want you here.

you wouldn’t feel resentful? You wouldn’t feel like they simply don’t want you around them or their child? It wouldn’t affect your relationship with your son and his wife if they clearly felt like this?

if they treat both sets of grandparents the same then fair enough. And yes I realise some women might want their mums, but they don’t seem to be excluding their dads as well.

TBH if they're the sort of people who would forego a relationship with their grandchild because they didn't like how they were treated by the child's mother in the first weeks of his life, they're probably not the sort of people I'd want him to form a close bond with for fear of similar behaviour down the road that would cause him hurt.

The follow up emotional blackmail does seem to suggest it's not a one off...

OP they clearly trampled all over your boundaries, ignored you and understandably you don't feel like a repeat performance. Has your DH spoken to them? Would it be more helpful if he was able to set some very clear boundaries with them and explain why?

A MIL had her arse handed to here yesterday for daring to cuddle her 3 year old grandchild in the night when he came to her. MILs get such a hard time in here.

I think the OP is perfectly reasonable! I swear my first words to my daughters or my daughters in law when they give birth will be ‘congratulations darling, how are you, tell me when you’re up for a visit from me, I’ll bring you (insert favourite meal here) and I can’t wait to meet him/her).

Who just lobs up to the hospital, unasked, hours after the birth??

I guess the flip side of this is - do both sets of grandparents treat the mother equally?

Everyone seems to forget that in the early days there are two people who really matter - the baby, and the mother recovering from birth.

I would have been very happy to have my in laws there from the get go because they are lovely people who have never treated me with anything but kindness and respect. As it happens they ended up meeting both my children before my own parents did, but that was for reasons of distance.

I suspect OP would not be reacting like this if she had been treated with kindness, consideration and respect the day after giving birth.

I do not thing for one moment MIL holding him without his blanket was the reason his temperature went down enough to cause him to stay in longer, so YABU there! Wanting to wait for them to visit is fair enough as long as you are treating your parents the same.The baby is you're partners too.

Only on MN.

🤣 love that word 🤣 To be fair, it's been weeks I'm only sleeping 4-5h of broken sleep every night, so my brain is really mush, ngl. Oh and English isn't my first language, so yeah, at times I'm not bothering with synonyms 😘

Wanting to wait for them to visit is fair enough as long as you are treating your parents the same. The baby is you're partners too.

My SIL wanted her mum (my MIL) to be at her birth because she was terrified. Does that mean her MIL was entitled to be present for the birth too? Of course not.

I can't believe how many women (!) on this thread appear to view other women as vessels for grandchildren. We're humans too!

I'd remember how vulnerable and knackered I felt after birth, and tell my son to support his wife in this.

As indeed my MIL says to my husband - listen to your wife!

(Again, my in laws saw my son before my parents did. Incidentally MIL was welcome, FIL was not, because of the sorts of behaviour listed here. But I wasn't going to split hairs, we just kept it brief.)

Thanks for your thoughts eveyone, I am very hormonal! Baby was having extra monitoring for his blood sugars which was likely making me feel even more over protective of him!

We have struggled with boundaries in the past with the in laws, my dh being her only son. I should say my mum stayed away until the next day, and then did a quick 10 min visit to check how I was doing and bring me and my dh some breakfast and then left us to it.

Well that's a blow for all the previous posters who were frothing over the hypothetical red carpet you rolled out for your own parents at the hospital.

Don’t listen to the other posters, @Castlebouncey . You don’t have to justify being ok seeing your own mum when you’ve just gone through giving birth. It’s totally natural.

You think...!

How patronising and ignorant.

WHO LET HER INTO THE HOSPITAL

It totally is preciousness. The grandparents aren't moving in, they're just excited to see their new grandchild. I think it's actually cruel and nasty to make them stay completely away. Surely it wouldn't take too much out of any new parents to allow their parents half an hour to meet the newborn, and then they could have their space?

I needed to recover too - I had 3 c/sections but I am not a control freak!

What shit is this? Plenty of posters had babies in that timescale. My eldest is 27 fyi so not quite the 30 years!

I think anyone whining about meeting a baby and not being able to bond with them or enjoy seeing them unless they are tiny is weird. I get excited to meet new family member but I think they are still going to be a tiny newborn whether it is day 1 or day 7. So YANBU because I hate this attitude and have had a bad experience of people like this then creating unnecessary drama and family fall outs at what should be a special and ideally relaxing as possible time for the actual parents

Just because your MIL is ignorant doesn't mean all women who had babies 30 years ago!! Most of us have decent general knowledge and know that some things have changed (not all that much if you know enough to compare!)

I did not give my newborns honey, and although I didn't personally use a sling, plenty of other parents did. Maybe it's because my eldest is only 27??? Or because I have two younger kids? Or because I have a brain and I use it??

I love how people who might not even have been born 30 years ago can speak with such assurance about the guidelines on babies back then...