Am I unreasonable to ask people not to call to visit when they are sick?

[Chatterbox25]

My 9 month old doesn’t sleep through the night. He did 3 nights of consecutive sleeping through the night but is now down with the latest cold he has caught from a visitor who comes regularly even when they are unwell. Last night he was back to not sleeping again as he was up coughing. We have asked that these people don’t call when they are sick as we have 2 children just 2 and 9 months. It’s very busy and hard enough to manage daily life on 9 months of broken sleep but when the kids are sick it’s so much harder as sleep is even more broken and generally both are up in the night rather than just the baby. It’s like talking to the wall. They keep calling when sick? We don’t know what to do? We are questioning if they keep calling when sick because we are being unreasonable by asking them to stay away? Is it normal to avoid visiting babies and small children when you are sick? We always avoid visiting houses with small children and babies when we are sick or the kids are sick and always warn anyone we are sick.

AIBU to ask expect them not to call especially since we have explained why (sleep etc.)

Update- baby up crying from 2am-6am coughing and all congested, puked 3 times he was coughing so much 😭

So unsure what to do as we have asked SIL to stay away more than once before when sick and when it’s really pushed she has stayed away from our house but the last time she was sick and we asked her to stay away she went to PIL house behind our backs when the kids were there. Then 23 month old told us as she tells us everything and a few days later the pictures of the Xmas decorations going up proved our dad was right she was there. This time she didn’t stay away at all. Both myself and DH were livid last night watching baby suffer so much and being unable to console him. I recorded him as proof of how much he was suffering. But don’t think we can send the recording on or say anything. We don’t want to fall out with them and they don’t see our point of view at all. They are of the opinion that if you’re going to get sick you’re going to get sick. Feels like we are fighting a losing battle and will turn our being the bad guys again like the Covid situation when I asked them not to come in. I cried for days that time and my mental health took a nose dive as a result of the confrontation. It was all just too much for me- the cherry on top of the cake of so many issues. The relationship with them doesn’t seem to have recovered since then. I apologised that time like I’ve done any other time I’ve ever said anything as a result of them interfering or being overly involved and have never received an apology for anything. I don’t feel I can make things any worse so it seems like we will just have to suck this up.

Why on earth are you apologising? You haven't done anything wrong. Your SIL does not respect your wishes and actually goes out of her way to deceive you and see your children, behind your back, when she is ill. You should be angry and put your foot down.

Would it matter if she fell out with you? Is she lovely in other ways? Do you rely on her for anything? If the answer is no, I would massively reduce contact with her and be very clear why.

YANBU at all. I hate it when people visit when they’re not well, even though my DCs are grown!

Yes, you get exposed to germs in daily life, but it seems needless to visit when unwell.

To be honest, I’m now just firm and tell people not to come. Don’t let them in, if they call stand at the door and say you’ll see them soon when they’re better.

they’re being rude, not you

But if you are going to all those places, mixing with that many people your baby will get colds and coughs anyway. You don't know the cough came from your in laws, could have been from anywhere.
Although having said that it would drive me nuts if MIK, just showed up whenever she felt like it. Get your husband to nip that in the bus now. They call first and if you say no they're not allowed to come round. I hate unannounced visitors.

@SilvieBear 😂😂

Honestly and am sorry if this is really blunt - just stop answering the door. Lock it if you don't already! Be firm

Well you shouldn’t have to ask them to not call over ill. It is not acceptable, especially with a baby.

YANBU

1. Don't let them in.
2. If they barge in, make a point of taking babies upstairs and opening all of the windows downstairs. If you're alone, tell them to let themselves out as you need to supervise babies upstairs.

Time to get tough.

@Tootiredmummyof3 we are in Ireland and had a terrible storm followed by snow so we weren’t going out and about over the weekend. We hadn’t mixed with anyone other than in-laws from Friday to Monday. SIL landed to house on Friday with a cough. She mixed with kids each day from Friday to Monday and her cough has been getting worse and is now a horrible cough. Coughing every 2 minutes. Sunday night baby starts coughing with horrible cough. It’s no coincidence.

I understand that you can catch colds etc anywhere and don’t have an issue with this. It is part of life. What I have an issue with and what isn’t a necessary part of life is visiting babies when you are sick and making them sick unnecessarily. Some people get sick more than others so this isn’t a once off. It’s not even once a year. She has been sick 4-5 times since last September and would see no issue visiting every time. Her parents have been sick once with Covid and maybe twice on top of this and they too don’t believe in staying away even with Covid.

@thepariscrimefiles to clarify- i haven’t ever apologies over asking her or them not to call when sick. It’s other things like walking out of the house one day when we were one week in to potty training our then 20 month old. She was having a very bad day and they were expecting her to make it to the bathroom everytime to the potty instead of having the potty in the room and when she wasn’t they were getting frustrated and started saying she wasn’t ready and needed her pull ups etc. instead of allowing us to do it our way. Baby was sick this time too and we were 5 month in with broken sleep and exhausted. The criticism was too much that day and I walked out and later apologised for walking out which in my opinion was being rude. Then there was the Covid situation where I didn’t let them in and they weren’t happy and i apologised as I felt they felt I was in the wrong. There was a few years ago too where I got upset and left the room to calm down at dds christening because I caught dds finger between her highchair and the table by accident and she started to cry and FIL kept shouting you caught her finger you caught her finger as if it had been done on purpose. He then instructed his daughter to take dd from me as if I had done something wrong and hurt her on purpose. So I left the room really upset and apologised a day or two later for being rude and leaving the room.

I have asked my mil for them not to call when kids are sick and also my dh has asked mil and sil not to call when sick and explained exactly why. We are struggling to function as it is with the lack of sleep. We have much less sleep at night when dds are sick. We have never apologised for this.

We live very close to both of their homes. We don’t have upstairs and they have to pass our sitting room to get to the door. We know they are there 99.9% of the time before they ever get to the door. Usually it’s a knock on the window and my dd jumping in the couch excited to see them. Thanks for all the advice but not answering the door isn’t an option.

i can see the majority of people agree I’m not being unreasonable and that’s all I was looking for. Thanks for all the replies and advice. Will have a talk with dh and see what we can do. Thanks again

Omg the finger in the high chair thing! I am
sad you apologised. Had you thrown his pint over him, that would’ve been worth a sorry. He was being AWFUL to you.

The rest, idk. Irish etiquette differs a bit from UK I think and maybe you can’t change this without decades of consequences? If so, I’d go for opening all the windows every time they turn up, cheerfully banging on about the fresh air, only offer horrible biscuits to discourage overstaying and wait for the children to grow bigger and more robust. I would protect them when they’ve just been ill though, and say no at the door, they need rest, no excitement for a few days. And I’d be all over the family WhatsApp with the recording of the baby but not in a blaming way, in a ‘poor baby! Look!’ tone. Wishing you luck.

You (and your dh) do need to start saying No to them. It will be rough to start with but they will get over it eventually evennif this simply means you see less of them. Otherwise they will continue to bully you AND your kids into whatever they want.

Why are you so worried about falling out with this people when they clearly don’t care about falling out with you? Can you move away from them?