AIBU to think their no-touching rule for the baby is OTT?

[Pretfeen]

Some relatives recently had a baby. They are quite a young couple in mid 20s and have set a rule that no one is allowed to hold or touch baby until he's at least 12 weeks old, not even grandparents. Before 4 weeks no one could visit. Now visits are permitted but only to look at baby, no touching.

For background baby is healthy, born full term so no issues like that.

AiBU to think this is a bit OTT and precious? Obviously it shouldn't be pass the parcel with a newborn, no kisses, wash hands, stay away if sick etc but I've never seen this level of protection before.

Obviously it's their baby, their rules and I'm not going to break them. I'll visit in a few weeks and keep my distance.

Is this a Gen Z thing? Or are they a bit extreme? I was never this way with my DC nor were any friends and relatives in my age group. We'd usually visit a week or two after and hold baby after washing hands. Maybe I'm just a bit blasé about these, I'm sure there will be plenty of sanctimonious parents in here who'll tell me AIBU

I understand about most of that, but the "lucky enough to be told when I'm in labour" makes her sound pretty horrible. She's exactly the kind of parent to make people feel an inch high for taking an interest in her baby. I'd totally leave them to it.

It's the "lucky enough to be 'told' when 'I'm' in labour" that gets me 🙄

I wish I did this with my first. There is no need to pass them around and won’t be having any visitors with subsequent babies until 4 weeks+

Is it because there are fewer babies around? There's always a bit of main character when you're having your first, but is it worse when there aren't loads of other babies being born all over the place?

I feel so sorry for the grandparents.

I wonder whether the parents will be complaining about the lack of a "village" around them soon...

Could be!

Why does anyone need to touch the baby? It's not a doll or a kitten to be petted.

I guess people might ask to hold the baby or just instinctively hold their hands, touch their feet just because it's cute but only if you knew them well.

And being asked not to seems fair enough. It doesn't matter if you think it's OTT.

You are right about post partum women of course.
Everyone does want to hold baby, and buy baby outfits, and know its name. It's a cause for celebration. But, I don't remember anyone checking in on me really. No soups or doorstep packages, no advice about restoring iron levels, no breast feeding support. Not one person enquired after my mental health, despite a history.
Next time I know a woman having a baby I'm going to do better.
And if it's my child or their partner giving birth, I'm going to support them properly whatever they choose about cuddles and visits.

I genuinely see no problem with any of this.

I was so utterly exhausted coming home from hospital after losing lots of blood during a section that the only thing in the world I wanted was to get washed and get into bed and sleep. My in laws were stood at our front door waiting on me even though we explicitly said I really wasn't fit for visitors. I could have just broken down and sobbed at the sight of them. Of course I just brave faced it because that's what you do in the moment but it really stuck with me that in the moment they didn't give a shit about me and my wellbeing.

We had so many well intentioned visitors that my now ex and I fell out over it, it really interrupted breastfeeding (especially when my fil parked himself on my sofa daily and demanded to see the baby but that I couldn't bf because that would make him uncomfortable) . Eventually ds dropped so much weight that our midwife had to tell my dh directly that he needed to step up and say no more visitors for a while.

Why would you kiss the baby when you know it is dangerous?

Why would you come if you're poorly when you know it is dangerous?

Why would you feel entitled to post someone else's child on social media?

Does this really need to be spelt out???

My parents - who are normally very uptight and middle class English said similar. My in laws were just there from the start and I think helped ,y parents become more “touchy feely” with their grandchildren. I was just happy to have people around me who were as besotted with my girls as I was.

I will say the wording in that part could definitely be better.

Do as they ask, it’s their baby

Look I think it’s OTT too. Maybe it’s cultural maybe it’s anxiety, but you shouldn’t be spiteful just because they’ve put those rules in. Go and meet the baby and be supportive. This isn’t about you, they’re new parents and clearly very anxious

This is honestly how it should be. I think people really forget parents are usually just doing their best with what can feel like being handed an invaluable piece of fine china!!

Imagine how much better the overall experience would be for women if we just respected mothers and what they needed in those vulnerable few weeks and gave them some grace to freak out a little until they get to grips with things!

I was like this with Baby 1. I was so into the attachment parenting theory that I thought it would confuse or distress my baby when all he was 'expecting' was to be held by me. I remember it being a great wrench to allow him to be held by anyone else at all. I gradually chilled, but he remained velcroed to me almost until baby 2 was born. When Baby 2 was very new, our elderly neighbour said hello to him in our front garden, and I saw how her face lit up. All my anxious, controlling protectiveness melted and I asked her if she'd like to hold him. It's still a precious memory, seeing how happy she was to hold him, and how he was completely unbothered by the experience. After that I became much more relaxed about giving my baby to other people to hold because I could see how much joy it brought. Baby 3 became almost a "therapy baby" - I used to take him to one of the local charity shops and the volunteers from out the back would come to give him a cuddle, saying "Where's our baby?!" as soon as I came in the door. This approach continued with subsequent babies; no harm came to any of them, and a lot of joy was given.
We have evolved to find babies appealing, though clearly nature has its way more strongly with some of us than others. There is a particular wonder and joy in holding a newborn; when you look at photos of people holding newborns, even if unrelated and even if the holder is a teenage boy, there's nearly always a characteristic soft facial expression and protective tilt of the body around the baby. It's beautiful to see.
I did plenty of other eccentric things as an anxious new "crunchy" mum. Yes, PFB was breastfed until 2 1/2, and even tandem fed with baby 2. Co-sleeping for goodness knows how long. Baby-led weaning (when it was unusual) and wholefood diet, and plenty that was more controversial. Over 25 years later, I'm still glad I did some of those things, but I'm really embarrassed about others, and particularly the being so precious about who was allowed to hold my PFB. PFB has grown up into a wonderful man but I cannot see any way in which he or I benefited from me having been so controlling in the early days. I suspect it made some people roll their eyes and decide I was too much like hard work, and they'd have been right.

I hope my daughters-in-law will have more perspective than I did, if they have children, and I dearly hope that they'll let me have a cuddle early on. But if they don't I'll definitely keep quiet and behave!

Because everyone loves a newborn cuddle?

😂 joker

Have a look at this wonderful post, which I saved over 20 years ago and which still gets it right - although nowadays we could add in more about organising deliveries of food etc!

After the Birth, what a family needs
Posted on October 28, 2008 by gloria

“Let me know if I can help you in any way when the baby is born.” …
“Just let me know if you need a hand.” … “Anything I can do, just give
me a call.”

Most pregnant women get these statements from friends and family but
shy away from making requests when they are up to their ears in dirty
laundry, unmade beds, dust bunnies and countertops crowded with dirty
dishes. The myth of “I’m fine, I’m doing great, new motherhood is
wonderful, I can cope and my husband is the Rock of Gibraltar” is
pervasive in postpartum land. If you’re too shy to ask for help and
make straight requests of people, I suggest sending the following list
out to your friends and family. These are the things I have found to
be missing in every house with a new baby. It’s actually easy and fun
for outsiders to remedy these problems for the new parents but there
seems to be a lot of confusion about what’s wanted and needed…

1 Buy us toilet paper, milk and beautiful whole grain bread.

2 Buy us a new garbage can with a swing top lid and 6 pairs of black
cotton underpants (women’s size).

3 Make us a big supper salad with feta cheese, black Kalamata olives, toasted almonds, organic green crispy things and a nice homemade dressing on the side. Drop it off and leave right away. Or, buy us frozen lasagna, garlic bread, a bag of salad, a big jug of juice, and maybe some cookies to have for dessert. Drop it off and leave right away.

4 Come over about 2 in the afternoon, hold the baby while I have a hot shower, put me to bed with the baby and then fold all the piles of laundry that have been dumped on the couch, beds or in the room corners. If there’s no laundry to fold yet, do some.

5 Come over at l0 a.m., make me eggs, toast and a 1/2 grapefruit.
Clean my fridge and throw out everything you are in doubt about. Don’t
ask me about anything; just use your best judgment.

6 Put a sign on my door saying “Dear Friends and Family, Mom and baby need extra rest right now. Please come back in 7 days but phone first.
All donations of casserole dinners would be most welcome. Thank you for caring about this family.”

7 Come over in your work clothes and vacuum and dust my house and then leave quietly. It’s tiring for me to chat and have tea with visitors but it will renew my soul to get some rest knowing I will wake up to clean, organized space.

8 Take my older kids for a really fun-filled afternoon to a park, zoo or Science World and feed them healthy food.

9 Come over and give my husband a two hour break so he can go to a coffee shop, pub, hockey rink or some other r & r that will delight him. Fold more laundry.

10. Make me a giant pot of vegetable soup and clean the kitchen completely afterwards. Take a big garbage bag and empty every trash basket in the house and reline with fresh bags.

These are the kindnesses that new families remember and appreciate
forever. It’s easy to spend money on gifts but the things that really
make a difference are the services for the body and soul described
above. Most of your friends and family members don’t know what they
can do that won’t be an intrusion. They also can’t devote 40 hours to
supporting you but they would be thrilled to devote 4 hours. If you
let 10 people help you out for 4 hours, you will have the 40 hours of
rested, adult support you really need with a newborn in the house.
There’s magic in the little prayer “I need help.”

First posted online August 2001
(The site it was on no longer exists - it was from Gloria LeMay's blog)

But @Cornucopia55 the point is, you needed that time and that experience to figure that all out.

It's not just PFB syndrome it's "perfect first mother" syndrome. Where you will run yourself into the ground trying so hard to do everything 'right' because ultimately you just want to be the best mother you can be. And with time and experience you gradually learn which balls are actually safe to drop and which you need to keep in the air.

But that's learnt by experience and its ultimately driven by how you react hormonally as well as your experience of being pregnant. Someone simply telling you 'oh it's fine' really isn't going to connect in any meaningful way when you're an anxious new mother. You have gradually lean into it and some people will naturally have an easier time of that than others and that has to be OK.

We need to have grace with ourselves and with new mums to let them learn these things naturally instead of just trying to either steam roll them or isolate them because we know its a bit ridiculous.

I know I also was definitely OTT initially after having ds but I had PPA and my pregnancy had also been very high risk and we nearly lost him. Nobody except very close friends and family knew about the high risk pregnancy and I didn't know myself that I had PPA until he was about 6 months old when I finally told my hv about the intrusive thoughts I'd been having so I couldn't have articulated that to anyone if I'd tried. I didn't have the words myself!

So there's no point being embarrassed. You did what you thought was best with what was available to you at the time. And really that's what a child needs is a mother who will try her best for them. Nothing in that to be ashamed of.

This is why there are so many children with every allergy known to man.

Our feeling was to go the other way and deliberately expose DC to as much benign dirt as possible, meaning they were handed round to as many folk as were willing to hold the sprog, provided they were not actually ill…and the only thing we sterilised was bottles. DC is a robust little thing, hardly ever ill, even from the nursery bugs. Most medical advice is that maternal antibodies protect for the baby for a couple of months after after birth anyway…
It’s scary for new parents who want to do their absolute best - but I think sometimes one can be too protective and it actually becomes counter-productive.

Their baby, their rules, but yes, their rules are bonkers and also bad for the baby. In fourteen years they'll be wondering why their kid is an anxious, neurotic recluse.

Hahaha what a dumb perspective 😂

Only if they continue these rules for 14 years which let's be honest is unlikely...

So did they not let the health visitor or midwife do his 2 week check up and did the midwife who delivered him not check him over and weigh him? How does the doctor give him his injections between 6-8 weeks without touching him before he's 12 weeks old? I can understand limiting to 2 or 3 people maximum per day but can't grasp full stop especially when medical professionals they don't know as well as family have done so.