so why is it that family, esp grandparents, seem to think that they hae immediate access rights to your baby as soon as it is born?

[wannaBeWhateverIWannaBe]

just musing really. There are so many threads on here about people whose parents/ILs want to come and see the baby almost the second it is born, without any consideration for anyone else.

I remember when my own ds was born my parents saw him straight away, ILs came to see him the day after, and parents visited daily, sometimes 2/3 times a day, and my mum would just snatch him off me no matter what I was doing with him. My mum even turned up unannounced with some colleague of hers from work who I'd never met before.

so why is this?

and will we all learn from the experiences and not be so interfeering/pushy when our children have their babies?

also (and now I am on a roll) new mothers are expected to just be up and normal a day after the birth. In the wonderful olden days of extended families, a mother was not expected to get up or leave the house for a month.

elasta - my parents, brother and sister all turned up at the hospital as soon as they heard I was in labour with dd1! They waited for about 10 hours. dd1 was born, it was half ten at night, I felt awful, torn, bloody and told dh to tell them to go home!

And then I was disappointed they weren't there at first visiting time the next day.

agreewith twiglett.
and I try to nurture our extended family (friends included0 as much as I can, even if we are so far away (us in england, them in italy).
not trying to be all virtuous here, I'm just very lucky to have good parents, good inlaws etc...

good in laws are special thing
mine drive me crazy

Having given birth the first time over 200miles from home I was desperate to see my parents and for them to see my ds - I was dreadfully upset when I rang them at 7am the next morning after not speaking since the birth and they rang off after 30 seconds.....They were jumping in the car to come and see us after being told not to bother! (I didn't mean it but it was 300 miles for them and I didn't want them to think they had to) I suspect I would be the same - try hard not to but still, just the same!!

Why wouldn't grandparents think they have the right to see their grandchildren - their child's child (on both sides)?

Both sets of grandparents came to visit my boys very soon after they were born, both in the hospital and at home, wouldn't have expected any different tbh.

I quite like it. Spent 5 days in hosp after c section, and swamped by relatives all the time.

They were all as infatuated with dd as I was. It was like a special mutual admiration club

I totally understand them wanting to see their grandchild. I had no problems with my paretns - they can come for a bit and go home. Mil on the otherhand lives a 4 hour drive away - she came and wanted to stay for 4 days. It was too much. She's loud and by day 4 I was tearing my hair out. I know she wanted to help, but she is so lacking in common sense. Everthing she offered to do required a 3 hour explanantion and it was easier to do it myself
It depends on the birth too. My first 2 were born in hospital - I wanted to come home and get settled. However, mil jumped in the car whilst I was in labour and was waiting at our house when we got back (6 hours later) after ds2 was born. I just felt harrassed. I wanted to spend time with dh, ds1 and our new son - especially for ds1's sake as he was only 2. Mil almost snatched ds2 off me as I walked in the door.
My second 2 were home births and I was happy for people to come and visit.

My inlaws came the evening I gave birth, I went home the next night, I had been in the house approx 30 mins and they turned up again. I had half a bum cheek on a pillow on the floor trying to get comfortable due to epis, while dh made me something to eat just wishing they would go home. Even now, 14 weeks on, it feels that i am expected to hand over ds when they visit, for all the visit!

12 people turned up at ours an hour after id brought dd home, she wasnt even 24 hours old, i was trying to bf and dp's mum and drunken brother stayed until 10pm eating take away pizza and didn even think to bring us one!???..we 'dared' to ask everyone to leave us in peace till the weekend and dp's mother then showed her true colours..bitch..we dont see her at all now and thats just the way we like it!

When dd was born mil "moved in" for 3 f'in weeks. She would say to me "put a cushion behind me" and "put my coffee here" and then sit and hold dd whilst I put the washing in the machine etc. She also said "if you will b/feed then I can't help you with feeds" as though I was being selfish. She even tried to take dd whilst latched on saying "she's had enough" Dd screamed the house down and mil had to give her back. Silly old bat!!

at your MIL Pinotmum!!!

My MIL is fab.

The only thing I was strict on was that if mine were sleeping then they werent to be woken just so that someone could cuddle them.

But again, I was glad of the visitors and the support. When my Mum or MIL came round they were running around after me. (Along with dispensing stories about knowing how tough it was, because in their day they didnt have washing machines, cars, etcetcetcetc).

But, again, I was a bit gutted that my family didnt visit when DS was born until 48 hours after (excluding my DB and his girlfriend)particularly because they came up 9 hours after DD was born and came mob-handed.

Seems to me the problem is not that we don't want to see g'parents ... but that they so often are so carried away with the excitment of the thing that they forget about the mother & her needs. Combined with the fact that you (the mother) are tired, sore, panicing, hormonal, leaking milk and blodd right left and centre etc - ie a saint probably won't get it right.
I also suspect it's very difficult to remember JUST how all over the place you are in those first few weeks - by the time our kids have theirs we'll be desparate to go and 'help' - God help them.

I wonder (cf Twig's post) if there ever was a 'good old days' where the sense of community was strong and we felt totally supported by our families - my mums' recollections of her mpther's help/lack of it suggest this may not exactly be new

I also wished I had more visitors. I was very dissapointed that no one came to visit me while I was in hospital with ds, even though I was there for 2 days. I was desperate to show of my ds!
Once at home I had a few visitors, but they were all very good. They made the cups of tea themselves and they didn't expect to hold the baby the whole time they were there and they also respected my 'do not disturbe when sleeping' rule.
Sometimes it can be the ones receiving the visiting that are the difficult ones though. My brother though was a nightmare for my mum. No one could hold my nephew and he was over a year before my mum ever held him. Flash photography was forbidden as was making sudden loud noises. Up until last year my brother (when his ds was 3) insisted that my parents rang before they visited. Once when they passed my brother's house on the way somewhere and decided to stop while they were close by, my brother sent them away because they hadn't phoned before hand . So my mum was on the phone crying and my dad was crying in the background . I was sooooooo angry that I sent my brother an angry letter (he wouldn't have listened to me on the phone) to tell them how much he was hurting my parents by not letting them see their grand children as often as they wanted too, which would have only been once a week at the weekend or so. He's been much better behaved ever since.

I was lucky with DS - my parents came to the hospital the day after he was born as they were in London for a party.
We then didn't see them again for 2 weeks. My inlaws were shocked that my mom wasn't with us helping but my mom told them DH & I were nesting

I do think it's about middle ground, and I think so few have that right.

My mum was helpful, she drove us to hospital (ds had to have eye test when 6 days old/took me to gp because I was anaemic/went with me to mothercare etc, but it was the snatching the baby off me that really wound me up. also as ds got older she would come into the house and if he wasn't looking at her she would click her fingers at him and say "oy! I'm over here!" which infuriated me. And as he tot older still and started to talk she used to sit in front of him going "say nanny" almost on a loop, to the point where it annoyed me so much I eventually snapped and said "he's a baby, not a bloody parrot!"

Sorry I think the new mum and dad get to set the boudaries here. If you like having your family round you all the time and are very social thats great, but I'm not and I made sure we didn't get visitors on the first day.
Having a baby was something me and DH did, Gparents visited once we'd got ourselves together and had a bit of 'new family' time.

My GP actually told me to say 'no visitors unless they do somehting useful and give you space to bond with your baby' for the first 9 days.

pointydog, i hope you didn't tell your BIL that you thought their efforts to do the best for their family were 'ridiculous'? I found alot of people got very huffy with me if I refused to wake baby up in those first few weeks for a visit. My view is that I'd just been through a horrendous labour, he was an 8month baby and quite small so needed as much sleep, food, and peace so he could settle in and grow stronger. Waking him up from a nap or sleeptime just wasn't happening.

And I do think those relatives who turn up and expect everything to revolve around them are VERY selfish. At this point the people who come first are; Baby, mum, other children, dad.
So go round, admire baby and then let mum and dad have a bit of quiet time without worrying baout the cooking or cleaning - really help out rather than expecting witty conversation, guest beds made up and cups of tea making from a new mum.

i never got over my mother saying that she was overwhelmed with love for her grandsons (maybe even more than for her kids??) - i never realised that grandparents instantly love their grandchildren. doesn't excuse unreasonable behaviour, but helps understand their perspective.

I've only read the OP but gosh, this is sad imo, if we think it's a BAD thing that grandparents want to see babies as soon as possible after they're born! Who doesn't love a tiny newborn? And without grandparents/parents that baby wouldn't exist, these babies are related to them, it's important and should be. And if they DIDN'T show any interest I bet a lot of people would be saying 'can you believe it, I've just had a BABY and gps can't be ARSED to come over? Don't they realise it's momentous?'

Poor gps can't win and most of us will be them one day.

Yes, of course people should be considerate and only turn up offering help and not being any trouble, absolutely but I feel at this thread mainly.

When I had DD my parents did not think due to dads work commitments that they would be able to visit if I went into labour during the week as they were 200 miles away but when I called to say I was in labour they jumped in the car and dashed up and arrived 40 minutes before she was born and my mum got to hold my hand as I brought her first grandchild into the world and I fully expected my MIL to come and visit that day too. With DS parents lived closer and again my mum was there and again expected to visit later.
What I never expected was for MIL to bring her WHOLE family most of which I don't know or BIL and his girlfriend (I had met her once) I know she was excited and I know she was excited but she was and still is VERY intrusive and she also does the MY grandchildren thing and seems to think that gives her the right to know what goes on at school/nursery and whatever else she fancies. She lives (EXTREMELY) close by and could have been a fantastic support to both DP and I but has never offered any kind of practical help, she went in the huff when I told her that DD would not be sleeping over at 6 weeks old as for a start she did not lactate and secondly I did not need a break from my daughter I neede my ironing done and a casserole made.

Yes but wickedwaterwitch, who goes through the labour? Who needs a bit of time to recuperate? The mum and the dad.

Also, it's the mum and dad's baby too and they need a bit of time to adjust and to get to know their baby. It's up to the parents whether they have visitors instantly or not. If they choose not to, they shouldn't be condemned. That's bonkers!

I for one want a few days to be alone with my new baby and DS1 and DH. That's not a lot to ask. I really don't think it's indicative of the country's family networks breaking down. It's called a spot of privacy and R+R after a damn hard session of physical exertion!

How many threads start "My parents haven't seen my baby and he's x months old" or similar. Lots. Let them have their day cooing over the baby and then things will calm down.

My grandparents didn't come to see me for three months when I was born, they were never forgiven.

Family love is better than family apathy IMO.

I was due to have a c-section due to placenta previa. It was planned for 10.00am. I nearly had a fit when my mum started planning to come and see us in the afternoon. I tryed putting her off until the next day but she kept saying "You won't be able to keep me away". I was quite annoyed that she wasn't taking any notice of me saying I wanted chance to recover first.

As it turned out the pp started haemorraging a week earlier while they were visiting. So they waited while I was rushed off for ecs under GA and my mum was the first hold ds after he was born (dh didn't make it in time). I'll never forget the pride and joy in her voice when she recounted how the midwives had asked her to hold him. Maybe thats changed my perspective a bit but next time I will be quite happy for them to visit as soon as they like.

MIL/FIL were also great and were quite happy to wait until a few days after I got home (although ds was their 3rd grandchild, so prehaps the novelty wasn't quite the same)

I live in Spain and family is in Scotland and Peru so when dd1 was born there was no family to come and visit. I put friends off till we were home from hospital, didnt want them to see me looking terrible and possibly not coping with infant, tho as it turned out she just slept and fed all the time. Once home I let potential visitors know exactly when a visit would be good for me and how long they could stay. My Mum flew out when dd1 was 10 days old and was helpful. After a few days I realised she hadn't given me any unsolicited advice, thanks Mum! When dd2 was born no-one was half as excited so very few friends came to see us once home. My Mum came out again tho and was good with dd1. Actually the problem here in Spain is that hospitals expect family to come and help out 24/7 so the wards are full of other peoples relatives. Dont want to offend any ethnic minorities but I was just grateful I wasn't sharing a room with a gypsy lady and her 20 relatives... I did get a loudly snoring husband in an easy chair 2 nights running tho....