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?

I had no restrictions,loved having people round to meet my children

None, I also loved having family and friends come and look at my beautiful creations 😆. I was lucky I recovered well after both births. I never found it difficult to get dressed and showered etc. I was up and about, going out etc. But I can't stand not showering every morning and sitting around in my pyjamas all day. Its not good for my mental health and makes me feel "dead inside" if I don't.

None. I loved people visiting in the hospital and as soon as I got home. I loved every minute of introducing her to family & friends. I came out of hospital on the Sunday after a c-section and was out shopping in Tesco on the tuesday. I couldn't wait to show her off. I didn't need weeks/months to bond with her. As soon as she was born we bonded.

No boundaries at all, frienda and family were excited to come and meet baby. Planning to do same for the next one

Same . Never needed any boundaries. My family and friends are all grown adults who understand what the first weeks of new baby are like.

Some came everyday and made /bought food. Cleaned house . Played with baby whilst I had a shower .

Some popped in with presents or to welcome the baby.

My advice is to stop putting up barriers to help.

None. I was excited for my baby to meet their family. I have always understood that my child is a person in their own right and not my possession, and that the people who want to visit wish nothing but the best for them and just want to be nice. I don't want my children to be kept away from their own loving grandparents.

I also found that other than grandparents, we were hardly overrun with visitors because neither of my children are (to my knowledge) the Messiah. Wider family and friends just stopped by for up to an hour and then left.

please be really careful with neonatal herpes. Like you say, no kissing, and washing hands before holding the baby. I would ban any visits from people with active cold sores.

I don’t think that having visitors immediately and staying in your pyjamas for days not showering are the only two options. As I said earlier, we had no visitors for a while, but were out of the house having a pub lunch on day 4, just our new little family. It was lovely! We did quite a bit out of the house in the first few days on our own, which I also think helped because then when we did start visitors it didn’t feel like a shock of reality 🙂

None.I was always delighted to see people

None. Everyone welcome at the hospital, we ended up meeting everyone for happy hour on day 4, and parents came to visit when DS1 was 3 weeks (live overseas), the MIL for 2 weeks, then FIL for 2 weeks.

Same with DS2.

I didn't really have any.

My parents came the day after she was born, I happily handed her over to everyone who wanted to hold her and went out for lunch with them.

None. Loved having friends and family round.

I'd wait and see how you feel. I loved having visitors as long as they let me know to expect them. All my friends and family know where the kettle and teabags are.

With DC2 I was home 3hrs after giving birth and the first thing I had to arrange was an emergency hearing engineer via the landlord so 4hrs post partum I had my landlord and plumber wandering in and out the house with toolkits and noisy equipment. Later on that day I had a school run to do so DC2 was fussed over by all the other parents and it was lovely.

Aww we had none it turned out 🙈 I thought the no kissing one was a given, I had told my family just in case and my husband was to tell his. Sure enough his mum kissed him as he was leaving and he said nothing about it 🤦🏼‍♀️ They also stayed for 4 hours on the first visit at a few days old and did the same again a few days later. I’d had a section and was really sore and just so desperately wanted them to leave so I could go up to bed but I didn’t want to be rude and just leave. It was as if they completely forgot I was involved in the baby being born and purely focused on him. My mum was the opposite, she brought me nice jammies and only stayed for a very quick visit to meet him.

The next time I will be saying we’re having no visitors until we feel ready, whenever that may be and close family will be told it’s short visits only. It sounds rude even saying that but without spelling it out to them it seems like they would just stay and stay and stay. They frantically rocked the baby between them and kept passing him onto the next person repeatedly. I so wanted him back but felt like I couldn’t get him so the short visits would majorly help with that too. I also wanted to limit the bottle feeds to only me or my husband early on and hated when someone was really forward and went to feed him if the bottle was there. I can’t imagine ever doing that to someone else’s baby! There will be A LOT of rules next time 😂 assume nothing!

I had none at all. I loved having my children's family and friends round. I was also happy for them to do all the kissing they liked!

Hand washing and I always said to people we have others coming in an hour just to get them to go haha.

Also when it came to our friend’s visiting, their actual visits weren’t a problem but I found it a full time job trying to keep on top of messages, thank people, keep a note of who’s giving you what, schedule when people are coming etc. It’s so full on 🙈 The majority of people just do the classic first visit too then you don’t ever see again. I kind of grudged their visits a bit looking back now as I’d stressed myself out making sure the house was clean for them coming and the whole thing was quite stressful, only for them never to show any interest again. I almost think one big bbq or something would be ideal to get all those visits out the road in one go but then again, that’s hassle to organise🙈

No restrictions when mines born with the only exception is to ask my dad to not smoke just before holding the baby.

DS was born in lockdown one so no visitors. If this pregnancy is successful then I hope we’ll be having lots of visitors from as soon as we’re back from hospital to make up for it! Although would obviously make a call on it depending on how the birth goes. My only boundary will be no kissing because the whole herpes thing does worry me, but I won’t be chucking people out if they forget and have a quick kiss.

Oh that’s a good point actually, be asking FIL not to smoke just before holding baby.

No boundaries whatsoever and it was all fine!

Thank fuck a whole load of sensible people appeared on this thread. The rest of you honestly give your heads a wobble, rules, no visitors etc etc
in 2 years time you will be complaining about no babysitting help, or the lack of interest from your inlaws. Look at it from your baby’s perspective, for them it is amazing to have loads of people invested in their happiness and well-being.

None. But everyone was considerate.

Didn't have any after dd. Should have done because I came down with an awful uti straight after birth, I was shivering and sweating while people piled in and didn't even ask how I was. Was trying to breastfeed but couldn't. I couldn't even get dressed. Was so stressful.

This time we'll invite people when we want them to come instead, when I'm ready and able to get dressed!!