Is there any expectation on a family member who stays “postpartum”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

Why didn't your husband help?

We were both young and clueless. He was in a panic realizing he was a father (I guess the whole pregnancy wasn't real?) and decided to frantically job hunt to earn more money (he was making something like $18 an hour then, in 2015.) He was really freaking out. I was a wreck too.
Things are much better now, he does more than his share and we would be experts if another baby came now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

Why didn't your husband help?

We were both young and clueless. He was in a panic realizing he was a father (I guess the whole pregnancy wasn't real?) and decided to frantically job hunt to earn more money (he was making something like $18 an hour then, in 2015.) He was really freaking out. I was a wreck too.
Things are much better now, he does more than his share and we would be experts if another baby came now!

Sounds like my DH. He had 2 weeks’ leave and was so panicked he went back to work early after day 8 without even telling me. He told me later he “just needed some time to know it was real.”

Oh, to be able to pretend an entire child wasn’t real!

[Anonymous]

It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

[Anonymous]

7 hours. In a car. With a 3 week old?!

Not ONE person said “hey, this seems like a bad idea?”

Wtf. You win the thread. I’m so sorry, PP.

[Anonymous]

I’m the PP with the baby snatcher MIL. Like many couples, we try to have major communications with ILs come from my husband. So I was not present at the conversation where he told them that they needed to stay in a hotel. So when they showed up with suitcases and started making themselves at home my sleep deprived brain was really struggling. Had he not actually told them that they needed to stay at a hotel? Had he somehow implied he didn’t really mean it like they said? Who knows, I honestly still don’t understand the level of entitlement they were projecting! I/we did what we could prior to the birth but people have to be decent. Also how are you supposed to know what you’re going to need beforehand? I sure as sh*t was not expecting to be destroyed to the extent I was by my birth experience. I have never felt as battered and exhausted as I did at that moment in time and I’ve spent significant time in the ICU with a life threatening illness. I think there is a lot of white washing of the experience of pregnancy and child birth and a lack of understanding that it can be fine or it can kill you and it can be anything in between. So if you are going to show up in someone’s life at that time you should be ready to be helpful or at ASK what they need or you should wait until they recover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. And this is really hard for some people, particularly women, but it's so important, and it's particularly important once you have children:

You have to advocate for what you (and your family) need.

Without apology, equivocation, or being open to interpretation.

If someone wants to stay with you the week after your baby is born, you think about what you want and if that's reasonable/doable. Okay, you only want someone who will be helpful (duh). Given who your MIL is and your history with her, if you tell her, "we would love to have you, but only if you can help with cooking, cleaning, and household tasks" will she do it? If no or maybe or if you're unwilling to ask and state your needs freely, then the answer is, "No, MIL, you cannot stay with us that week."

We told everyone (three sets of grandparents plus aunts and uncles) they were welcome to come when the baby was born but they needed to stay in hotels. And most of them did! (Some opted not to travel.) We invited only my mother and stepfather to come back and stay with us for week three, because we knew they'd be helpful if we asked. No one else was allowed to stay with us during the newborn stage.

Was my mother disappointed not to be able to stay with us that first week? Yup. But I knew what I needed that first week was some space and my husband. Was my dad disappointed to be staying in hotels the first six months after each of my kids were born? Yup. But he is not helpful (I'd call him neutral - makes about as much work as he saves) and that's not what I need postpartum.

For what it's worth, I have a great relationship with my parents, all three of them, and they visit frequently and we visit them and they're all close with the grandkids. But YOU need to advocate for YOUR family. No one else (except your husband, hopefully) is going to do that.

So stop focusing on what they did ("was it rude that they didn't help?") and start focusing on what you did ("You know what? I expected them to just jump in and help and I never said that. I need to remember next time to ask for help or not invite them")

The casual dismissal of reality here is really something.

This comment is basically saying women are not only responsible for everything, they’re also responsible for coaching men and relatives through acceptable behavior, even if those people are perfectly able-bodied adults with an equal amount of intelligence and much better functioning bodies. And it ignores how pregnant women are affected by the patriarchy and misogyny.

I have always been a very strong, capable, outspoken person. But from the second I got pregnant I was surprised by how many people attempted to or did bully me: medical professionals, relatives, and even friends. It was shocking to be as physically vulnerable as I’ve ever been and have people respond to it the way they did. I liked being pregnant and love my DC but in some ways was treated like an incubator for those 9 months and the 1-2 years after.

We don’t talk about how our society decides that pregnant women are their property and also somehow no longer capable of thinking for themselves.

As someone who advocated for myself and was branded controlling by my spineless DH who was afraid of everything postpartum, and a b-tch by my MIL, I am pretty sure that most women here already advocated for themselves or considered it and realized how ineffective it truly is.

+1

I just posted about being pressured/guilt tripped into traveling with my newborn way before I was ready so my ILs could meet the baby, and being treated really poorly on that trip and really resenting it.

Should I have said "no, I will not travel until I feel physically ready and the baby is older"? Yes. Was I actually capable of doing that while sleep deprived, stressed, dealing with massive hormone shifts, and just generally feeling overwhelmed and isolated, as many new moms do? No, I wasn't. In the first conversation about when we would visit them, I said "I'm not ready" (this was days after the baby was born). The second conversation was a week later and I still stated I wasn't ready but started getting heavy guilt trips, including from my DH. The thing was, he was also getting heavy guilt trips, and he didn't feel he could push back because his dad was sick. He was in a really challenging headspace as a new dad and, like me, struggled to push back. It was brought up again and again and eventually I just gave in and said okay. It was a horrible trip and remains an awful memory.

I did find my voice eventually, when my hormones had settled, I got treatment for PPD, and we settled into life as new parents. It took almost a year.

I believe the obligation in those first weeks and months is NOT on the new parents, who are just trying to figure it out. And especially not on the new mom who is undergoing a massive physical, mental, and emotional ordeal and should not be expected to be some superwoman who can self advocate at every moment or have to suffer the consequences. The obligation is on the people around the new parents to not be selfish jerks, to practice a smidge of empathy, and to have some patience and forbearance instead of thinking exclusively about how important it is that they get physical access to the baby.

Stop blaming the woman you just got out of the hospital, has raging hormones, and has gotten a max of 2-3 hours of consecutive sleep since the baby was born. That person is the only one who is blameless here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

As if the baby’s father doesn’t want to also bond with the baby during what is probably a one week unpaid parental leave? What a B.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:7 hours. In a car. With a 3 week old?!

Not ONE person said “hey, this seems like a bad idea?”

Wtf. You win the thread. I’m so sorry, PP.

Babe, it was 7 hours each way. I am not winning anything here. And actually in retrospect it was definitely more than 7 hours total of travel time because she was an infant and I was nursing and did not have the hang of pumping (or really anything) at that time, so I remember having to stop multiple times both ways so I could nurse. I sat in the back with the baby and was just kind of catatonic the whole time.

Thinking about it is upsetting me, I think I'm going to have to leave this thread. But yeah, I have some big feelings about the expectations placed on brand new moms to make their babies available to eager grandparents as rapidly as possible regardless of the mother's actual needs. I am team mom on this one no matter what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s too bad she isn’t more helpful, but try to just accept that she is who she is. I can tell you that many of her generation do not see or understand why they would help. Eg, if you ask my parents, they will tell you they broke their backs raising 4 kids who are now self sufficient and they are done taking care of others. They want to enjoy their golden years. We expect zero help from them, no babysitting, etc. But we have plenty of visits where they enjoy seeing and interacting with the kids. I dictate the terms that work for us in terms of schedule and plans and it works just fine. (My MIL is actually the far more helpful and considerate grandparent and we are grateful for her for sure.)

Feel free to stand up for yourself as well, just don’t let yourself become bitter over unmet expectations. Eg “no, MIL, there is no dinner plan, would you be willing to order something while I feed the baby?” Or whatever.

That’s fine if that’s your relationship but then that’s not the sort of person you’d have come stay in your house after you’ve had major surgery like a C section and are sleep deprived and hormonal. You’d just ask them to come visit in a few weeks and stay in a hotel. And that should be fine. If they ask to come as soon as you’re discharged and ask to stay as a houseguest, they need to help you recover or they’re just terrible people , period

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

As if the baby’s father doesn’t want to also bond with the baby during what is probably a one week unpaid parental leave? What a B.

+1. Also my DH was eager to help me during that time but he was (1) also exhausted, as he was doing nighttime wake ups as well and he'd also, like me, been awake for 48 hours at the hospital during my labor and was just wiped out, and (2) was also adjusting to the reality of being a dad and feeling overwhelmed and could have used a steady hand being like "here, I will make everyone peanut butter toast." Like no one was expecting a gourmet meal or to have the house cleaned top to bottom. We just needed literally anyone to be like "here, let me help with with that, I know this is a lot." Anyone.

My single biggest regret was not hiring a postpartum doula to basically come and be this person. I was worried about the expense (in retrospect I would have paid 4x what it cost and not cared if it meant I had to scrimp and save elsewhere) and also dissuaded by a friend who had done it and said it was weird having a stranger in the house.

I would have LOVED a stranger in the house if she'd been helpful and caring as opposed to entitled and rude. Huge upgrade over the immediate family members we had who didn't seem to care about either of us at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the PP with the baby snatcher MIL. Like many couples, we try to have major communications with ILs come from my husband. So I was not present at the conversation where he told them that they needed to stay in a hotel. So when they showed up with suitcases and started making themselves at home my sleep deprived brain was really struggling. Had he not actually told them that they needed to stay at a hotel? Had he somehow implied he didn’t really mean it like they said? Who knows, I honestly still don’t understand the level of entitlement they were projecting! I/we did what we could prior to the birth but people have to be decent. Also how are you supposed to know what you’re going to need beforehand? I sure as sh*t was not expecting to be destroyed to the extent I was by my birth experience. I have never felt as battered and exhausted as I did at that moment in time and I’ve spent significant time in the ICU with a life threatening illness. I think there is a lot of white washing of the experience of pregnancy and child birth and a lack of understanding that it can be fine or it can kill you and it can be anything in between. So if you are going to show up in someone’s life at that time you should be ready to be helpful or at ASK what they need or you should wait until they recover.

+100 on not knowing what you need beforehand. Like you just have no idea what state you are going to be in mentally and there is really not any way to prepare for it. The point is that older generations should actually know a bit better and be ready to offer it, I am honestly baffled that a woman who had been through childbirth would pull some of the crap people are talking about on the thread but they all did. I am guessing they all had even worse experiences and are just paying it forward? Women have long been treated like crap around childbirth. But wow would it be great if they would instead think, with empathy, that this is an opportunity for them to break a negative cycle and offer the next generation something they never had, rather than taking it out on their daughters and daughters-in-law. Just deeply dysfunctional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is absolutely rude and I would also be pissed. If you visit a new mom within the first month (minimum) after birth, you should be helping in some way and you should treat the new mom with some deference as she's recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. Just from a practical standpoint, the new mom is dealing with massive hormonal swings that can make her emotionally tender and you should be thoughtful of that. But especially if it's a first child, she's also undergoing an identity change and deserves some extra TLC. So does the new dad. If you don't want to sign up for that and want it just to be about YOU meeting the baby... you can do that from a hotel via short visits. If you can't afford that, you can wait until the baby is older. Sorry.

I traveled TO my ILs home when my DC was 3 weeks old after much pressure was placed on me to do so because my FIL was ill and could not travel. I didn't feel ready to travel and was still bleeding. It was a 7 hour car ride both ways. I was not even offered hospitality while we were visiting -- they planned a party for a bunch of people to come over against my express wishes that it just be ILs and my husband's siblings and that I was not ready to see other people and didn't want to be passing my newborn around to a bunch of people I barely knew. No one except my DH made any effort to take care of my physically (like even just checking to see if I needed a drink while breastfeeding) and my MIL complained repeatedly that I was "hogging" the baby.

I repaired my relationship with them but never truly forgot this. I still think of them as fundamentally selfish people.

Omg I blacked out that my MIL pressured us into driving 4 hours to stay with them for the weekend when I was about 4 weeks post partum , for a cousins baby shower. I don’t know why we agreed to go!!!! Probably just totally clueless , as new parents, and not yet used to putting our foot down for our new nuclear family. (Because before the baby of course we’d have gone up for the shower- it didn’t cross my mind that after the baby I’m totally free to say no, I’m post partum and no). It was awful. I was so sleep deprived and the drive was still hard on my C section scar. I felt like I had to get dressed and be awake on time and be pleasant with relatives when I was hormonal and miserable and exhausted. Plus we were sleeping on a sofa bed which is what we always slept on when we visited and it hadn’t even occurred to me that this was horrid to do to new parents and their newborn.

I remember my MIL being like “I’m sure it was so hard for you to come but I really appreciate it” and that’s when I realized, I may be clueless about adjusting to being a new mom but she isn’t clueless at ALL and knew exactly what she was asking of me. This is the same MIL who came to stay with us and sat around holding the baby while I cooked and cleaned, announcing “I just want to hold the baby and not cook or clean”. Man I shouldn’t have read your post because the anger is coming flooding back at remembering this!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom informed me "I'm not coming over to cook and clean when you have an able bodied husband sitting there who can do all that. I just want to see the baby." I guess she has a point but I was swimming in PPD and just needed help.

As if the baby’s father doesn’t want to also bond with the baby during what is probably a one week unpaid parental leave? What a B.

Yeah that's also true! Honestly I felt like she was worrying more about sticking it to my husband ( who she always felt didn't deserve me for not making $$$) than about her own daughter who was hanging on by a thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think if a family member asks to stay at a new mom’s house in the week post partum she’s required to help in some way?

I’m asking because MIL stayed for a week a day after I had our baby and didn’t get me a glass of water, didn’t cook a single meal or help in any way and I thought it was really rude.

Oh Jesus can we go for five minutes without bashing a mother in law? Does anyone have any new material?

If MILs (and mothers, as is apparent from this thread) would please stop doing these extremely rude and entitled things, I'm sure the complaining would stop.

The fact that so many women have stories of their MILs being entitled horrors in the weeks after the birth of their first child should tell you something. I know there are MILs who aren't like this, but whew there are plenty that are like this and they should be called out if only to send a message to future generations that this is a surefire way to make your DIL freaking hate you.

[Anonymous]

My own mom was the same and my DH is still pissed at her 10 years later.