Would you be annoyed if your mil arranged a party for you one week after giving birth?

[Dramallama13]

Would you find it odd/unreasonable/annoying, if your mil arranged a party to show off the baby one week after giving birth?

Party consisting of all mils friends and family at her house in the evening. Without asking you if you actually wanted a party.

Yanbu - that’s ridiculous
Yabu - it’s kind and you should be grateful

She can have her party but you won't be attending with baby , why didn't she consult you first

What if you go overdue? Baby might not even have arrived yet.

1 week after birth - no absolutely not. I would not be going out in the evening. Nor would baby. I would not be inclined to have polite conversation with other people's friends.

2 months after birth - yes perhaps I would like to attend an afternoon gathering. I would be happy to be served tea and sandwiches and have other people admire baby for a while. I would not however do any form of organising or hosting and I would not be out in the evening because I would be sleep deprived and tired.

Tell your MIL that it's too soon.

Hopefully her son has already told her she has been a complete muppet

That would be a no from me. Send your husband. He can say “Drama is one week post partum and needs to rest with the baby”. This is really thoughtless of your MIL. Hopefully not the shape of things to come.

I would say “lovely, let me know the link for the on line teams meeting”

My baby was still in hospital at that point.

Yes, I would find this odd- although I would possibly attend if I generally got on with MIL as assume she is just excited (although misguided)

It's irrelevant if there's a cultural element or not, if it's not the OP's culture she doesn't have to be bound by it. Back in the day she would only just have left hospital a week after giving birth!

Was it the kind of party where there is thought and consideration and celebration of you as a parent. If it's just to show off the baby is decline and say you aren't ready for social outings yet

Oh wow, if this was my dd2 I was upstairs in a dark bedroom from 5pm with screaming coloc and reflux. No way I would have taken her anywhere!
My son was easier but even one week in, we had barely left the house. I seem to remember the first few days getting him feeding and putting on weight was a worry. He would cluster feed all evening for the first few weeks.

There is also all the issue you will be going through - heavy bleeding, chapped nipples, no sleep. You might have only left hospital if you've had a c section.

You call her and tell her that neither you or the baby will be attending, but you'll send some photos.

I hate this sort of bullying, because that is what it is. After a 42 hour labour, an assisted delivery and stitches, I was barely on my feet after a week. Plus I was hugely hormonal and wanted to rip the arms off anyone who came near DS.

When will people accept than new mums need to be consulted first, and a good proportion just don't need this interference. 😡

I remember myself one week after the birth of my son. I was an emotional trainwreck. God help anyone that would have planned a party for me.

No. Of course she shouldn't have planned an event to show off her grandchild so soon after their birth...without asking you first. It was selfish.

Are you OK? I'm sure you were ranting about MILs rights only last week when a MIL was trampling all over a new mother's boundaries.

The thread where I said MIL stepped over the line by sharing the photos, she should back away for a few years? Or better walks away and buys a puppy as I would.
Or was it the babysitter grandma, if you don’t mind refreshing my memory? 🤣 both were very different to this. No, is a full sentence, not a battle for a war.

This is perfect, polite but firm.

Your MIL is insane!

I wouldn't go out to the local shop one week after giving birth nevermind sit in someone else's house with my vagina bleeding and sore. After 7pm the only place I would be is bed.
So no, you are not unreasonable to say no

Sorry I’ve only just come back to this.

Basically this has been and gone and I didn’t go. I think tbh that she’d arranged it for what would have been two weeks postpartum, but baby went overdue. It wasn’t even people I knew, just a random bunch of her friends, neighbours and extended family.

I would have thought it was batshit if my own mother had done this too.

At the time my dh had a strop over it because I said I wouldn’t be going.

For info, mil was the first person to see baby at just a few hours old. She also saw him three times during the first two weeks, once for the entire day. So it wasn’t like she was kept away.

I’m trying to process a lot of stuff that went on and why I allowed myself to be treated certain ways by people without speaking up for myself and also how dh shut my feelings and opinions down.

I’m trying to process a lot of stuff that went on and why I allowed myself to be treated certain ways by people without speaking up for myself and also how dh shut my feelings and opinions down.
It is not unusual to dwell on these feelings and allow them fester. I remember feeling like this too, I’d spend time in my head thinking about how I should have handled it, I reassure myself that it wouldn’t have went down well but I have grown. I wouldn’t tolerate the things that I did years ago. Set your boundaries in place. Discuss it with a professional if you have the chance, build back up your voice.
If MIL or DH has any hospital stays in the future, throw them a surprise party when they get discharged with random guests. 😉
DH should be more understanding, Yanbu.

Your DH's job is to have your back and to support you as you recover from the birth, not to be an utter twat to you because you refused to go to a party with your brand new baby a week after giving birth. He sounds as though he's under his mum's thumb.

Is she normally so overbearing and does DH usually take her side? I'm very sorry that you had such a bad start to motherhood due to your MIL's and your DH's behaviour. This will be hard for you to get over. Do you still have your own parents and are they supportive?

I’d have been upset / pissed off. Even 2 weeks postpartum. Your baby isn’t for her to show off, you hardly want to be “on” for a bunch of strangers at that point, it’s not idea to pass the baby round a group for health reasons and she didn’t even bloody ask!

DH should have your back with these things.

My second statement clearly shows that I don’t believe OP needs to be beholden to her MIL. I was just trying to offer a perspective on why MIL would have thought this was okay. She probably didn’t do it with ill intent. I said OP isn’t BU so I don’t understand your comment.

Maybe it's something to do with so many in the USA that don't vaccinate against anything? Or it's part of the regressive attitudes towards women where they are expected to be entirely centred upon their husband and house and not exposed to others, especially other women who might provide support and advice or spot indications of domestic abuse? Or a misinterpretation of the word 'confinement'/harking back to when bleeding made women unclean and jumped on by the influencers with their quiverfulls of infants as it protecting/making sure women know that they have no business being out in the world away from His Eye?

Being shut away with my newborns would have really done a number on my mental health. MIL was more to be tolerated than anything else and my mother was to be endured, but somebody delighted that the baby was here? And free food? I was all for it.

My MIL wanted to host a party like this, because all.of her friends were "desperate" to meet him.

They live an hour away, my husband didn't drive at the time, and she thought that since so many people were keen to meet him, she could host a drop in "so it wouldn't be trouble to you".

1. When we did go visit, she got the huff when I rejected her suggestion of going to breastfeed in private. I suggested that any of her precious bloody guests who didn't like it went and sat out of sight instead.
2. I was not remotely interested in "showing off" my baby to a parade of unrelated randoms.
3. My baby wasn't remotely interested anything that wasn't my nipple, especially the left one.
4. I wasn't interested in supplying anyone with chat about sorting out my horrific haemorrhoids, what turned out to be retained placenta, and later mastitis, all whilst leaking milk everywhere and doing skin to skin.

Much happier at home with the Not Going Out marathon tbh.

How does that work when you have a 2 day old baby and kids to take to school?

My mil was raging we didn't want her to follow us home directly from the hospital and gave us exactly 1 hour before turning up with extended family then would not effing leave. When I had my second thank God it was during COVID and I'd learnt to be less meek