Am I being unreasonable? Dad to be...please help

[simba86]

My wife and I, married for 3 years, together for 10, in our late 20s are expecting our first child at the end of May.

My wife has never really got on with my parents, particularly my mum, and whilst they live 2 hours away we see them ever couple of months.

I am obviously very excited about becoming a dad. I love my wife more than anyone in the world and so much looking forward to having our own family. I am also looking forward to being a proud dad and introducing our baby to my parents shortly after the birth, when everything has calmed down and my wife is well enough to see not visitors, but our immediate family.

However because of the break down in the relationship between my wife and my parents, my wife does not want me to let them know if she goes into labour, so that they are not hanging around the hospital or nearby, nor does she want them to visit after the birth until she is ready, which she has indicated could be many hours after the birth, or when we go home, or even a week or so after the birth. She is so stressed out about this she has driven off tonight after writing me a letter saying she doesnt want me at the birth, nor does she want me to be her husband.

I can assure you I have been as supportive of her and her family over the past 10 years more than most people could ever imagine, and as someone who has a rare medical condition with no known cure and an uncertain future, an only child, I don't want to miss out on a special moment for me.

I dont want my parents hanging around or interfering and have made that clear to my wife, I just want to share a moment with my parents, my wife and our baby shortly after they are born when my wife ia well enough.

Surely this isn't me being unreasonable....or is it?

Please share your opinion on this

"If 'all this is about' is 'just five minutes' of the baby with your parents then why are you so willing to railroad your wife into it?"

Because his wife does not have to meet anyone she doesn't want to. The OP wants his parents to meet the baby. He would be hugely unreasonable If he was expecting his wife to be visited if she doesn't want to be, but he's not. Unless I missed a bit. He just wants to show his parents the baby.

So if a woman said she didn't want the baby's father to pick him up or cuddle him or take him for a walk round, then that would be fine would it?

And if you think a woman's reasonable request not to have her baby taken from her 'for just five minutes' in the hospital or have people she has nothing in common with sitting around her bed making small talk when she is bloody, sweating profusely, experiencing afterpains and exhausted is 'blackmail' and a sign of disrespect for you, then perhaps your legal expertise will come in handy when you are arguing your case for visitation in the family law court I foresee in your future.

It is exceedingly stressful for a mother to have to hand over her newborn or let him or her out of her sight.

And let's face it, this is not going to be a visit of five minutes.

Since you are the only son of parents who clearly had to do a lot of constant caring for you in difficult circumstances, perhaps you could examine the notion that this somehow gave you the idea that the world revolves around you and your feelings?

And to be frank, the idea that you will play it by ear when the time comes is a recipe for disaster, because you are still nowhere near understanding that your role as a man is to completely support your wife for many weeks and even months after the baby is born, not to shoehorn your mother into your wife's life.

I foresee the whinging starting up within a day of mother and baby leaving hospital and the same disregard and dismissal of the wife's feelings and physical state (it will be 'just' her hormones, or 'simply' because she is a bit tired no doubt).

And when the wife starts to experience ppd that will be more game playing on her part, or blackmail.

"So if a woman said she didn't want the baby's father to pick him up or cuddle him or take him for a walk round, then that would be fine would it?"

In this scenario, is the woman still married to and getting on with the child's father?

I'd just like an answer to the question. Is it OK for a woman to refuse to allow the father to pick up, cuddle or go for a walk round with his baby?

But it's a nuanced question, Manto!

If the couple are together and getting on well, I think it's pretty unlikely that the mother would have a problem with it and indeed father often holds baby immediately whilst mother is being stitched.

If the couple have been estranged throughout the pregnancy and the father rocks up to the hospital with a box of chocolates and expects to wheel the child round and round the ward by himself for an hour, yes, the mother would be more likely to have a problem and request that the midwives ask him to go.

Martorana - I did try to answer you question - we cross-posted about 8 or 9 posts ago.

No-one's saying that a dad can't ever have 5 minutes alone with his baby, but they are saying it is a lot to ask of a mum who is newly post-partum, hormonal, exhausted, sore and emotional, to let her baby (who has relied 100% on her up to this point, and, as FairPhyllis said in the passage I quoted, still pretty much relies on her) out of her sight, to be handed over to someone she really doesn't get on with.

That's very different to, say, the new dad taking the baby round the block in the buggy, whilst the new mum has a shower.

Actually the 'taking the baby away for five mins' idea has just resonated with me, like this:

I like the PILs, trust them with dd and they saw her lots from the start, regularly visiting to spend a couple of hours with her so I could do other things, then gradually taking her out for short walks, then to spend time at their house, when she was a few months old.

One moment still causes me to tense though. A tiny thing but, when dd was four months old, we were all sitting in their garden. Dd started crying and MIL took her to try to calm her, not successfully. She walked off, out my sight then hearing. I couldn't stand it but in the interests of tact, sent DP after them rather than dashing myself. They changed her nappy, offered milk, brought her back, still unhappy, I took her, she quietened.

I still see that as an example of really poor judgement on MIL's part.

Of course that's because dd was crying when being taken away from me. But, how much stronger the desire for proximity early on. What if you take a contented baby away and bring a crying one back? It's something they do, quite a lot, so entirely possible and, guaranteed to cause anxiety and resentment.

So, Lottie- you are saying that a baby's father should never take the baby out of it's mother's sight?

"That's very different to, say, the new dad taking the baby round the block in the buggy, whilst the new mum has a shower."

So. New dad taking baby round the block in the buggy while new mum has a shower fine. New dad taking baby round the block in the buggy with his mother while new mum has a shower not fine.

Can't you see that's just bonkers? And is painting post partum women in a very bad light?

Because the new mum has asked him to do so! And the very fact the baby can be taken out in the buggy means that they are out of hospital!

Martorana you're taking lots of different posts/posters and conflating them. A rhetorical cheap shot. You know what is being said, in spite of this conflation.

"Martorana you're taking lots of different posts/posters and conflating them. A rhetorical cheap shot. You know what is being said, in spite of this conflation."

No I'm not. I can't get my head round this idea that the mother has absolute, complete, control over absolutely everything that happens to the baby- and I wanted to be sure I wasn't misunderstanding. So, father takes baby round the block in the buggy while new mother has shower- sees his mother in the distance and has to rapidly reverse, because said new mother doesn't want her MIL to even look at the baby until she say it's OK?

A reductio ad absurdum there.

Yes Martorana That's exactly what everyone has said. Exactly

You seem determined to continue on this line despite it really being of little relevance to the actual situation. Because the OP has made it clear (which I quoted to you and you didn't then respond to) that his idea isn't about taking the baby for a stroll days after the return from hospital. It is about, as soon as the mother is medically well enough for visitors, considering her an unreasonable, stalling inconvenience if she won't agree to his parents visiting and pressing to take the baby away at that point.

Martorana - have you considered this, from FairPhyllis?

"IMO a newborn is still totally dependent on its mother - for food if bfing, and for comfort. Her smell, the sound of her heartbeat and the sound of her voice are all that it knows. To all extents and purposes a newborn in the first weeks of its life is essentially inseparable from the mother and she will have a very strong bond with it - stronger than yours will be at that point. Your wife will have an overpowering instinct to protect the baby and if you start passing the baby around before she is comfortable with that, she will be very upset, and, judging by many threads on here, will remember and resent it for a very long time."

This thread is disappearing up its own fundament.

Just had a bit of a catch up on some of Simba's posts and I really am baffled by the whole thing. She seems to be a disappointment to you really. She was supposed to change her personality because you've done her the honour of 'milestones'? You shouldn't marry someone hoping they will drastically change. A new baby isn't going to bring her to heel.

It's all really odd tbh.

It's not at all unfair on men. They don't go through labour and the rest of it.

What would seem normal and reasonable to me is you and your wife, op, have baby as privately as your wife needs.

I think it's normal for the proud dad then to start calling relatives to let them know the news if it's a reasonable hour.

Visitors again are up to the wife. She's in recovery and it very much depends on the behaviour of the visitors.

I really hope I won't be an entitled grandparent when/if my turn comes. Hang back, wait to be invited, be quietly supportive of one's grown up dc's life choices. Being excited about a grandchild doesn't give one the right to intrude.

Simba, have you and your wife clashed a lot over your parents? Do you tell your parents everything about your life/lives generally speaking?

Mart

If a new dad said, "oh, I'll just take the baby out while you have a shower" and the new mum said, "what if she's cold? What if she's hot? What if she misses me? What if she cries? Oh no!" And the new dad, instead of saying "come here, let's have a cuddle and a chat..." said "you're being irrational, I'm taking her out right now, bye" then yup, I'd expect it to impact the trust in that relationship.

PS Is it just me who took so long to get a newborn ready that a pack of teenagers preparing for prom could've showered quicker than I'd've been packed up and out the door?

I can see what Montana is saying. Of course there will be situations where PIL should keep away but I find it hard to imagine a situation where a Dad couldn't pop out to a waiting room so that the baby can meet its paternal grandparents. Obviously if the baby is sick it wouldn't work but otherwise I can't picture how it would be a problem.

Surely, the mother has to sleep and go to the bathroom (unless bed bound)

I understand if the new mum absolutely hates the PIL, if they are abusive or if they are not to be trusted to follow the rules given to them by their son that they should be kept away but generally I can't see an issue.

I think some of the comments towards the OP have been very harsh. Posters are assuming all sorts of things even though it's not possible to know the real situation in this case. We can't tell if the OPs wife is really reasonable who is carefully trying to manage her ghastly PIL or if she is not very nice and trying to exclude lovely PIL. We just can't tell

Typo - Martorana not Montana.

What waiting room? Post natal wards don't have waiting rooms or visiting rooms anymore and the babies are nor allowed to be taken off the ward.

And I don't see why any relative is so desperate to see the baby that they cannot wait until the mum is feeling up to visitors. I would never presume to go visit a new Mum in the first days after birth unless invited.

It's not a mil issue it's a new Mum, tired ans hormonal and wanting time, space and privacy to recover and get to know baby.

I had visitors at hospital with ds1 it was awful.

With ds2 my mil came to hospital invited by me and it was fine.

Tbh my mil was fine, she is lovely. Other relatives tho lovely were not so considerate and even tho it's now years later their behaviour in the early days after ds1 and ds2 still rankles and is why I was stricter for the next three.