Husband invited family without my consent

[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.

Smart parents.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I had him cancel friends but his parents will still be coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I had him cancel friends but his parents will still be coming.

OP here. I told him he is in charge of getting the guest rooms and bathrooms set up. I’m not doing any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Exactly. Issuing an invitation for guests to stay in your home w/o so much as a conversation with your partner (who recently gave birth!) doesn't say "Let me do the heavy lifting" so much as "here's a mess I made (and will likely be petulant about). You fix it, or deal therewith."

Did he plan meals? Scheduling? Where mom and baby are going to be able to go to relax quietly w/o the attention of the guests in the house who are there to see/smother them? No, he did not. This is not "carrying the mental load", it's adding to it.

[Anonymous]

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

Reading is FUNdamental, PP. From the OP: "We had local family meet him in the hospital and our extended family got to meet him over FaceTime."

A brief visit in the hospital is not the same as an extended stay at OP's home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I had him cancel friends but his parents will still be coming.

OP here. I told him he is in charge of getting the guest rooms and bathrooms set up. I’m not doing any of it.

Given the circumstances, something tells me you're going to need to be a LOT more specific, unfortunately. Meals, cleanup, laundry, entertainment... He needs a game plan he obviously didn't think to make yet.

I'd suggest you both sit down and really dial in what is/isn't acceptable to you, and what the code word for "get these people out of here" is gonna be.

Don't cave to the pressure. If it's "family" and "family matters", then you're also family, and your wants and needs matter.

[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.

When my baby was 3 months old she had a high fever, I told the doctor my H and I and our other kid all had a virus and she probably had just caught it from us. He agreed, then he told me that I needed to take the baby to Children's Hospital (from Fairfax) on a rainy, cold Friday evening, because they couldn't take a chance with a baby that young. She was there 24 hrs, had a spinal tap, was released once they were convinced it was just a virus. This was years ago, maybe now they would send to Inova, but the point is they don't fool around with young babies with a high fever because the possibilities are daunting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

It’s not gatekeeping, it’s THEIR kid.

If your concern is about what YOU get to see and YOUR feelings, you’re the problem and I hope your kids are smart enough to keep your distance. So selfish.

[Anonymous]

We had grandparents (all four) over the day DC were born. They all stayed in our home. ILs came for 2 days then left and my parents stayed for a week. Then DH parents came back at about a month. It was wonderful.

[Anonymous]

How old is the baby because babies are not supposed to see large group groups of people until they are 6-8 weeks old when they’ve had certain vaccinations. If your baby is younger than eight weeks old, I would tell him he needs to reschedule and absolutely not have people over. I did not have people over until my kid was at least two months old

[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. I would tell him no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had grandparents (all four) over the day DC were born. They all stayed in our home. ILs came for 2 days then left and my parents stayed for a week. Then DH parents came back at about a month. It was wonderful.

Ew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had grandparents (all four) over the day DC were born. They all stayed in our home. ILs came for 2 days then left and my parents stayed for a week. Then DH parents came back at about a month. It was wonderful.

I'm sure it was wonderful. That's because they were probably helpful and supportive and didn't cause any issues. It was also because your newborn didn't catch anything from them. It wouldn't take much though for you to be singing a different tune. So it's a risk that you were willing to take but many others aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is the baby because babies are not supposed to see large group groups of people until they are 6-8 weeks old when they’ve had certain vaccinations. If your baby is younger than eight weeks old, I would tell him he needs to reschedule and absolutely not have people over. I did not have people over until my kid was at least two months old

OP here. He is 16 days old. It will just be my MIL and FIL. They are not sick and also got the tdap when he was born in preparation for coming to visit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can, wait until baby is 6 weeks before exposing to lots of germs. If baby is less than 6 weeks and gets a fever, you are looking at a hospital visit and spinal tap.

This.

Meet outside.