To ask you how long you waited before visitors

[Starlightsprite]

After you had your baby?

My son and his partner had a baby yesterday morning and came home the same day. I have asked that they let us know when they are ready for visitors and they said that they will.

I am of the generation (is it generational?) that your immediate family were welcome straight away unless there were issues like the baby being poorly or the mother needing more recuperation than average and I couldn’t wait for my family to meet my babies. I already knew people were moving away from this though as I’ve seen it on here so I kind of knew not to expect to visit immediately.

So my question is what were you waiting for in terms if having people visit you? Do people just want a week to themselves in their little bubble? Or is it until you’ve had a good nights sleep? Or until yuh feel more comfortable? I just am wondering how people are doing it these days as I’m dying to meet my grandchild obviously.

There are no underlying issues here by the way, I get along fine with my DIL and son.

Grandparents visited in hospital with DD1, and at 2 days old at home with DD2. (And itveas good they did, as DD2 was admitted back to hospital so they took over care of DD1)

Next Day … my brother & his wife came to to hospital, me & SIL were pregnant at the same time, so it was really nice to see them and my tiny nephew. Called in to see MIL on way back from the hospital.

Our parents and our siblings have visited as soon as I was up to it.

It has been same day or the day after but I really think it can be fair to wait until mum and baby (and maybe siblings) are up to it. Our youngst is in secondary school now.

We allowed visits immediately for parents and siblings

Mine came to the hospital, I think I would have been upset if they didn’t. It did bother me that my PIL got there before my Mum and Dad because they were pushy and didn’t check that it was okay to come. I’m trying to be really carefree about it but I find it difficult to understand, I won’t lie. I bet they’re not as keen to keep their family away when they want a night out in a year or two 😂

I allowed visitors to the hospital a few hrs after birth. Not because I really wanted to, but I knew everyone was keen to meet the baby and I thought if I allowed a hospital visit it got it out the way and was time limited on visiting hours 😅
We then visited my in laws a few days later at their house, again as it allowed us to leave when we wanted instead of being stuck with visitors in our home for hours. Mil also made dinner for us anytime we visited which was a godsend when we couldn't be bothered with cooking and cleaning up. So they got baby cuddles, and we got fed. It was a good deal 😅

That’s nice, I suppose it’s one of those things in life that you don’t think about until it happens to you it’s their baby of course but I would like to think the grandparents will be a bit part of that life so if course we’re keen to meet them.

The moment we got home for my parents and the next day for in laws (not favouritism just logistics). Wouldn't have wanted them in the hospital personally but made an exception for my brother in law as he was a doctor there!

Good thinking.

I don’t think I knew what I was, or wasn’t, up for until I’d had the baby.

My first was a long, traumatic birth with significant injury to me. I was in shock, pain, bleeding a lot, breastfeeding was agony etc etc. I really would have preferred to be left alone for a week then - that didn’t happen, I had a lot of visitors and I had to sit smiling and nodding along at how fabulous it all was while in physical and mental turmoil.

My second birth was really easy, and I felt fine to come home the same day and return to my usual routine - including seeing people.

So - you just can’t know, everyone (and their births) are so different.

I found all the ‘help’ offered by relatives largely involved me having to host them and listen to chat about all sorts of crap when I really just wanted to be focused on my baby. There is also something v bizarre about having to learn to breastfeed (agony!) with an audience…!

My siblings saw our kids a month later at Christmas, my mother came within a couple of days, father was Christmas too I think. Mum may have brought nieces who were more excited than rest of the family after a couple of weeks IIRC. No hurry, when they're ready, you rightly identify that it used to be, boundaries have changed. Sit pretty, they will call when they are ready.

I was on such a high after having dd, I wanted to share her with family straight away! I had my in-laws in to see her within the hour and my parents followed an hour later.
I thought I wouldn't want this when I was pregnant but then couldn't help myself! I'm the very opposite of a control freak though and am always into a bit of spontaneity. I recognise others can be quite different.

I think you need to reframe this as being about ‘we want to meet the baby though’, and think ‘this woman has just been through a massively traumatic physical event that she is now recovering from’.

Everyone seems to forget in the excitement of a new baby, that there’s a new mother there who may have had a very, very hard time over the past 24h, with a long and uncertain recovery ahead of her.

I’ll had to stay a night with dd. The bags were still in the car when one friend turned up (she thought she’d forgotten something to do with my pets) and then another rang and popped in a wee while later. We live far from parents and then Covid happened so family didn’t meet her til she was 5 months old.

It never occurred to me not to allow them to come straight away, they were so excited (my parents) as it was their first grandchild. I have some precious photographs of that first day

I’d offer to bring some dinner over that’s easy to do and keep like cottage pie / lasagne etc. I’d also offer, if logistically possible, to come on short notice of ‘now is a good time’ rather than at a time / day and find it been a dreadful night /morning and they’re not up to visitors IYSWIM
congratulations on the new grandchild!

I had parents, sister and niece visit in hospital and all again shortly after I was home.

That was in the last few years.

I just don’t get the whole waiting thing that’s popular now. I’m sure people have convinced one another it’s the right thing.

And the whole ‘baby bubble’ with just the parents is a load of crap imo. It sets unrealistic expectations because realistically being on your with a newborn is boring l, difficult and lonely. Having visitors to share the joy with made it special and the best bits for me.

Grandparents pretty much straight away as visited in hospital. Extended family about 4 days

We had no rules, anyone could visit whenever they wanted. None of our friends and family would overstay their welcome or interfere so maybe we were lucky.

Dc1 I had about 8 visitors over the course of the evening they were born - was kept in for one night.
dc2 - visitors at home the same evening they were born.
dc3 - whole front room was taken over by about 25 family members drinking champagne and passing the baby around the day they were born and I was allowed home.
Got it all over and done with 😂

And to be honest if our third child had been our first child we would have needed time before facing visitors.

It was so much more intense and difficult the third time that I/we would have needed professional help to process the experience if it hadn't been our third baby.

I also experienced that there is much less help from the staff throughout the entire process compared to the first time we became parents. It has hardly gotten better now 13 years since we had our youngest.

This can be a reason why parents need some time before visitors arrive.

I don’t think I’m forgetting that - honestly. That why I’m asking in here for what most people did timeframe wise instead if being an over bearing MIL.

Think they all came to the hospital and saw us there xx

I think it was the day after for my first - I gave birth in the evening so we had visitors the next day but only grandparents.
In the few weeks after that though , I was really struggling to breastfeed and found visits really tiring and stressful so we kept it at one (if that) visit per day.
With my second, again it was late at night I gave birth, I stayed in overnight and I came home the next day and after a nap I was out in the garden passing baby over the fence to my next door neighbour 😅

With my first everyone came to see me in hospital. My parents, brother, grandparents, aunties etc. it was 2003 though and each bed on the ward had full on family visits. With my others my parents and brother met them immediately on returning home and the rest of the family in the first few days. I couldn't imagine my parents not being there immediately as they are such a big part of our lives.