I keep seeing posts where mums, MILs, or parents in general (and I do want to stress I’m not trying to be sexist, it just often seems to come up more on the maternal side of families) feel entitled to immediate access to a newborn, often at exactly the time the mother is recovering from birth, sleep-deprived, hormonally wiped, and trying to establish feeding and bonding.
And I do get it: nobody is entitled to help, and “help” isn’t automatic. But what’s often framed as help can realistically be quite self-serving. The wider family is focused on access, excitement, or status, for the visitor rather than the actual needs of the mother and baby and dresses up self issued invitations and offers of support.
From a purely physical and medical point of view, those early weeks are not a casual time. NHS guidance is clear that the first 6 weeks postpartum involve significant recovery whether vaginal birth or C-section. Layer on top of that the fact that chronic sleep deprivation is strongly associated with increased anxiety, low mood, impaired decision-making, and higher risk of postnatal depression. In other words, this is a period where cognitive and emotional load is already stretched to capacity.
Yet just in the last few days here we have seen posts and threads where:
- grandparents arriving within an hour of mum and baby getting home
- families expecting immediate updates the moment labour starts, then using that information to justappear
- pressure to accommodate visitors days after birth
- new mums having to actively manage information flow about when they have gone into labour or are going home just to get some privacy and prevent boundary crossings
That last one really stands out to me. The idea that someone who is physically recovering, learning to feed a newborn, and functioning on broken sleep should also be responsible for carefully managing other adults’ expectations, emotions, and potential offence just feels fundamentally imbalanced.
I saw a post recently where a mum didn’t want her own mother staying in the early weeks because she knew it would increase stress. One suggestion was essentially “just invite her for two weeks later so she doesn’t feel left out.” But why is it always on the new mum to reframe, reschedule, soften, and emotionally manage everyone else’s feelings? Why is that the default expectation at exactly the moment she is least resourced to do it?
It also feels like part of a wider pattern where daughters and women are still expected to be “kind”, accommodating, and conflict-avoiding even in situations where they are recovering from a major medical event. We don’t usually expect that level of emotional labour from someone recovering from surgery or illness, but it somehow persists around birth.
Of course family members are excited. That’s completely understandable. But excitement doesn’t override the reality that this is a short, medically and emotionally intense recovery window where the mother and babyneeds should come first.
Is it really so unreasonable to suggest that for just a few weeks, the default should be mum and baby first? And if people genuinely want to help, why not ask what would actually be helpful, rather than dressing up presence and visits as support?
Because right now it seems like the emotional labour of protecting boundaries is being placed on the person least able to carry it. And there are always a few commenters trying to excuse the inexcusable as -they are just excited.