why do people expect new mothers to DO anything at all in those first few fragile weeks?

[oranges]

There have been a lot of threads about whether new mothers should drive, sail yachts, receive unwanted visitors, go to supermarkets, and I just don't get why someone who has had a baby can do exactly what she feels like, till the lochia dries up, breastfeeding is established, stiches heal and she gets a few hours unbroken sleep. It may be unfair, irrational, or hurt some feelings but to be honest, so what?

[GibbonInARibbon]

gosh I was very honest in my post.

[Anna8888]

Definitely. New mothers should lie in for at least 40 days and be waited on hand and foot. Their only responsibility should be feeding and changing the baby and bathing themselves and the baby.

[NKF]

Nobody does expect new mothers to do much really. They often put the pressure on themselves.

[Lullabyloo]

I had a bed in for the first few weeks after I had had ds....I had too..
I didn't have visitors or answer calls...just bonding & healing time.
People thought I was odd & dh certainly didn't understand

[Judy1234]

If she wants to, why not? Some women feel up to going to the hairdressers and others won't even get round to washing their hair for weeks. You can't predict how any mother will feel. If I felt it was easier to sit at a desk than lie in a bed then that's my right and I felt better for it. If you want to lie still for 40 days so your legs stop working etc like in the old days when new mothers did that fine, but most midwives now know that getting out and moving afterwards has a good effect on post natal recovery. The easiest thing of all at 2 weeks for desk jobs is to return to work but don't tell anyone that, it's a big secret - you get to rest, you don't have all the demands of a baby and you get paid too. Postnatal Bliss.

[Anna8888]

The daughter of a friend of my mother's popped out to Tesco's while in labour. She then decided to go straight to hospital. Had the baby. And then finished the Tesco shop on the way home.

She's a consultant neurologist in the hospital she gave birth in.

[oranges]

I never said women should not do anything, just that they should not do anything they don't want to. So by all means go back to work if it makes you happy, or go to the gym. its more about outsiders deciding what a new mother should and should not do.

[NKF]

I think, unless you are very unlucky in your familiy or circle of friends, nobody does expect you to do things you don't want to do. It's usually women who decide that their self respect depends on being fully made up by 9 o'clock or back in their pre-pregnancy jeans by six weeks or whatever.

[Anna8888]

NKF - I agree, in England the pressure isn't really too bad.

In France the pressure to get back in shape and into your normal clothes and look is HUGE.

[motherinferior]

I felt dreadfully guilty, for some bizarre reason, about being so fat.

[juuule]

Depends on how your delivery went and how you feel about things yourself.

[pollyanna]

I didn't mind getting up and putting make-up on and going for a walk.

What I minded was having to cook, clean and look after all the other dcs non-stop after I had each child. No one really helped me (if they came round they thought it was ok to hold the baby while I carried on) - if I had anymore I would hire a full-time doula and insist that dh took sometime off work (he took a couple of days each time). I found that the people who had the highest expectations of me were my dh and family and at the time I did just struggle on.

[lizandlulu]

hiya. i just wanted to share my story. after having my dd, i came home from hospital after 1 day. i didnt mind this as my mum was coming to help me in the first few days. on the 2nd day she opened the back door and didnt lock it again after her. (its a door we dont usually use) in the middle of the night our kind, thoughtful new next door neighbour came and stole my handbag, some cash belonging to the baby from the side board, and a took a handful of letters from the letter rack which included my buildind socioty book. the next day at 9 am he went and pretended to be my husband and took out £500 of my money. you can probably imagine that was not the perfect timing for anything like that to happen to us. as we had an idea who had dine this, i decided to go and spend a few days at my mums. then my husband decided he didnt want to live there anymore so we put the house on the market, and we moved all of our belongings. i
i now can look back and feel really proud of myself for not having a nervous breakdown, although lots of tears were shed, and i feel very angry at the lad who did it. he was caught on cctv camera and locked up for a very short time. he was even allowed to come back to live next to our house when he was on bail, which i think is ridiculous, when the courts knew we had a new baby.
i did get all the money back, but had no end of hassle cancelling all the cards.
i just wanted to get that off my chest!!

[ViciousSquirrelSpotter]

Hmm. If I'd returned to a desk job after 2 weeks, my baby would not have been breastfed. It took a good 3 months to establish.

[jojosmaman]

I am ashamed to say that I bought into all that "you should be back to normal" in 2 days rubbish after my DS was born 4 months ago and was desparate to show, even after an emergency CS under GA, that I was feeling great... because that was what was expected wasnt it? I forced myself to go to ante natal meet up a week after he was born as the other girls had all gone just days after their babies were born (one back in her pre preg clothes 5 days after!!!). Well I look back now and can honestly say that I felt sh1t and wish that I'd stayed in bed for a few weeks. I had so many offers of help but turned them down as "I was fine!". TBH, and this may be a bold statement, but I think this pressure to get out and about was one of the reasons I gave up BF at 5 weeks as I couldnt reconcile being able to go out and bf'ing. I wasn't comfortable b'feeding in front of DP (felt like a cow and unsexy with other breast dripping milk down my ripples of jelly belly)and family (except my mum) and so thought I would express (as this way I could feed in front of people and leave the house). But then life became a round of expressing then feeding which was exhausting.Don't get me wrong, this isnt the sole reason, ds was a nightmare to latch on and would often take an hour or so of battling to get him latched on but he took to the bottle like a dream so it became the easier option to express but I think maybe I might have perservered if I hadnt felt the need to show I was back to normal.

I know it will be harder but if I am lucky enough to have more babies, I will make myself accept help and retreat to my big bed for a few weeks with the baby and try again to give my baby the best possible start in life.. regardless of who is watching!

..and what a nightmare lizandlulu, that sounds like a very distressing time for you!

[MrsTittleMouse]

I was living with two blokes (my Dad and DH). DH didn't know what to expect, and my Dad (I know realise) didn't have me at home as a new-born until I was 10 days old (showing my age here!) and so had no idea either. I told them that I was going to spend at least a week in bed, but there was so much subtle (and not so subtle) pressure to have family visit, and to not "spoil" DD by having her in bed with me all day, that I those plans went out of the window. It didn't help that DH's grandfather died and we went to the funeral (1.5 hours drive away). And DH was applying for jobs too and convinced that he wasn't going to be able to get a job and support his wife and baby, so was very stressed out and working on that 24/7, so no time to look after me.
After 2 weeks I pretty much collapsed and started bleeding heavy red blood again. I wish I'd been more forceful, but who has the energy to be forceful when they've just given birth eh?
PS motherinferior, are you me????

[MrsTittleMouse]

NOW realise, not KNOW realise.

Have to agree that BFing takes weeks to establish properly too.

[Meglet]

I agree with Oranges. Mums aren't looked after like other cultures, I am slightly bitter about this and have been reading some stuff about it! These days most people don't have a family to look after them. Mums should be fed yummy food and not be expected to do anything for a few weeks unless they fancy a walk to stretch their legs. I would have benefitted from some TLC after my c-section . Although health visitors were fab and came round to see me and weigh my DS for several weeks to save me having to push a heavy pushchair to baby clinic.

[LynetteScavo]

When DS1 was less than 2 weeks old a (childless) friend invited me to go to to see some male strippers.

I told her I was too tired.

[LynetteScavo]

When you give birth you usually miss a whole nights sleep. Under any other circumstances if people know you had missed a whole nights sleep, they would leave you alone the next day. Not spend hours hanging around your house.

[specialmagiclady]

It's so hard to do what you want when you have your first baby, but just as hard with second.

I had DS2 at home. My Mum (who lives 9 hours drive away) flew down on day 3 and stayed less than 24 hours - just to check we were alright and bring stew.

My inlaws then arrived (who live 2 hours drive away) and appeared to be planning to stay for 2 nights while I ran around cooking for them. My FIL kept saying "it's amazing, in my day you'd still be in hospital" and I kept saying "yes, and here am I running around after YOU - isn't it amazing?"

I was trying to get BFing established and just wanted to sit around watching telly with DH and DS1, with both my burning agonising cracked nipples exposed, on a rubber ring for my painful stitches. Instead I kept having to disappear upstairs to try and feed the boy so I didn't offend my FIL's sensibilities by having breasts. I ended up spending what felt like all day and all night sitting up in bed all on my own being chomped on in quite a lot of pain.

In the end, i retreated to the bathroom to sob (only place I couldn't be heard on the monitors that litter our home). Finally, I just said to my husband "you have to make them go" and bless him, he did.

My mum then said that she really admired me for having the guts to make that decisision. I told her it wasn't a choice. I would have walked out of that house and not come back, I think.

But I still feel a bit guilty for asking them to go, as if I should have COPED with them. (I find it hard to cope with them when not massively hormonal and in constant pain in the 3 most sensitive parts of my body)

[EffiePerine]

I was lucky - we decided on no visitors for 2 weeks and DH was at home to look after me. I didn't leave the flat for over a week . Would def recommend to all new mothers.

[Desiderata]

Well, I'm all for British backbone!

No one came to help me when I had ds, and I don't think I'd have wanted them to. I had a 48-hr labour, so if anyone thought I was going to put the kettle on for 'em, they would have been sorely mistaken!

[EffiePerine]

Though our families live at least 100 miles away so we could be firm about them not popping over. DH would have refused to answer the door - he was equally militant about needing some time to ourselves. If we have any more I'm planning to do exactly the same.

[pollyanna]

my mum did come and stay with me. On day 4 dh went to work (because my mum was staying and he thought that he wasn't needed), he came back from work, knackered from work and staying up all night and she said "whats for dinner?". She was pretty useless really.