Husband invited family without my consent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make them stay in a hotel and husband is responsible for feeding/entertaining the guests. But I’m going against the grain here and going to say that not making some accommodation to have grandparents meet a grandchild in the first month is weird. If your parents in law aren’t helpful make your husband put them to work. But your child is THEIR family. If they were so awful you would have mentioned it in your original post. You need to not think of yourself as the queen of the universe because you’re not. People wonder why families don’t work any more.

Your DH should have discussed it with you, though.

OP here. They are not awful but I’m still healing from childbirth and learning how to be a mom. Our son is just a little over 2 weeks old. It’s hasn’t been that long.

Cancel the friends not much you can do with the parents. This is a good time to say hey I’m going to go nurse the. Any and go sit in a room for an hour every 2.5 hours. When you are done, bring the baby back and they can burp/change it while you nap or shower. Do not lift a finger for these people!

Remember actions have consequences. When you are at the recieving end dont come to DCUM and post. DH's family is not helping me

[Anonymous]

I have 4 kids and it took until the 4th for my dh to learn not to do this. When we have guests, I do everything so zero chance I was taking on that with newborns. I did have his parents visit but was the bad guy and switched their location to a hotel 2 blocks away. Our pediatrician flat out said our preemie couldn’t have houseguests. My in laws thought I was insane that I wouldn’t let them walk straight in from an international flight and grab our baby. I was happy to be the bad guy and protect my newborn. You need to do the same and also preserve your sanity. With houseguests you don’t fully get to keep your schedule and that’s not fair while you’re already on little sleep and figuring everything out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make them stay in a hotel and husband is responsible for feeding/entertaining the guests. But I’m going against the grain here and going to say that not making some accommodation to have grandparents meet a grandchild in the first month is weird. If your parents in law aren’t helpful make your husband put them to work. But your child is THEIR family. If they were so awful you would have mentioned it in your original post. You need to not think of yourself as the queen of the universe because you’re not. People wonder why families don’t work any more.

Your DH should have discussed it with you, though.

OP here. They are not awful but I’m still healing from childbirth and learning how to be a mom. Our son is just a little over 2 weeks old. It’s hasn’t been that long.

Cancel the friends not much you can do with the parents. This is a good time to say hey I’m going to go nurse the. Any and go sit in a room for an hour every 2.5 hours. When you are done, bring the baby back and they can burp/change it while you nap or shower. Do not lift a finger for these people!

Remember actions have consequences. When you are at the recieving end dont come to DCUM and post. DH's family is not helping me

Anyone making postpartum about anything other than caring for Mom is dead weight anyways. The "help" will always be worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MD here. If your newborn spikes a fever at less than 4 weeks he is getting an IV, lumbar puncture, blood cultures and an admission at our ER (one of the subspec Peds EM depts in the DMV). Multiple out of town houseguests around your 2 week old is a bad decision, period. Full stop. Summer allergy season is in full swing. Our ER sounded like a TB ward today with all the coughing and sneezing. Resp droplets transmit everything, including tiny amounts of a virus that didn’t make Grandma sick. But can do so for a newborn.

New babies mark huge change in everyone’s life. Your husband can be forgiven for being excited and wanting to share this moment. But there is an opportunity to turn this around and set some boundaries. It does not have to be World War III. But there is no way in this universe or any other I would allow a crowd to roll in around around my new baby, the main reason being that I would not allow my partner to start our family life together making bad decisions. You’re a team. Be that team on this issue.

Listen to this post if you listen to no others, OP. Read it to your DH.

I can't believe people think it's just fine to have guests around a newborn like this. I'm sure they (and maybe your DH) blithely say, "Oh, it helps the baby build up his immune system! Exposure is good!" Unless they are MDs like the PP above, they are simply being selfish and dangerously ignorant.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand moms who gatekeep babies like this. It really makes me sad to think that my kids would do this in the future. I absolutely love newborns and hope to see my grandkids right away. I think staying in a hotel is a good compromise and limiting it to a small bit of time.

I have a toddler now- they grow so quickly, so fast. I guess I had the opposite problem though. Everyone wanted to crowd the hospital room and gave me no space. But when we came home we didn’t get one single visitor. I think the loneliness really bothered me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Make them stay in a hotel and husband is responsible for feeding/entertaining the guests. But I’m going against the grain here and going to say that not making some accommodation to have grandparents meet a grandchild in the first month is weird. If your parents in law aren’t helpful make your husband put them to work. But your child is THEIR family. If they were so awful you would have mentioned it in your original post. You need to not think of yourself as the queen of the universe because you’re not. People wonder why families don’t work any more.

Your DH should have discussed it with you, though.

OP here. They are not awful but I’m still healing from childbirth and learning how to be a mom. Our son is just a little over 2 weeks old. It’s hasn’t been that long.

Cancel the friends not much you can do with the parents. This is a good time to say hey I’m going to go nurse the. Any and go sit in a room for an hour every 2.5 hours. When you are done, bring the baby back and they can burp/change it while you nap or shower. Do not lift a finger for these people!

Remember actions have consequences. When you are at the recieving end dont come to DCUM and post. DH's family is not helping me

So...she's supposed to clam up and pretend this is all fine, in hopes that someday in the future it "earns" her some kind of help from them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a strange dynamic to me. You just had a son. So you will one day be the MIL excited to meet her grandchild. I am frankly surprised they have waited almost 3 weeks. I do think asking them to stay in a hotel is reasonable, but if you have room why not have them stay with you and have your husband be in charge of hosting duties? I have 4 children and my out of town in-laws met each of them within a few days of birth. I was grateful to have an extended family who embraced my children/their grandchildren. I think this is just part of the deal and all this boundary talk is why people have such difficult relationships with their in-laws. They are family. Their visit doesn't have to be perfect, but let them in. It truly takes a village.

+1 this thread is sad to me. My out of town in-laws (and my own parents/siblings) came within days of all my kids’ births to stay with us. I’m surprised MIL isn’t disappointed she had to wait 3 weeks. Newborns change so much in the first month.

My mother saw our DC at about six weeks. Stayed in a hotel. Had the supremely good sense to limit her time in our house and ASK me and DH specifically how best to help when she was in the house. She had our undying gratitude for being so sensitive to the idea that new parents might want some privacy with their baby and with each other. It is not "sad" if people don't see a new baby right away, PP. It's sensible and in no way affects their love for the child, the child's love for them. But it definitely can make the new parents very pleased with those relatives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the length of visit and where is everyone staying?

OP here. They will be arriving next Wednesday and staying until Sunday. They are all staying at our home.

Absolutely not. He can book then an airbnb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s the length of visit and where is everyone staying?

OP here. They will be arriving next Wednesday and staying until Sunday. They are all staying at our home.

OMG, no. Not with a newborn.

[Anonymous]

Some new parents in my extended family said nobody could come see their newborns, born two years apart, unless they had received some kind of shot, I can't remember what it was. If they didn't get the shot they had to wait until the baby was 3 months old to visit. Those kids are now 7 and 5 so that time frame. The upshot was that very few friends or relatives, including me, went to visit until after the babies were 3 months old. Is this not a thing that others do? I think their pediatrician told them to require it. The babies had no unusual issues that might be the reason, just full term healthy babies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a strange dynamic to me. You just had a son. So you will one day be the MIL excited to meet her grandchild. I am frankly surprised they have waited almost 3 weeks. I do think asking them to stay in a hotel is reasonable, but if you have room why not have them stay with you and have your husband be in charge of hosting duties? I have 4 children and my out of town in-laws met each of them within a few days of birth. I was grateful to have an extended family who embraced my children/their grandchildren. I think this is just part of the deal and all this boundary talk is why people have such difficult relationships with their in-laws. They are family. Their visit doesn't have to be perfect, but let them in. It truly takes a village.

+1 this thread is sad to me. My out of town in-laws (and my own parents/siblings) came within days of all my kids’ births to stay with us. I’m surprised MIL isn’t disappointed she had to wait 3 weeks. Newborns change so much in the first month.

You sound like a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some new parents in my extended family said nobody could come see their newborns, born two years apart, unless they had received some kind of shot, I can't remember what it was. If they didn't get the shot they had to wait until the baby was 3 months old to visit. Those kids are now 7 and 5 so that time frame. The upshot was that very few friends or relatives, including me, went to visit until after the babies were 3 months old. Is this not a thing that others do? I think their pediatrician told them to require it. The babies had no unusual issues that might be the reason, just full term healthy babies.

Pertussis. Whooping cough. This is legit. Everyone should do this. Having a newborn with whooping cough is no joke. It’s easy for adults to get the vaccine. Thai should be standard procedure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had our sweet baby boy an earlier this month. We had local family meet him in the hospital and our extended family got to meet him over FaceTime. We had discussed family eventually but to meet him but didn’t have any set plans. My husband drops the bomb today that he forgot to mention to me that he invited people over for this weekend ( friends) and his family ( parents + brother) plan to come meet our son at the end of next week. I’m pretty furious. He looked genuinely surprised that I was upset by all of this. Would I be an Ahole if I called and canceled? Should I just shut up and have them come?

Wait, so 90% of the posts in this forum are women complaining about the “mental load” of everything they have to stay on top of—including organizing family get-togethers— and the other 10% of posts are just women complaining when men actually do take the initiative on these issues?

Issuing an invitation is not carrying the mental load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MD here. If your newborn spikes a fever at less than 4 weeks he is getting an IV, lumbar puncture, blood cultures and an admission at our ER (one of the subspec Peds EM depts in the DMV). Multiple out of town houseguests around your 2 week old is a bad decision, period. Full stop. Summer allergy season is in full swing. Our ER sounded like a TB ward today with all the coughing and sneezing. Resp droplets transmit everything, including tiny amounts of a virus that didn’t make Grandma sick. But can do so for a newborn.

New babies mark huge change in everyone’s life. Your husband can be forgiven for being excited and wanting to share this moment. But there is an opportunity to turn this around and set some boundaries. It does not have to be World War III. But there is no way in this universe or any other I would allow a crowd to roll in around around my new baby, the main reason being that I would not allow my partner to start our family life together making bad decisions. You’re a team. Be that team on this issue.

Listen to this post if you listen to no others, OP. Read it to your DH.

I can't believe people think it's just fine to have guests around a newborn like this. I'm sure they (and maybe your DH) blithely say, "Oh, it helps the baby build up his immune system! Exposure is good!" Unless they are MDs like the PP above, they are simply being selfish and dangerously ignorant.

+1

We learned this the hard way. First spinal tap at one week old. Horrible.

[Anonymous]

I don't get this, they had visitors at the hospital on day 1? But 2 weeks later no one?