For the first time in my life procrastinating actually paid off. Couldn't get in to visit my jail bird brother because my drivers license has been expired for a while. So instead of a rotten afternoon of visiting him, my boyfriend has taken me out for a lovely date. Dinner was great and I even got to go baby clothes shopping before the movie!
@phoenix92885 I’m glad your were able to get out of going especially if it means less stress on you and baby(and you got an awesome date night). I don’t think anyone should be pressure to visit someone incarcerated. It’s a personal choice
Anyone else upset by family members visiting after baby is born? With DD we said parents and inlaws could stay until the day after we brought her home and that made MIL pissed. I wanted to heal and BF in private so i stood my ground.
Now they are saying to call when we are in labor and they'll be there. My parents will be at our house taking care of DD and will stay a few days after we come home. So I'd prefer the inlaws wait a week or so to visit, but they are radio silence and i think they are just going to show up.
@tmblickley we didn’t call until DD was born. I was already in the hospital and I didn’t like that my ILs ended up in the waiting room when my water broke and I had to enter the hospital. (Granted, there was no avoiding that since FIL and DH had been running errands together when I told DH to meet me at the hospital; also I appreciated my own dad meeting me at the better hospital I was transferred to, so I definitely have a bias there.) (also, I think my major annoyance was that the nurses were asking if they could disclose info to them, when I was still processing the catastrophe.)
since we need DD to be cared for, I think we have to tell people this time. Boo. But fortunately we have sat down with both sets of parents and the calendar: my parents will only come across the state and show up on the weekends, while my ILs live in town and will probably pop over on a daily basis but not stay long.
for you, I think I’d make it clear in advance that you don’t have the guest room space for both sets of parents at the same time and that the most helpful thing would be to limit stress by waiting a few days after your parents leave. It’ll give you a chance to dabble in being a family of 4 and wash sheets, and then you’ll be grateful for extra hands again to take DD out, to do dishes, to hold the baby while you shower, etc. I mean, people usually like to be helpful and so specifics on HOW they can be helpful might sway them to your preferred timing.
Yeah, I didn't think we were going to have any issues with family, since most of them are out of state. But one of DH's grown daughters (who lives nearby) keeps texting me to make sure I let her know when I go into labor. I think she wants to be at the hospital, but I did tell her that no one is coming into the delivery room! At least I feel comfortable asking her to give me some space when I need time with the baby.
Also - not specifically family-related, but DH's very best friend is going through a nasty break-up with his long-time girlfriend. He lives in San Fran but has mentioned he may need to get away for a couple of weeks while she moves out of their house. Of course I want to help him - and he's definitely not a mooch by any means - but I really hope he's not here when I go into labor or right after the baby comes! I'd much prefer he come out here now. It has me just a little stressed
@tmblickley DH and I sat down a couple weeks ago and had a very long chat about family visiting and what our rules would be. We actually wrote them down together and talked through all of our thoughts. We don’t have the space for visitors, which helps.
We’re going to put my mom up in a hotel nearby so she can come help me out for the first week or so since DH doesn’t get leave, but other than her (and only because she’s helping and I have zero problems being honest with her about my needs and telling her if I need space), we want people to stick to visiting on the weekends. And we’re limiting the amount of time that people can stay as a group (my MIL and SIL fight horribly every time I’m around them so I don’t want that kind of drama on top of a new baby). DH is very much on board to be the bad cop and giving people the boot and we’re going to talk about the rules ahead of time with everyone. Thankfully no one has been to our new apartment and we live about 5-6 hours from most of our family so there’s very little chance of anyone just showing up.
Re: My Crazy Family... a thread to vent
Now they are saying to call when we are in labor and they'll be there. My parents will be at our house taking care of DD and will stay a few days after we come home. So I'd prefer the inlaws wait a week or so to visit, but they are radio silence and i think they are just going to show up.
since we need DD to be cared for, I think we have to tell people this time. Boo. But fortunately we have sat down with both sets of parents and the calendar: my parents will only come across the state and show up on the weekends, while my ILs live in town and will probably pop over on a daily basis but not stay long.
for you, I think I’d make it clear in advance that you don’t have the guest room space for both sets of parents at the same time and that the most helpful thing would be to limit stress by waiting a few days after your parents leave. It’ll give you a chance to dabble in being a family of 4 and wash sheets, and then you’ll be grateful for extra hands again to take DD out, to do dishes, to hold the baby while you shower, etc. I mean, people usually like to be helpful and so specifics on HOW they can be helpful might sway them to your preferred timing.
Also - not specifically family-related, but DH's very best friend is going through a nasty break-up with his long-time girlfriend. He lives in San Fran but has mentioned he may need to get away for a couple of weeks while she moves out of their house. Of course I want to help him - and he's definitely not a mooch by any means - but I really hope he's not here when I go into labor or right after the baby comes! I'd much prefer he come out here now. It has me just a little stressed
We’re going to put my mom up in a hotel nearby so she can come help me out for the first week or so since DH doesn’t get leave, but other than her (and only because she’s helping and I have zero problems being honest with her about my needs and telling her if I need space), we want people to stick to visiting on the weekends. And we’re limiting the amount of time that people can stay as a group (my MIL and SIL fight horribly every time I’m around them so I don’t want that kind of drama on top of a new baby). DH is very much on board to be the bad cop and giving people the boot and we’re going to talk about the rules ahead of time with everyone. Thankfully no one has been to our new apartment and we live about 5-6 hours from most of our family so there’s very little chance of anyone just showing up.