Am I being unreasonable with not wanting visitors for a bit?

[makeupgirlie]

So I’m due in a week.
I am not too keen on having visitors after baby is born for a minimum of 3 weeks. I want the first few weeks to be able to recover and let baby settle in.
Everyone is understandably excited for the baby. But I have felt very overwhelmed by my partners family in particular throughout my whole pregnancy. They are always wanting to know every detail, why I have gone to the hospital and what my appointments are for. God forbid you don’t tell my partners dad and he gets annoyed by it. Anyway I am happy for grandparents to see baby first, maybe in hospital but I don’t really want everyone picking baby up or at least not for long. But when home u just want a few weeks just me, baby and partner. Is this unreasonable?

🙏🏼👏🏼

I'd have lost my mind at being stuck in the house with no visitors for 3 weeks! Because presumably you won't be going out and about with baby either because that would be weird to take them to the supermarket if you won't let your best friend pop over for half an hour.

You are working on the assumption that postpartum will be this incredibly difficult time where you'll be flooding pads whilst sobbing and trying to work out how to feed a child. I'm being flippant here. And tbh for some (perhaps many) it is like that. But for many it's not. For many, it's a (tiring) exhilarating and wonderful time, and one that's great to share.

No you won't know what you are doing with parenting, and you'll be knackered, but working it out as you go along is your new norm for many years, and so is the knackered if I'm honest. The first few weeks of my babies lives were not the most tiring! They aren't even on the top 10.

If when it comes to it you need that time, that's fine, but give yourself the freedom to decide. If you feel up to it, go on those walks, meet friends for an afternoon in a pub garden, go out for ice cream. Let friends coo over you amazing baby.

At the end of the day anyone can do whatever they want. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to not want visitors for as long as you like. As long as you don’t complain later if family seem a bit uninterested. Anyone is absolutely within their rights to do what is best for their family. And others are absolutely within their rights to respond to that however they want as well. You can absolutely tell a very excited grandparent you don’t want them to visit for weeks or months. But then you cannot get upset if said grandparent then gets disheartened and backs away. My cousin had a baby a few years ago. I asked many times about coming to visit for the first year. There was always a reason it wasn’t good timing. We were really quite close before she had the baby but she very much went down the “my little family is all I need” mentality for the first couple of years. The child is 4 now and I’ve met him twice. Both times at large family events only. But in the past year I’ve had so many messages from my cousin asking if I want to visit and maybe have the child for a weekend. Erm no not really. I don’t know the child and they don’t know me. Suddenly she wants to expand out of “her little family” but has clearly realised she has no babysitters and now wants everyone to visit and get to know the child because it will benefit her.

My DSis was similar her DCs are 14 and 12 now her world is very small.

The thing is, all these visitors are normally welcome at the baby shower armed with gifts.

They'll be welcome at the Christening (if there is one), again armed with gifts.

They'll be welcome when babysitting is needed too.

But as soon as the baby is born, it's "Why are you so interested in my offspring??"

Errm...

Actually what you describe has and does happen.

Personally I can think of two people who I would want around me and my baby in the early days. Neither would be family, they are trusted and close friends who respect me and respect my choices.

They would happily hold my baby if I wanted a shower but they wouldn’t be playing pass the baby downstairs.

If the mum has 1, 2, 3 weeks at home with her baby because that’s what she feels she needs then great. Maybe she’ll need less, who knows.
If she has a supportive partner or a couple of trusted people if needed, brilliant.

You know what happens in lots of families when one person is asked to come and help out?

That’s not fair, she’s picking favourites, she’s shutting us out, we’ll never have a relationship with the baby, my DIL is stealing our grandchild blah blah blah. That is exactly how people behave and you see the exact posts here on Mumsnet all the time.

I agree with you it doesn’t need to be such a drama. I suspect if people were respectful and sensitive then such strict boundaries may not be so needed.

How long would you expect to stay at someone's house when they've just had a baby and need to physically recover?

It depends on my relationship to them.
DD I would expect to stay several hours to help with bfeeding, cook, clean, do the washing maybe taking the baby for her while she had a bath and/ or a nap. My own DM stayed with me for 4 days after DS was born. A good friend maybe an hour or so ? As I already said DSis was in hospital for 10 days so I only saw her for a couple of hours a day as DNeice was in SCBU. DMIL came to stay after DMum left and stayed a couple of days.....

This is a first baby isn't it says the mum of 9. You'll be more upset if nobody is in any way interested in your baby. Be careful what you wish for!

My midwife in hospital knew I was struggling. Basically I wanted to rip the arms off anyone who came within 6 paces of baby ds. I'm normally very chilled but felt very angry and edgy and not really in control.

She put it like this. If you went to Longleat, you would not pick up a baby lion cub because the lioness would tear you to pieces. That's the normal reaction of a new mum, to protect her young.

I’d question the maturity of this puerile midwife who should not have been attempting to normalise this. We’re not wild animals driven purely by instinct; we’re capable of balancing our protective instincts with reason and social behaviour.

Rational, normal parents don’t experience an overwhelming urge to attack anyone who comes near their baby, and if someone genuinely feels intense rage or a desire to ‘rip someone’s arms off’, their HCP should see postnatal anxiety alarm bells rather than a healthy maternal instinct.

What’s healthy and normal, is being happy for the people you love and trust to come and meet a new baby. Husbands are there to politely usher people out if guests stay too long. Humans have always raised children within families and communities, not in isolation

Some of the most precious photos our family have is them meeting and holding our newborns in their very early days, the smile on my dads face as he held his granddaughter for the very first time , I will treasure that picture forever .
You cannot have too many people loving your baby in my opinion , we all feel protective but sometimes you need to bite that back and remember they’re your baby’s family too

I mean, obviously it’s your choice but if I was a grandparent being held at Bay for three weeks, I wouldn’t be very impressed
My daughter’s grandparents were sat in the car park waiting for the news that she’d arrived and then came straight up to see her because why wouldn’t they?

It's fine if it works for you but I would have absolutely hated to have my mum come and stay for several days, I wasn't very comfortable around her. I would have been much happier with my dad or my MIL.

I think best not to have expectations

Me too. We took a photo of every single visitor holding our new babies and printed them out and made them into thank you cards and then albums. Our sons now have, and treasure those albums.

OP, you’ve also changed from 3 weeks to a week in some of your comments ?
Personally I think 3 weeks is a long time, and you may be wanting some company by the end of week 1 , don’t make any hard and fast rules , you could always say we think that we’d like to have some time to ourselves so shall we will let you know when we are ready for visitors ?
You may surprise yourself & want to share your baby with your closest people

That’s absolutely crazy, close family and friends are t trying to rip your new baby out of your arms. They love you and by extending come to love the new child. Health care professionals aren’t a threat to your child, they’re literally there for their care and safety.

I’d be deeply worried about any health care professional who normalises a level of anxiety so great you wanted to do bodily harm to anyone who tried to show you and your new baby love and care.

If you’re so anxious you’re not able to distinguish between normal, loving relationships, celebration and interest in a new family member and a life threatening hazard, you need urgent medical care.

There are many things animals do by instinct that humans do not do as we know better. A lot of male animals have sex with female animals whether they “want to” or not. If a male human was to do this we wouldn’t use “instinct” as an excuse. Sometimes a male lion will kill the cubs of another lion. We would not tolerate this in the human world either.
If a human was having violent thoughts about anything else that was not rational they would be told to speak to someone. A male animal may kill another rival male. If a male human expressed thoughts that they wanted to kill another man who liked the same woman as him he would be thought of as a severe risk and this wouldn’t be accepted as instinct.

I think that is so sad all the evidence is the more people suppprting the new mother- baby dyad the less likely post natal depression is. Maternal grandparental involvement is also linked to better mental health in adolescents. We have evolved to live in a tribe this victorian, mysogenistic fetish around the nuclear family does not serve the interests of women or their children.

Sitting on the sofa with guests was agony thanks to anal fissures. My guests made those recovery days miserable.

I was too fragile to let them know I was going to pop another pain killer suppository in and could I have the whole sofa to lie on please.

Actually I think the worst thing you can do is pre announce the visitors ban. Let them come to the hospital, then when you go home and people ask be "not up for it yet". People won't pressure then but they will think you're a nob for pre planning a week long ban.

Did you have a partner around? It’s a shame you couldn’t have just told your visitors it’s hard to imagine that people wouldn’t understand.

Luckily I really love my parents and parents in law and my brothers and sister .. couldn’t wait for them all to enjoy our happiness. I’m sorry you are not in the same situation.

Exactly this. It’s the deciding up from on a “ban” that makes people seem precious and controlling. Yes sure, if you’re struggling post birth go ahead and say you’re not ready

I think that's true if you have supportive family. Some families just want to take the baby off the mom and couldn't care less how she feels.

I adore my friends and family. I still unapologetically took three weeks to recover from a CS and then a scar infection, get established with breastfeeding and get accustomed to first time motherhood.