AIBU to think MIL should come to us after baby is born, not expect us to drive?

[rocketdogjazzin]

My MIL lives about 150 miles and 3.5 hours away from us, and we’ve made the trip to visit her four times this year. She made the return journey once, but now she’s becoming increasingly reluctant to make the drive herself.

We’re expecting our first baby in March, and when we visited last week, she casually mentioned that we’ll be visiting her soon with the newborn. I just said, "Well, we’ll have to see how everyone is," because it got me thinking that we’re not really sure when or how a trip like that would work.

The baby’s car seat does have a lie-flat mode, but I’m concerned about the long journey, especially considering that babies are supposed to be in car seats for a limited time (half-hour stretches for the first 4-6 weeks). Plus, I have no idea how I’ll be feeling post-birth, and I’ll be establishing breastfeeding and settling into new parenthood. Selfishly, I think it would be much easier for me to stay at home where I’m comfortable and have everything set up, rather than trying to manage a long drive and staying at her house.

Also, MIL tends to be around constantly when we visit - it is her home after all - and I’m anticipating that I’ll want some space with the baby especially in those first few weeks. I’d prefer to limit visitors to a few hours at a time, but I’m not sure how that would go down at her house when we're the visitors.

AIBU to think that we should stay home until we’re happy with the journey and not commit to anything until we know for sure? I also think if MIL wants to meet the baby, she can come to us. I’m just not ready for long journeys and staying away from home so soon after giving birth. I realise I probably should have said something when she brought it up, but I was so taken aback that I didn’t know how to respond. Now it feels awkward to go back and say it won’t work. I’m hoping she doesn’t bring it up again but want to know if that's reasonable.

I was guilt tripped into travelling 10 days after an emergency section to see MIL and I’m telling you learn from my mistakes. Don’t do it. At all.

Passenger Assistance is fantastic. They will carry your bags, take you by wheelchair between platforms etc, and evict any CF in your seat. Sometimes it’s a free upgrade to first class if the train doesn’t have an no accessible seat in standard.

If she comes over all “ooooh, to complicated for little old me” (she shouldn’t, but some people revel in being helpless) your DH can arrange the whole thing online. All she has to do is turn up at the B station.

nope not in a million years. Even with a lay flat that’s way too far with breaks it would take about 5 hours to get there.
you absolutely need your own space. If she wants to see baby that badly she comes to you. If she doesn’t want to drive there’s always train and your hubby could meet her so far away.

You won't visit your disabled MIL but neither will you allow her to stay if she visits you?

Just say you don't like her and own it.

After 6 weeks is very different to before so I’d expect travelling to be fine from then on but in the first 6 weeks you are bleeding and your mid section is less stable so it’s easy to hurt your back, so long car journeys with a child that needs feeds etc are impractical.

I've voted yabu but not for not wanting to travel but for assuming you're mil meant you'd be visiting straight away.
Because unless you're planning on visiting before march or never visiting again the next time you visit it will be with your baby!

Doable but it would be no from me given she could easily come to you. We went to a wedding when DS was 4wo and the 4 hour journey took 6, we stopped every 60-90 minutes. I had an easy birth, no section or complications.

I havent RTFT but is there a national express coach she could get instead of doing several changes by train? That might be more comfortable for her. Especially if someone can drop her at the coach station at her end and your DH pick her up near to you.

I think you are right not to do the travelling when baby is newborn. We are a 5hr drive from my parents. To go by train, it's an hour across London on public transport then a couple of hrs train then a drive to DM and DFs house. With both DC, we waited until they were around 3months and took them on public transport, but made it into a longer trip where we went for 2 weeks and saw all the extended family. So the long journey felt a bit more worth it.

Between birth and 3months, my lovely DM and DF came down to us twice. For DD1 they stayed in the Premier Inn up the road, for DD2, they just bunked in at our house. Even if she can just manage one trip, it will give her those lovely newborn memories and hopefully be a bit of a compromise for you.

We did a 3.5 hour drive with a baby less than a week old (I was all stitched up after a forcep delivery so had to sit on a haemorrhoids donut thing!) and it took over 6 hours each way. Then had to do it again a few weeks later and it again took 6 hours because of frequent feeding and nappy changing stops. It was not fun and I don't recommend it 🙃

If she really can't come see you, she'll have to just accept she won't get to meet her grandchild as a newborn. It's utter shit, but not much can be done about it. Unless, of course, your partner collects her and drops her home again a few days later... Seems like a terrible solution though!

Train assistance is crap and virtually none existent even if booked in advance - I missed 3 trains with my son Christmas because there was no one available to put the ramps on for the train that's wheelchair assistance it was even worse when he was still ambulant!

Guessing you haven't read the whole thread where her mil is disabled and physically can't travel alone!

She's disabled that's why she doesn't drive and it's multiple trains! And she's also said she's not allowed to visit for more than an hour so she's wanting a disabled 70 year old to travel for 6 hours on multiple trains for an hour visit!

She basically doesn't like her MIL and doesn't want her child to have a relationship with her!

I was chomping at the bit for a change of scenery with my first newborn. Drove south from up north for 3.5 hours to show off the baby to my parents' friends when the baby was about a month old, I think.
Hadn't heard of any rules on car seat limits back then and she's 17 now with a very healthy spine 😉

Wow! I’ve used it regularly without a problem and found the staff incredibly helpful. Staff and ramp waiting at every station as the train pulled into the station. I would recommend it to anyone.

Even a relatively quiet station was good.

Is there anywhere nice where you could meet in the middle?

MIL can and has travelled to us in the last year alone and she’s used our house as a base for a weekend event for a hobby group she attends which was local. I’m blanking on the word - it’s on the tip of my tongue - but her disability has peaks and troughs, usually she is worse in winter and better in summer. Her driving over to us isn’t something she has said she is unable to do - just something I’ve surmised that prefers not to if we can’t visit.

Good communication and compromise by everyone.

Take into account your child’s needs, your needs, your inlaws and your parents too.

Initial visits are different to the longer term too when you are all going to be making adaptations to how and when you see family members.

Family members get ill, get older, are less able to travel too. Compromise and new plans are needed, agreed by good communication.

Just so you know too, the car seat will need to be upright for travel.
'Lie flat' seats are a bit of a scam really, they don't lie fully flat so baby is safer in the pram bassinet when out of the car. Its definitely too far of a drive with a tiny baby

YANBU but I don't think you need to do anything about this right now. Once the baby is born, you either will or will not feel up to the journey (probably not!). At that point DH can tell her that it isn't possible for you all to travel yet, and she can choose to wait or come to you.

Her casually expecting you to travel that far with a newborn is unreasonable. Maybe it's doable, chances are it's not.

You expecting someone with ME to be able to travel that far is also unreasonable. Maybe it's doable, chances are it's not.

Grandparents manage to have good relationships with their DC even if they don't see them for quite some time after the birth! Comments such as She basically doesn't like her MIL and doesn't want her child to have a relationship with her! are ridiculous hyperbole.

Do you use zoom or FaceTime with her? Maybe do a lot of that and defer any thought of visits until such time as you're ready to travel.

Don't say anything else and don't worry about it. Have your baby and stay in your nest. Then if it comes up, your DH must just tell her you and baby can't possibly be doing a long journey like that. That's it.

Better she visits you, by public transport if she doesn’t want to drive. I am surprised that she expects you to visit her tbh, that’s very inconsiderate when you have just had a baby! Just put your foot down and now and say the truth you don’t know yet how the birth will be, you need to recover, you will be trying to establish a routine for baby, and for those reasons it could be months before you and baby are ready for a lengthy car journey. Many congratulations OP.

She does drive and has a car, which she uses for local trips. The problem arises with longer drives. I wouldn't expect her to drive or take the train for a visit that's only an hour long. We've made the trip to see her a few times in a day, and it’s exhausting for us. I would prefer that she stay in a nearby hotel because the idea of hosting an overnight guest while I'm adjusting to parenthood and breastfeeding feels overwhelming. The advice to "just carry on as normal" while she stays doesn’t work for me, as I'm autistic and highly introverted, and I don’t feel able to relax with visitors in the house. Plus, the visit would be longer than an hour if she stayed in a hotel, though I doubt I’d be up to a 9am - 9pm visit length. If she was there for a couple of nights then she’d have multiple days of visiting the baby. She’s stayed in hotels to visit other family members so it’s not a new idea for her. It also wouldn’t be forever, just while we’re adjusting which I obviously can’t put a timeline on before the baby is here.

I really value my baby having a close relationship with their grandparents, but I’m just concerned about the logistics during the newborn phase. I don’t think it would negatively impact the relationship if she met the baby shortly after birth (if she could visit that soon) or waited until 8 weeks, when we could visit her.

So what happens if you put a newborn in a car seat for more than 30 minutes? I'm interested as no-one told us that rule when i had babies and we live more than 30 minutes from the nearest hospital. what have i inadvertently done to my kids bringing them home from hospital?

TBH I would compromise on the overnight guest bit if you have space for someone, but not the travelling part.

I think your summary is probably right, that both of us are probably unable to make the journey and that’s just how it is. Part of why I posted was to see other options. Someone mentioned coaches and I don’t think that’s a possibility with the route either though. I’ve used Waze, Google Maps, and Apple Maps to see all the public transport options they give and it seems to only be trains with two changes and the last change at Birmingham. We actually never FaceTime each other, she and DH speak on the phone and we have a WhatsApp chat the three of us, but a few people have mentioned it and it’s a good idea. I wish we’d thought of it before our last visit as we could have checked MIL knew how to do it, though hopefully she’ll find answering a FaceTime call easy enough.

Grandparents manage to have good relationships with their DC even if they don't see them for quite some time after the birth! This is definitely true for me. I didn’t meet my grandparents for a year because they were a longhaul flight away and I had a great relationship with them. Those were the days of very expensive long distance phone calls and letters too!