To think that it is ridiculous to complain about someone's requests surrounding their newborn?

[BritFish]

I was talking to a friend today who's SIL has just given birth. the family have all met the baby and made a fuss, and now her SIL and brother have asked for the family to give them a week by themselves with their new baby to enjoy being together without any interruptions.
my friend was practically OUTRAGED that her SIL would ban family for the first week of the baby's life, despite the fact the whole family got to see the baby the day after it was born, if not on the day!
she's acting as if the SIL is pushing the family away and being overcontrolling.
[she got to see the LO the day after, so its not as if she's missed out]
i thought that this was a lovely idea to have time just you and your partner and baby straight after birth! or is that just me?

I would have hated being in the house with Dh, Dd and a new born for a week,I needed other people round to keep me sane. Although admittedly when people visited I made sure Dh did all the entertaining and Dd2 and I sat on the couch.

Your friend's SIL is definitely NBU. I agree with the poster who said that you have to be firm with some families. Mine are like that, and, as they live 300 miles away so would be visiting for a few days, we set firm rules for visits months before I actually had DD.

We didn't consider setting rules for colleagues, and when we arrived back home from hospital one of my colleagues was on the doorstep, and insisted on seeing her. Not exactly the homecoming I had imagined.

We also should have set rules about other forms of communication. When I was in the end stage of my labour, one of the midwives came in with a message for my DH to call his mother . She was annoyed because DH wasn't answering his mobile, so had called the labour ward. Funnily enough he was rather busy, what with me giving birth n'all.

We said that we only wanted visitors every other day as we needed time to bond with the baby, we also said that we didn't want visitors in the evening as we wanted to chill out. It didn't go down well with everyone but we felt that our needs were more important than theirs.

When a family member or friend has a new baby I usually say to them that I would love to see them and ask them to let me know when would be convienent. Some times with friends with large families it has been a couple of months before we have met the new arrival but thats fine, I would hate to add to their stress.

Oh we had a timetable too as it would have been a bit daft if all of our 60 relatives descended upon us at once!

I am happy to be controlling.

IMO the visitors in hospital are fine, its the ones who turn up at totally inappropriate times when you are back at home. Two classics for us included:

FIL + SIL (and family) telling us they were bringing us lunch when they visited at 12.30. So we didn't get anything for ourselves. They turned up at 2pm and told us not to worry about feeding them as they had stopped at McDonalds on the way cos they were peckish !

2 friends of ours who said could they come after work, even though we said wouldn't it just be better to wait until the weekend, as we were shattered in the evenings. They eventually turned up at 9pm!!!!

I am very of people with the balls to lay down the law!

I am completely at how some of your families seem to think that a new baby is public property!

I never really had the babymoon because we had MIL over from Australia staying for 6w around the birth - however, because DS was a poor feeder (tonguetie, could feed for up to 2h at a time) and we were mostly lying down in bed to feed (easiest for him, couldn't feed properly sitting up until I had his tonguetie snipped) I suppose I did have something of a babymoon because I spent most of the day with DS while DH and his mum watched TV/ cooked/ looked after the house. My sister and MIL turned up about 2hrs after baby was born (quite a commitment as it was 4am when they arrived!), which I was fine about - DH had gone to sleep by then so it was nice to have someone to talk to!

Any visitors we had were always deferential to our needs, checking that it was ok to come, not staying for too long - some of the visitors posted about here need a serious lesson in manners and empathy! for you all who have had to put up with them.

Looking back I wish I had banned visitors for a few days after the birth of both my children, yes it is a joyful family time and the first few days it was lovely to share the joy with family and friends but it would have been nice to have a little peace from visitors for a few days.

I think you friend is being unreasonable and selfish not to respect her SIL wishes

We asked for no visitors for a week, and I was desperately miserable! Ended sending for my parents to come four days early.

Felt completely unloved - irrational, as it was what we'd planned, but who's rational after childbirth!

I think she is right to let people see the new baby and then have some down time. I 'overdid' the visitors with my first (all very well meaning don't get me wrong) and was much more strict over who came and when with number 2 - as a result things were a lot more relaxed and I could recover and deal with the odd baby blue moment at my leisure!! Good for her!

this thread reminds me of when dd was born.

mum, dad, grandma and sister turned up the day after i had had her and stayed all morning having tea made for them after the long drive and passing dd around. at about midday dd and i started to get really tired, at which point my mum gently took my arm and said "now you don't need to worry about making us any lunch"

too fecking right I won't!!! jeez!

I still wind her up about it now...

We had family who live 45 mins away but were in the area for some reason and just wanted to drop a card off, we had to drag them in off the street to see us as they were so worried about intruding! On the other hand my mother was horrified at the concept that we might need a bit of time before visitors, especially since most of her family live far enough away that a visit is a few hour event.

The first few daze is spent wondering around topless with a dressing gown hanging open while bleeding profusely, so it's perfectly reasonable to want a bit of privacy. As someone said, you are very vulnerable, you don't want your distant aunts and uncles/second cousins seeing you like that.

What's the big deal about newborns anyway? I'd much rather wait a few weeks till they've dewrinkled a bit!

Your friend is definitely BU!!!

DS2 is 12 days old and with the exception of very immediate family visiting once and my mother who is staying with us to help care for DS1, I have been left completely alone. Is bliss, and tbh am shocked that people feel it is their 'right' to intrude when a baby has been born. My more extended family would never dream of descending without an invite and immediate family have enough sense to know that now is not the time to descend en masse.

I am breastfeeding lots (DS2 already had two growth spurts). Am still feeling nowhere near normal after a c section and most of my day is spent in bed resting/ feeding. Why on earth would visitors want to see me like this? And why would I want to entertain at this time? My priority is to rest up, get back on my feet so DS1 can play with mummy again.

Other people can quite frankly take a back seat and wait!

Oh Wilsybear your post reminded me...

When I was expecting our first DC, we went to look round the local MLU. We were impressed with the birthing rooms etc but OH was a bit concerned about the lack of waiting room space...

OH: Where will everyone wait?
Me: ?
OH:...y'know, when you're in labour, where will all the family wait?
Me: Erm....

It would be tempting to assume that it was merely because OH has seen too many labour scenes on TV but no, that's really how his family operate.

When my SIL was in labour with her DC2, they all piled down to the hospital to, er, sit in the corridor. Even my OH went down there, even though I was outraged on SIL's behalf. Apparently BIL 'said it was ok', but he wasn't the one in labour so it was a crap idea, as far as I was concerned, without being personally invited by the labouring woman.

I was delighted when SIL managed to hold out 'til the last minute and produce the baby just an hour or two after everyone had got bored and gone home for the night

I particularly detest the word "babymoon". It makes me want to kick cupboard doors.

But the idea of being left, in peace, to enjoy your newborn is lovely. I remember having far too many visitors with ds1 which, combined with the random, never sensibly scheduled calls from the Health Visitor made the first couple of weeks busier than necessary. Somehow I didn't quite get the time to do nothing with my new baby until the momentum had passed and he was too "old" a baby to warrant such luxury! With ds2 I was much less sociable.

I think, with some families it is essential to announce, ahead of time, what you want the visiting arrangements are and your friend is being hugely U by not wishing to respect her SIL's request for some quiet time.

your friend is barking

We were very lucky. My mum insisted on being there while i was in labour, but mostly stayed outside, just checking that i needed anything. When i had DD (emcs) She waited til i had got to hold DD and was made comfortable before coming in. She got told off by a nurse for giving me Lucozade though

FIL visited us at the hospital during visiting hours for about 10mins. He was passing by so it made sense. It really annoyed me the amount of visitors other people got on the ward. It is supposed to be that partners are allowed from 8.30am - 10pm but family/friends are only allowed between 6-8pm. There were hoards of people in and out all hours staring as you are desperately trying to feed your baby.

When DD was 5days old, my grandma, aunt and cousin came, brought lunch with them, washed up and took DD off me managing to get her to sleep too - perfect!

Don't think wanting to have a babymoon is controlling at all!

It really depends on the couple, but for me a babymoon (of at least a week) is essential. GP's and immediate family visit soon after the birth to meet the new arrival, but after that the next visits don't happen until the following week.

my parents turned up at the hospital AS I WAS BEING WHEELED IN FROM THE LABOUR WARD! my dad was standing there with a camera while i was trying to feed dd for the first time

our first morning at home they walked in without knocking while the nurse was examining me.

they had brought cake and after they'd been there a while my mother got up to serve it saying 'i'll do this will i? you know when your father and i had you we served our guests the cake'

then for ds1 my mother had to mind dd while i was in labour... i went to the hospital in the evening and had ds1 at midnight, dp got home about 3am. the next morning she was ringing me from 8am onwards giving out that dp wasn't up yet. she must have rung 20 times and eventually woke him up

i went home later that day expecting her to head home that evening but she insisted on staying (in a two bed flat)... we eventually had to ring dad to tell her to go home the next day as she still wouldn't leave.

ds2 was in scbu and she tried to convince me to break the very strict 'parents only' rule and sneak her in to see him, she even tried to push past me to do so when i refused! and then when i was finally bringing him home (on my own) after a week of hell she expected me to take a 50 mile detour to bring him to her before i got home.

dp's parents are the opposite..... 'we don't want to intrude' so they only met the dcs when they were respectvely 1 week, 1 month and 8 months old

YANBU

Some of the stories here do make you realise why people decide to have a blanket rule of no visitors for x amount of time as clearly, some people have no social skills, empathy or basic understanding

On the whole, I enjoyed visitors, and only arranged one per day, saying oh we have got people that day how about.. and in a roundabout way made sure it was clear we were expecting them to pop over for a quick cuppa and a cuddle.

However on our first night home after a very long tiring labour, ecs, and no sleep in hospital, we had relatives who hadn't made it to the hospital who came, needed picking up by DH from the bus station and taking back. Their bus wasn't until 10.30pm. I was exhausted.

i think your friend is BU. It is nice to have a bit of quiet time after birth. When i had dc1, i didn't know how important this was, with dc2 we had very similar rules.

Sounds like a great idea! I will keep it in mind for my baby birth in the summer!! I know what I'm like now when I'm really tired or ill - the only people I remotely want to see is my DH and my parents! I expect that will be the extent of the people I will want to see after baby is born for a little while too!! I expect I will even want a few days on our own just me, DH and DC without my mother too!!

It is definately not unresonable to want a babymoon and extended family members should not be so selfish and complain about the new little family having family time!!

We put a note on the front door saying 'No visitors - new baby. Knock at your peril' It worked. Only put it up when busy feeding or sleeping etc.

Only exception was for those travelling a distance and who had called first.