AIBU to not have visitors for the first 3-5 days?

[Pastalover23]

Just that really.

About to have my second baby and wondering if it's "ok" to not have any visitors for the first 3-5 days? (I know that it is ok, I just need some validation as I'm worried I'm gonna cause a rift)

This is our second baby and when our DC was born last year, PIL stayed for 4 longggg hours when I was only out of the hospital! Should've asked them to leave but I was too exhausted and hormonal.

Trying to set firm boundaries this time around as I feel like I'm too soft these days and i just need some advice on what to say to really keen PIL (who only live 10mins away)

Has anyone else done this re visitors or had this conversation with family/friends? How did it go?

Xx

The baby is still a newborn after 3-5days!

We had family visit a couple of days after ds2 was born (by emcs) and I really didn't feel up to it. I ended up asking DH to ask them to leave and take me back to the maternity unit where I was diagnosed with mastitis and prescribed antibiotics.
I wish I'd cancelled them that morning and not put myself through it because I felt grim but was having to host family.

3-5 days is totally reasonable!

My personal approach was that both grannies came to see us for an hour (a cup of tea) in the first 48hrs we were home. And then we had about 5 days to ourselves.

For the second week both sets of in-laws visited for a bit longer but my DH was in charge and I just retired to the bedroom whenever I needed to - which was often as we were struggling with breastfeeding.

YANBU. If they choose to ignore you, tolerate them for a short period of time and then retire to your bedroom, quoting the need to feed / sleep / change nappy etc and don't reappear until after they've gone.

Totally reasonable. Did it with my second. MIL did have the cheek to show up at my door.

I went to my room with baby. 🤣

I had Baby2 just 2 weeks ago and didn't need to have that conversation with anyone. My PILs were on standby to care for my toddler when I went into labour and as it turned out, we didn't need to lean on them and we would have managed ourselves, but we still asked them to collect toddler from nursery so we weren't madly rushed fresh out of hospital. PILs picked up toddler, dropped home and without us even asking, they so respectfully waited outside the door and didn't even ask to come in while we introduced toddler to new baby. They recognised it was our very special family time for ourselves and quietly left us to it. We didn't even know they'd gone until we heard the door click shut. We didn't have any visitors for 4 days (my family), and the PILs left us alone for a whole week!

Nobody questioned it. I was totally ready to have that conversation though - I would just tell them what you need from them and if that is space to enjoy the early days as a family unit without interruption then say that. You only get one chance at the first few days and it goes so fast.

I was in hospital a week after a rough birth. My bed everyday was soaked with blood stains. Grim. We lied and told the inlaws that it had a no visitor policy in the ward we were in as they wouldn’t have accepted being asked to wait. We then had another week with no visitors when we got home. The birth was traumatic, and the baby struggled to feed so I was naked from the waist up while midwives coaxed my baby to latch. No way would I have been comfortable with people who I don’t like at the best of times around me in this state. My inlaws are rude, over bearing and awful. My partner loves them because they are his parents but he can’t stand them as people. He also struggles to stand up to them, so it was easier for him to keep them at arms length than mop up a fight.

They really shot themselves in the foot. They were so awful during the pregnancy that neither of us want anything to do with them now. We see them the bare minimum, and once we move back to my country of birth he will go very low contact and I no contact.

So stupid of them. I’ve been incredibly close to all my exes mother’s and families. DH’s family are just on another planet. Think a racist, sexist and vulgar version of the parents from Everybody Loves Raymond.

YANBU to put your needs above the wishes of other people. Just like a mother doesn't have to immediately bond with a baby and it is a process that builds over time, the bond between your baby and your family is also something that is built over time and is not defined by how early they see the baby. Some people have very supportive family but not everyone. My MIL is nice but she's a lot to take on a good day. In the hospital there was a no-visitor policy (apart from the dad), which enabled me to get some sleep whenever I could during the day, as I barely slept in the night. I also think it's nicer for the hospital staff and the other women recovering from birth and trying to have some rest to not have floods of visitors running around the hospital wards. After we got home I had painful hemmorroids and 3 excruciatingly painful breast engorgements in one week, I would not have been able to handle visitors in that state, I'm glad they had to work and could only come visit 10 days pp.
And yeah I do believe the needs of the woman who has just been through pregnancy and childbirth prevails over the wishes of family members, ignore the unsupportive comments and enjoy meeting your baby 🙂

We were very firm that we wanted some time with just us when we brought our second baby home. We told everyone nobody else would even be seeing the baby until her big brother had been introduced and we had some time together as a family unit first. When we returned from the hospital, I went in first, thanked my mum for babysitting my first, and let her leave the house before we got baby out of the car. This was all discussed beforehand and she totally respected it, even though I could tell it was killing her that her new grandbaby was in the car but she couldn't see her.
It's a big adjustment for your first child too. Frame the no visiting rule with that as your reason and your family and friends should absolutely understand if they are decent people.

your not being unreasonable! they want to visit they can stick to your rules. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. Had similar rules for mine when they were born.

no smoking, no holding unless I say and give back if I ask. Wash hands. Covid times. So we had wear masks and don’t come if sick with anything. Don’t visit without checking it’s ok before hand. We also didn’t have anyone other than immediate family/ extremely close friends visit for the first year. And no one visited them for the first 4 months.

so many people visit and just want the baby. And stay all day being a pain like no one seriously wants that right after having a baby!

😂 3-5 days?! I’m about the 3-5 WEEKS no visitors! You’re definitely not being unreasonable, I would suggest (if you don’t mind), saying until you’re ready instead of giving it 3-5 days, boundaries are so important, it’s not about them it’s about baby and you 💙💖💙