Kissing babies - do you agree with me ?

[dais23]

Baby is due in a few days, and today I told my mother in law that I do not want her kissing the baby for the first few weeks due to his immune system, and she went off the rails!!

i don’t think I’m being unreasonable for the first few weeks, for reference when I was 3 weeks old my mum & dad had to deal with me having meningitis and sepsis - that must be horrendous for a parent to go through. I feel As if it’s my responsibility to make sure I reduce the risk of my baby catching anything life threatening.

according to her I’m being ‘unreasonable’ because he is part of her. She is not going to come see her first grandchild until she can kiss him 😬
I just can’t believe her main priority is for her to kiss the baby than to keep him safe!

does anyone else agree this is selfish? Or am I being unreasonable 🫠

Well then your MIL has to wait to see him. If you don’t want him to be kissed then that’s it. It’s not unreasonable.

The obsession with wanting to kiss other people's babies is creepy and weird. If the parent says don't do something, you don't do it. Simple as that.

Anyone arguing over that is weird, if an adult says don't kiss me you wouldn't. The parents speak for the baby.

Not unreasonable OP, her reaction is crazy. Don't back down and don't feel guilty about it.

I’d love to see the statistics that show a healthy newborn is at risk from being kissed by a healthy adult. Because everything I’ve read so far talks about a tiny number of cases where someone with a cold-sore kissed a baby.

A newborn isn’t born with no immunity to anything, a healthy baby isn’t so fragile they need to be kept in a bubble. Take sensible precautions like making sure nobody who visits is unwell. You can ban people from kissing your baby if you like, it’s your baby. But there are a million risks your child will face all through their lives so it’s worth making sure if you are going to bat with family members about it, that the risk is a real one you are trying to prevent.

There is absolutely a real risk from kissing a newborn baby, and as we all know from covid you can feel totally healthy and yet be in the incubation period of an awful virus, so you think you’re fine and kiss the baby yet 2 days later you’re bed ridden poorly and you have passed that on.

Until you’ve sat in hospital watching your baby gasp for breath you honestly don’t have the first clue the lengths you will go to in order to prevent ever having to see that again. And, I’ll say again, I don’t know why any adult feels they need to kiss a baby that is not theirs anyway.

OP, why don’t you say she can only kiss the baby in top of its head? I think if you’re holding a baby, it’s very hard not to show it affection. I can understand your fear about germs, but surely if she stays well away from its mouth, it would be fine?

@ Mrsttcno1
“I don’t know why any adult feels they need to kiss a baby that is not theirs anyway.”

If you specifically asked me not to kiss your baby, I wouldn’t, but I think if you’re holding a baby, it’s almost instinctive to nuzzle up to them and maybe give them a little kiss on the top of their head.

Ridiculous. You are being ridiculous. Deliberately antagonising her before the baby is even born just to create drama.

Most loving family members will kiss a baby on the forehead or cheek as a quick peck and sign of affection.

I hope your husband intervenes.

Our DGS1 was born in lockdown, so we were not allowed to touch him at all for the first year of his life. When DGS2 was born last year, we had to agree not to do a long list of things (most of which I wouldn't have done anyway) before we were allowed to touch him.

I don't remember being like that with my own DC and they survived.

I think she has the autonomy as a mother to make decisions for her baby. You hope her husband 'intervenes'? This is 2025, we are not controlled by our husbands.
There is a very real risk to newborns from being kissed by anyone. This mother has decided that it is too much of a risk in her eyes. We are all different in how we approach risk, that's life and that's how the world works. So take your judgement somewhere else and let a mother do what she feels is right for her baby.

A newborn has plenty of time to develop their fragile immune system by being close to their parents.
Science supports the fact that newborns can die from the coldsore virus.
Science supports the fact that my 6 week old got very ill with covid from a family member who didn't disclose their symptoms.
Parents can decide what risks are acceptable and what are unacceptable to them. It's not our place to judge a mother for her decisions when all she's trying to do is keep them well.

This is probably a good time to lay out some firm boundaries.

Your post is what is ridiculous. Her and her partner are not “antagonising” anyone by communicating clear boundaries in advance. How anyone would get SO wound up about how a mum and dad wish to parent THEIR OWN baby I have no idea. And I don’t know one single pregnant woman who would be seeking to create “drama”. Do some research on the risks to newborns from kisses; it’s very serious. It doesn’t matter whether it’s just a peck… In saying that, the last line of your post shows just how dated your perspective must be.

I wouldn't allow kissing near their mouth to avoid herpes but on the head, why not? I mean, my kids kiss horses, including the toddler so I'm not exactly militant about hygiene there but I can understand the whole coldsore issue. I'd just limit kissing to the head, not the face.

I think you are being OTT with your PFB

I honestly think that what often drives these kinds of threads is fundamentally that the mother doesn't like whoever it is she doesn't want to hold/kiss the baby. And it's understandable - of course if you don't like someone, allowing them to touch your baby is going to make every fibre in your being scream "nooooo"! But that's very difficult when those people are your child's family too.

I also kinda do wonder if some women who have had a tough time with the in-laws see having a baby as finally having a bit of power - you get to control access to something they want. I don't think this is talked about, or admitted, but actually it's also understandable - why wouldn't you want to do that if you have felt powerless, overlooked, out of control, or even disliked - you get to redress the balance a bit.

But maybe it's also just a sad indictment of how selfish and self absorbed everyone has become, that nobody is able to have sensible conversations any more or use common sense, like don't kiss a very small baby on the face, or visit a house with a newborn when you're sick. Everything has to be a battleground because people have forgotten they live in communities and not in me, me, me Instabubbles, where the individual's wants and needs trump everything else and any conversation about other people's limits or boundaries is threatening to people's perceived right to do exactly what they want. Or, that anyone else having different needs or wants is seen as a threat to be warded off with lists of dos and don'ts and bans.

Personally I get along with my in-laws great, I don’t use Instagram (??) and yet I don’t believe the OP is being unreasonable here. That said, my MIL wouldn’t be as unreasonable as to think she knew better than medical professionals or the child’s parents, luckily. There might be a percentage of people who think in the way you describe, but then you could say that about anything. Everyone is individual, but at the end of the day, with the information we have now, no one should be kissing a newborn baby - it doesn’t matter whether they’re the mother’s side or father’s side! It sounds like OP did indeed try to have a conversation about it and MIL went “off the rails.”

The safety of a baby is more important than an adult's feelings! Stick to your guns.

I let mum kiss my baby and two minutes later she was coughing...despite telling me that she wasn't ill. She pretended to be fine even though she was ill. My Daughter ended up hospitalised with pneumonia and barely any function In one of her lungs. YOU ARE RIDICULOUS and are clearly exactly the type of monster in law that OP needs to fend off. A baby's health is more important than an adults feelings...grow the fuck up

My baby was born prematurely and spent 2 months in NNICU. I know exactly what that feels like.

We can all feel we think it’s logical that there is a risk, my question is, where are the statistics which show actually how much of a risk is it? I found none other than those talking about the risks from cold sores. In fact, 80% of babies infected with the virus contract it from the mother during child birth. Are we all preventing that risk enough? 10% contract it in-utero. Are we preventing that? Fewer than 10% of babies infected, are infected after they are born and it is estimated half of these are from being kissed.

I’m not saying there is zero risk to babies, I’m just saying it needs to be put into perspective because there are not thousands and thousands of babies being hospitalised because MIL was a dick and ignored the wishes of the mum of a PFB.

A mother can choose whatever they want for their baby, and families should respect that, but just be aware that if you want to micro manage your family to remove any minuscule risk, you do so at the risk of alienating them.

A mother can choose whatever they want for their baby, and families should respect that, but just be aware that if you want to micro manage your family to remove any minuscule risk, you do so at the risk of alienating them

Exactly this.

How exactly would a mother stop her baby contracting the herpes virus in utero?

Perhaps by not contracting it in the first place, so maybe people shouldn't be kissing babies and giving it to them when they're young?

Oh yeah she did actually lol. Sorry.

Your baby,your rules!
I get cold sores and wouldn't want anyone else kissing my baby in case they gave him the virus either as it can cause brain damage at a young age.

Remember if you display alot of anxiety around your baby it will pick up on that. Anxious parents breed anxious children.