No touching newborn for 1st 3 months?

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Hello - this is our first posting to Mumsnet.

Our daughter is having her first child due this January. Our son-in-law announced yesterday that we would not be allowed to hold or touch the baby for the first 3 months unless we used hand sanitising gel each time.

This led to a heated discussion. He insisted that he was just following the advice in the NICE guidelines for new parents. We said that we believed that a baby kept in a sterile environment for 3 months would have a weaker immune system rather than a stronger one as he believed.

What we'd like to know as grandparents is whether his view on interactions with the baby is the current accepted wisdom or is he being a bit over the top with his interpretation of the NICE recommendations?

I'm wondering if the OP smokes and maybe that's the issue.

What a melodramatic thread title. They haven't said "no touching the baby for three months", they've merely asked that you have clean hands. I figured most people would wash their hands before holding a tiny baby - it would be automatic for me. Last time I held a newborn I got my own bottle of hand gel out!

I am finding it really strange that people think it is "crackers" to wash your hands before handing a newborn baby! I am a Londoner so I suppose that is a factor, I wash and sanitise my hands the minute I get home anyway, and there are no babies here.

If the chap is asking for a new handwash and sanitise every time the baby is picked up (e.g. in the middle of the night, for the hundredth time it is crying etc), well that would be rather strange and impossible to stick to. But surely when you come into a house and are planning to go near a newborn (or anyone with potential compromised immunity) you wash your hands (and take off any very smoky clothes if you are a smoker).

My DS is the least sickly child I have ever heard of. I don't think he has had a sniffle in three years. So I don't think a couple of months of hand sanitising at the outset did him any harm!

And my dd hasn't had a single sniffle in 2 years, but we have a dog, I'm not big on hand washing and her dad smokes 20 a day.

So what?

My dd got a cold at 10 days old. It was horrendous, she didn't cough and sneeze, she just cried, didn't sleep couldn't breathe properly.

If being a bit more careful with who I handed dd over to rather than trying not to be pfb we might have avoided that cold.

I'm not sure why you said so what? I meant that having some handwashing and sanitiser for a couple of months at the outset didn't seem to do DS any harm in terms of immunity, he's very healthy.

Since then he has indeed had plenty of exposure to allsorts of germs, and rightly so. We live in London and DS goes on public transport, we have a muddy garden in which he often digs, an old house which can never be totally clean because of all the nooks and crannies, and until recently an incontinent cat. These things have probably all contributed to his good immunity. (DH also smokes, although that would be more likely to decrease immunity, he does not do it in the house though).

Washing hands after being outside and picking up baby when only few days old is normal. Sanitising hands before every contact in first three months is OTT unless baby is poorly in some way.

The reason I brought that up was because the OP mentioned the belief that being in a more sterile environment as a newborn would cause a weaker immune system. If you kept it up in later life, well yes it would. But keeping clean around a tiny baby is just common sense and good care, not crackers.

Absolutley bugger all to do with you wether they are current guidelines or not. Just respect their wishes. Are you going to be controlling about everything? Jeez

Of course he's being ott and pfb, but, for the sake o f your long term relationship, smile nicely, humour him, and let them work it out for themselves.
Im sure most of us had some odd ideas about what we were /werent going to do before the baby arrived.
Im also sure that most generations do things differently fro their parents generation.

I wish I'd had the balls to do this with my baby instead of having horrid smoky aunts get in from a cig and pick him up and pass him around.

Why do some people get so horrified at the thought of washing their hands or using sanitizer. That's gross. Be polite and hygienic and wash your hands before touching a newborn.

If you stay two hours, and you have to sanitize your hands every time you want to take the baby, even if it has only be 7 minutes, while someone else was holding him, yes that would be insane. But do it and then laugh about it some years down the road when you remember with the parents how dumb they were

Stop arguing with them and just follow their rules. It is their baby not yours. Do not tut, roll your eyes or pass comment.

Oh, and apologise for arguing with them.

Congratulations in your first grand parenting lesson. It is a totally different deal than parenting. Your opinion is not important, and even if asked for, avoid judgements.

Make sure you take some food they like when you first visit, offer to make tea rather than expecting to be waited on, don't stay v long, and don't wear perfume or demand the baby until offered. Good luck!

How did all those newborns babies survive before the invention of hand gel?

OP, a couple of weeks of sleep deprivation and their crazy ott parenting ideas will soon fly out the window!

Enjoy your grandchild!

(I also agree its not worth falling out with them about. Indulge them and go along with it for the sake of the peace). like I said it won't last

the handgeling method won't last long I meant.

we washed hands before touching baby as previously instructed and then watched as their dog sniffed baby and lay it's head on baby. It was bizarre

Truly bizarre.
I have see this. The dog is allowed to sniff the newborn's face to get used to it (after probably sniffing it's own and other dogs' backsides), but a human has to sanitise before coming within 10 feet of the baby.

Why are you jeopardising smooth running relations with your son and DiL over a bit of hand sanitiser?

It is their baby not yours.
Your opinion is not important,

Of course, when the mother decides she wants to go back to work and wants free babysitting, day in and day out - All of a sudden grandmothers don't seem quite so bad,
Do they?

I would want to wash my hands before holding someone else's newborn.

I really don't see the issue.

Babies born in the winter are more at risk of catching colds and bronchiolitis. I would say maybe washing hands with soap when you arrive at the house, but no more. I work at a special care baby unit and parents just wash their hands. Also if she breast feeds baby will get some of her immunity