What's the worst thing someone did when you had a baby?

[JustBiscoff]

Currently 37 weeks pregnant with DC2, and really starting to feel the wear and tear of juggling opportunities to rest, with working part-time and looking after a very active two year old.

The birth of DC1 had been a fairly traumatic forceps delivery, in which I lost almost 2.5 litres of blood and the baby was quite badly jaundiced, therefore requiring a prolonged stay in hospital. DC was the first grandchild/great nephew for both sides of the family, so received a constant flow of visitors in the first fortnight at home. PIL visited on day 3, and expected to be waited on hand and foot. I was still bleeding, barely able to stand up, and having a nightmare establishing breastfeeding...cue MIL clicking her fingers at DH, to 'collect the baby from his wife' so she could have a turn holding him. FIL asked me to leave the room twice whenever I needed to breastfeed, and following an hour long photo shoot of MIL holding DC (it later transpired they hadn't taken a single photo of me holding him), she demanded to know when dinner would be ready, 'because we've had such a tiring car journey'. At that point, DH almost saw red, and firmly cut the visit short, sending PIL on their way. I hope they are more considerate this time round!

My exH was awful with my first. Pleaded with me to have a second and I had DS. When I got home with him my ex decided he didn't want him after all and refused to have anything to do with him. He finally held him for the first time at six weeks old. He changed one nappy when DS was 14 months and never again.

MIL visiting from abroad … told me to take a rest upstairs after feeding newborn & she would watch the older 2 boys - 2 &4yrs old.

After baby feed & short rest, I came down stairs to MIL sitting in lounge knitting. Odd noises coming from kitchen which is down 5 steps from sitting room. In kitchen are the 2 boys skating around on the wood floor in a mess of soy sauce, rice, salt, various spices, baby formula powder, soap and water. Boys are filthy & mess considersble. I am saying all the things about what I see in a loud voice, stripping boys & cleaning them up & getting them out of kitchen and passing MIL on the way to their rooms.
I ask her how she let it happen? Wasn’t she watching! I explained the mess.
Her response:
I was very involved in knitting this baby cardigan for the other grandchild …. (That baby wasn’t due to be born for 5 months!!! )

She continued knitting & did not lift a finger to help me clean the kitchen mess. The soya sauce combo did stain the wood.

They could have set selves on fire, got hurt with knives or just left the house …

Total self centered lazy - no idea what her prob is.

My mum asked if I was keeping on top of everything in the house 2 weeks after I’d had a c-section, and never offered to do anything to help 🙃

I would lower your expectations to meet their previous behaviour. Set firm boundaries before they arrive and give them a time limit as to leaving time ie, visit between 2-4. As for breastfeeding, state that loud and clear too.
if you become tired early, you and babe head to your room. Let hubby say goodbye.

I was still in hospital after having premature twins and FIL and MIL came to visit; we didn’t really get on very well. They were farmers and spent the whole of the visit sitting at the end of my bed arguing as to whether they should build a hen house 🤪

I had my one and only baby by c-section. My hospital roommate had a male visitor and I don't know how the subject came up about my birth method but he told me "you took the easy way out". This after having a long labor, so not a planned operation.

After I got home from the hospital my brother and girlfriend visited. Naturally my stomach area was very tender and I couldn't move about without pain. All I heard throughout the visit was the girlfriend moaning about her period cramps.

My MIL brought photos of my husband at the hospital to show how the baby looks like him!

The weirdest reaction ever.

Me too but I was made to feel like a bad mother but none of these so called professionals recognise or acknowledge that this (poor sleep) could be an indicator of autism.

I'll be having an elective because my baby is poorly. If he said this to me, I think I'd have said "At least I'm not married to you." You've gotta feel for his partner: he sounds like the sort of guy who who make her feel like a failure for using pain relief, or if breastfeeding didn't work out.

This has got under my skin and brought back all my initial (and irrational!) feelings of inadequacy after my first labour "failed to progress."

Giving birth is a lottery and how it goes is down to luck. I don't give a shit how my little one arrives as long as it's safely and they're ok.

Not quite my story but...when my grandmother was informed my sister was born (first grandchild) - she cried as my sister was not a boy. I can only assume I created further disappointment when I was born.
Unsurprisingly we didn't have much of a relationship with her!

My daughter was born on a bright sunday morning. A few hours later my parents arrived at the maternity ward to see their first grandchild. By that time new nurses came on shift, and one of them congratulated me on my beautiful and healthy baby. My narcistic mother interrupted her rudely and said it was she who should be congratulated because without her that baby wouldn't be there now was it.

On maybe day two or three of being home after giving birth, I was sitting on the toilet in searing pain and in tears trying to have my first post partum poo, when DH came in the bathroom with the phone to say, "my mum's on the phone, she just wants a quick chat." Absolutely oblivious to the situation.

My mum announced the gender of our baby on social media before we had told anyone else. Even MIL and my siblings found out on Facebook.
She also complained about how dirty my toilet was after I got home with newborn after being in hospital for 3 days. Poor DH had been driving back and forth from home and hospital, cooking my mother meals and was surviving on very little sleep so hadn't prioritised toilet cleaning!

@Dogsbreath7 Yes same here. My horrendously difficult baby turned out to be autistic. I've since learned that's very common.

That is horrific. I am so sorry that happened to you. I hope you can see you and your family in your daughter now x

Thank you. Funnily enough she’s turned out to be a spitting image of me (apparently)😁.

Oh, that is so awful. I am so sorry that happened to you. It sounds horrific. And so alien to me. I had a complex pregnancy and a child with issues.

I felt absolutely smothered by all this intervention piling on to put things in place when we were just surviving nicu. A lot of which was actually unnecessary when we got to that stage, as my baby totally flourished.

I know that it was really not expected that bjrth etc would go as well. I know we got lucky, but it was really terrifying. I felt like there would be a never ending involvement with medics and care providers but actually, we were all grand.

It feels weird to complain that the NHS were too much in their care of us. Many have different experiences and I am lucky I was cared for well. But it felt a bit much. After all the surgical stuff, we were ok and resources should be targeted elsewhere.

It is difficult to refuse intervention though, especially with a child with high needs.

😂 that is wonderful. You both deserve it!

You really should get some social awareness training or something…

or shouldn't those who can't read the room and see that I didn't want to be pandered to get it more like?
If I don't feel comfortable with something in my own home why should I put up with it?

Someone on their lunch break from work

Not a family member, but a midwife for me.

My usual midwife was ill so another midwife I hadn’t met before came to check up on me at home after DD was born. I had PND and was under the care of Perinatal Mental Health by that point.

I was breastfeeding when she arrived with a student in tow. It was hard, but I’d found a way that seemed to be working. She asked if it was ok for the student to sit in and I said yes, assuming she’d just be watching. Midwife immediately turned to the student, gestured vaguely in my direction, said, “Now, what can you see that’s wrong with this picture?”

After a discussion in which I was just referred to as “she”, as though I wasn’t in the room, they told me I was feeding wrong. Midwife grabbed the support pillow I was using and said “let’s get rid of THAT!” They then manipulated me into another position and told me that was right and I mustn’t use any cushions or supports to help me hold the baby.

They then left, I burst into tears, and spent the next 12 solid hours attempting to bf in the way I’d been shown because now DD was fussy and cross and hungry. The new position hurt, I couldn’t hear DD swallowing the milk any more and she screamed whenever I tried to stop feeding. I ended up in hospital the same evening with mastitis, a 40 degree temperature, and pretty much delirious.

In hindsight I ought to have ignored them and gone back to the way that was working for me and my baby, regardless of it being ‘wrong’, but I had no confidence in myself at all. I had another bout of mastitis that went septic and I ended up on a drip a week later, at which point my whole family begged me to stop trying to breastfeed, and I gave up at 4 weeks and considered myself a failure for months.

What for?

A friend fell out with me because I wouldn't make her my babies godmother 😅

Visited my newborn with a cold sore. She'd said she had one, I said she could visit on condition she didn't touch the baby.

First fucking thing she did was kiss him. 😡

I said please don't do that and she laughed said "oh don't be silly it's just a cold sore".

I googled it after she left and discovered my instincts were right, cold sores are extremely dangerous to newborns, it can even be fatal. My blood ran cold when I read that. If I'd known that, she wouldn't have got through the door!

Thankfully he was ok, but it really shook me up how stupid people can be, and made me realise I couldn't trust even close friends to take proper care of my baby's health.