What boundaries did you have with visitors after giving birth?

[Herecomestreble1]

I'm due mid October and beginning to think about possible boundaries or similar I would like to set when our immediate family visits the baby. I am sure they will expect the obvious health-based ones such as no kissing the baby or washing hands before holding, but I'm curious as to what everyone else is considering communicating for those first few precious weeks?

No unannounced visits xx

Had a week in hospital with baby in NICU after birth. Then a week at home just us (including a return trip to hospital for baby). Then grandparents visited when baby was 2w old - on the proviso they washed hands and wore masks and provided lunch! Then we were back in lockdown so noone else saw baby until 6m old. Not how I would have liked it to go but hey ho.

None but I wish I did. I should have had:
No unannounced visits
No visits in the first week
No passing the baby around every 2 seconds!
No making drinks/snack myself, I'd tell people to help themselves because im lazy.
And for myself I'd say no more than one visit a day (some days i had 3 different sets of people scheduled to visit and I just felt shattered)

We don’t get unannounced visitors anyway, family would always call first. We were in for 5 days but once we were home having visitors was great.

Are you worried about anything or anyone in particular?

I didn’t have any rules. I don’t know a lot of random people, just family (his & mine) and close friends so trusted everyone who visited both my babies.
I was also super proud of my new bundles so happy to show them off!

We didn't have any 'boundaries'.

People messaged in advance if they wanted to come. They brought gifts and snacks and greatly admired the baby. Two people cried slightly as they were emotional, which was lovely.

I had a really rough birth, was in a bad place physically and dark place mentally, but these visitors were lovely and helped give the days a rhythm and structure.

No one outstayed their welcome, everyone was very helpful and having some female sympathy helped as I realised that the way I felt wasn't unusual (eg if you believed Instagram everything is instantly rosy, and it's not normal)

This is helpful, thank you. I'm fairly confident no one would arrive without messaging or calling us first. I imagine one thing I will look at saying is something like please don't be offended if we make visits short, or suggest a time for people to leave by, as I'll be bloody knackered!

DC1 no boundaries. DC2 we had no visitors - we only introduced to family about 4 weeks after they were born. Totally at our own pace.

Visits after DC1 were awful as I was absolutely traumatised after an awful birth and shouldn't have ever allowed anyone in the house until I was feeling a bit better.

But I know that people thrive on visitors. I don't.

If your family are likely to drop In unannounced, I’d ask them not to. Otherwise maybe play it by ear? I didn’t find anyone was anything less than thoughtful and charming and I’d have been embarrassed to have given them a list of rules which they wouldn’t have dreamt of breaking anyway.

MN is full of stories of terrible visitors but I think IRL most people are pretty sensible. You know your family though.

Mine was "please visit, we want to show off our baby!" Ds1 was in NICU for 4 days and then on the ward for 4 days but we were allowed visits there so all our family and close friends came to see us at the hospital. Then we had visits at home from lots of those people too. One of the days at hospital we had nobody scheduled to visit and we were texting people to see who could come round. Hospitals are very boring and showing off our snuggly newborn was the only entertainment we had! Everybody had to wash hands when at the hospital but once we were home, there were no rules.

We didn’t need boundaries….. I genuinely don’t know anyone who would turn up unannounced to the hospital or at home. Grandparents got their booster shots without us asking.

I think it’s best not to make any commitments to anything and just see how you feel.

I was convinced I’d want no visitors and time alone for this magical bonding. We lasted one day before asking my mum to come round and hold the baby so me and DH could get some sleep.

None whatsoever. I loved having visitors. They brought gifts and company, did some cooking, and admired the baby. I felt it was a time of celebration and bonding, and I was glad of all the help and company I could get. I was generally in my pyjamas or dressing gown, often attempting to breastfeed, and found I didn't care. Some stayed overnight and I loved that. It was like a festival of new baby!

I suppose my visitors were generally adults and generally people I really like, so it's not as if I was under siege by annoying people.

I didn't with my first and I wish I did! MIL came as soon as we got home from hospital, I was in bed asleep recovering from a 3 days labour and birth and she came 'to see the baby, not me'. She brought her yappy little poodle who growled at the baby when she cried. I was mortified and it ruined everything, I always imagined my own mum coming and meeting my baby first.

None, my Mum came to stay for 2 weeks after each birth to cook, shop and clean for me so I could take it easy, bond with baby and establish breastfeeding. Many of my visitors brought a homemade casserole or lasagne for me. I certainly did not want to prevent those people coming. If a visitor stayed for more than 2 hours my Mum used to suggest I went to lie down to rest, and visitor left. Worked out well for me.

We didn’t have any visitors at all for 10 days. It was wonderful! We explained to family before hand and they had no problems with it, despite people on Mumsnet acting as though I had decided to ban grandparents from visiting for 10 years. (You can see my thread on it to see some of the bizarre responses!) It was a lovely decision for us and we’re so happy with our decision, and so far it doesn’t seem that our baby has been damaged by the lack of love, which was literally something people accused us of…

I'm also due in October 🙂
We've had IVF and had a really difficult journey to have our baby, so have made family aware that we won't be having visitors in hospital (they're still being strict here anyway) and might not want any visitors for the first few days at home. DH and I have also agreed not to have multiple visitors a day if we're not up to it, especially as I want to breastfeed and don't want that interrupted by people constantly coming round.
So far no one has complained about this to my face 😀

So thrilled for you! There's lots of really good advice here, thank you ladies for sharing your experiences with me.

I didn’t have any last time. As a PP said I loved having visitors, showing off DS - people brought food and gifts and came to meet him and it was lovely.

Im pg with DC2 and the only thing I’ll do different this time is no visitors whilst we’re in hospital - last time I had my mum and MIL and SIL and sisters waiting outside while I was having him and they came in pretty much soon as I was stitched up! That was too much and should have just been DP and me. I’m hoping to have baby and be home without too many people realising this time, but once I’m home happy for any family and friends to visit.

I invoked babymoon.
Zero visitors for the first month (babymoon)

after that:
No unannounced visitors
No over night stays
Visiting hours are 10am to 4pm
No Sundays (as DH went back to work we wanted at least one day family only)

above was until their 1st birthday and then it was all relaxed, visit anytime, stay the night, just pre-arrange call ahead.

I thought babymoon was all about the new mum getting waited on hand and foot? I invoked it to mean "come round and cook for me"!

Did family meet the baby at all that month, e.g. did you plan meetings outside the house during that time?

Well this is Mumsnet so you'll get people saying that they didn't have any visitors (from the husbands family her family don't count ) for the first month, then only the parents are allowed to hold the baby, no one is allowed to feed the baby, no one is allowed to come over without bringing a meal and/ or cleaning/ doing household chores.

I just let our babies meet their family

@MaryWM nah I bet they had the first month inside the house to 'bond' as a family and took about 6 weeks to feel comfortable to leave the house incase their baby got abducted or cigar a cold or something ridiculous

Ha, to be fair, I don't think I left the house with baby for the best part of three weeks - it was easier to have people come to us (or even go for a walk alone, when baby was still sleeping in the cot for 3-hour stretches and dad was still on paternity leave).

I think babymoon means mum gets whatever she wants 😁. And I wanted the time to just bond with my baby before adding stress of visitors. It was even more critical when it was babymoons 2, 3 and 4 as then it definitely takes a month to get all the older DCs as well as you and DH used to a new baby.

Nope, zero visitors meant zero visitors. No meet-ups. Nothing. All family got was a few photos emailed or posted to look at.