Visitors after baby.

dovesanddragons · June 2014

Apologies if this has been discussed and I missed it somewhere.
For those with family close enough for day trips, how are you handling visitors after you have LO?
At first our plan was no visitors at the hospital and for a few days after we got home. Now I feel like I hate everyone and don't want anyone near me for several weeks after baby is born, haha. Throw some ideas at me. What's your plan, if you have one?

belle785 · June 2014

I didn't mind having visitors in the hospital as long as they weren't there right away so we could do skin to skin and breast feed. It gets boring and it's fun to show off your baby. Plus, if they see you in the hospital, they are less likely to drop by your home the first few days you are home.

kaitm22 · June 2014

We are planning on having visitors at the hospital, but not until well after we have had plenty of bonding time. The only people who are even going to know I am in labor are my own parents. No one else will get called until baby is here and we have had our alone time. Hopefully people will be courteous and know when to leave.

We are a little more nervous about having people at home while learning to breastfeed; hopefully most people keep their visits short. My IL's have been known to overstay their welcome so it is mostly them I am worried about. I would chat with your hubby about the signals and cues you will use between each other when it is time for him to kick people out if you are worried about having a problem. My hubby knows that is going to be his job. On the other hand, if people are bringing me food, I might be less irritable.

kareik01 · June 2014

A friend of mine put it in a good way for me so I have to pass it on. She just had her baby 3 weeks ago and when I asked her wishes for visitors at the hospital, her response was,
"I"ve had 9 months of him all to myself through pregnancy, and I get him for the next 12 weeks on maternity leave. So I want anyone who wants to come to be there because I'm the one who gets to take him home and keep him." Or something similar.

Helped me decide that I'm just fine having visitors

We do have large families so we'll probably by swamped!

BabyM82714 · June 2014

We are allowing visitors at the hospital after we are moved to our post partum room and we've bonded some and she's eaten. At that point we request everyone call before a visit and we will enforce a quiet hour time for no visitors. Hopefully no one stays more than a 1/2-1 hour each day. I worry about BF parents over staying and my grandma. But I don't find it being rude at all to ask people to leave, I mean I just gave birth, I call the shots.

ungraceful13 · June 2014

We kept it to close family and friends in the hospital and for the next couple weeks. Personally I was happy to see people and for them to bring me food.

Most people waited until 3 weeks or so to visit bc then DH had gone back to work and they wanted to help me out if they could.

vk2204 · June 2014

I have no idea what we will be doing. It will just depend on how we are all feeling. H and I talked about just having a few days with the two of us, the baby and our dog so we can start to get used to everything. It also depends on who wants to visit too.

Jenrileysmom · June 2014

I loved having visitors at the hospital. At home, not so much because I'd feel like I had to get the house thoroughly cleaned, etc. I really loved showing off the new baby and I had a lot of family and friends excited to meet her.

caybeh · June 2014

I'm fine with visitors. Our families won't come to the hospital until we tell them it is ok. With DS, I liked having people come to the hospital to visit. Although, we did set certain hours people could visit. As far as once we got home, with DS people didn't really come visit for the first few days. We didn't even tell people they couldn't, they just didn't out of respect and courtesy.

Valancyy · June 2014

I have an uncle who's coming in from out of town right around the time that the baby may be born (assuming I go early again this time). My brother and SIL are also coming in from out of town right around that time.

We mentioned that we would like them to get the Tdap, and my uncle has actually already gotten it. I did mention casually that I wouldn't want to go anywhere and wouldn't want visitors for too long. They understood.

Allison7 · June 2014

My parents will be in the L&D waiting room. I will let them come back once we have done the initial skin to skin, the placenta is delivered, first feeding done etc. my hospital leaves you in the L&D room for an hour or two before transferring you to the mother and child wing. And when we do get moved, my dad will happily go get some food, so that will be a nice bonus. We are going to let people visit once we are in mother and child and I have had a chance to take a shower and clean up a bit. Realistically, I only expect see my BFF and DH's BFF at the hospital.

Once we get home we will have plenty of friends visit. Most of them will come on the weekends, so how soon it will be will have a lot to do with what day she arrives on! I am not going to wake the baby or anything because we have guests - they can wait for her, but I am excited for our friends and family to meet her. We had a crazy journey to get to this point and our friends just want to share in our joy!

shevaCC · June 2014

I surprised myself about visitors the first time around. I thought I didn't want any in the hospital but after DD was born in the evening I was ready to show her off by the next morning. All our family lives out of town but my mom flew in that day and got to meet her in the hospital. Once we were home, having visitors come over for a little bit gave me something to look forward to. That said, I didn't have very many visitors since we had just moved cross-country and didn't know many people yet. It was harder when it was my FIL, my dad, or anyone else who was uncomfortable with me BFing since she nursed ALLTHETIME for a while.

forevermyfenix · June 2014

I'm pretty nervous about this topic in particular. In laws live within 30 minutes from us, and I really hope they don't plan on sticking around for hours on end. My mom lives close by too but she's currently giving me the silent treatment since April. Who knows how long that will last; I'm guessing she'll hear from MiL that I went into labor and suddenly she's going to be interested about "her grand baby" and want to swarm in. My step mom will also be flying in from Texas. Now my mom and step mom do NOT get along, not because my step mom doesn't anything to instigate, but my mom is still very protective of the mom title (my mom lost custody of her kids ten years ago but the step mom is still more enemy #1 in her eyes).

Ugh. So not wanting to be playing referee while recovering.

BeachM · June 2014

It totally depends on the person for me. Anyone who asks to come over and if they can also bring their dog are told no. This happened to me last time, and seriously who brings their dog over to meet a baby?!? Other than that I really have no strong feelings either way this time around. My parents will come and go all the time. I'm sure friends will stop by and any with kids will ask first and let me know if their kids have runny noses or anything, but it's not going to be as much of an issue in August since school hasn't started. I will probably hold off on letting anyone come over for at least a week though since it's hard to move around when recovering from a c/s.

ebp913 · June 2014

LoisLayn23 said:

I liked having visitors, it gets boring fast, and most of them brought food or presents and knew when to take the hint to leave.

This.

Withhope82 · June 2014

Neither my parents nor my in-laws live anywhere close to us so they will have to stay with us when they first see their grandson. So I have asked them to refrain from visiting the first two weeks after birth. My DH and I were firmly set on this so they have accepted it. People might think I'm selfish but I don't think I can handle getting used to being a mom, recovering, and cooking and cleaning for out-of-state guests all at once. I'd go crazy.

ebp913 · June 2014

Withhope82 said:

Neither my parents nor my in-laws live anywhere close to us so they will have to stay with us when they first see their grandson. So I have asked them to refrain from visiting the first two weeks after birth. My DH and I were firmly set on this so they have accepted it. People might think I'm selfish but I don't think I can handle getting used to being a mom, recovering, and cooking and cleaning for out-of-state guests all at once. I'd go crazy.

That's what your guests are supposed to do for YOU.

lizztheo · June 2014

I don't want visitors in the hospital besides grandparents but that's pretty easy for us because the hospital we are delivering at is an hour away. I am hoping to be visitor free at the house for the first week. Unfortunately, DS1 birthday is two weeks from due date and we will be having a party at our house (I have repeated SMALL over and over to my husband who does not understand). I hate having the party at all but if we don't throw a small one, my in-laws will throw one for him and it will be massive. So I'd rather do a small party that we are in control of than show up at their house with 50 people.

mhbraymer · June 2014

With dd we had many hospital visitors but they always came an left which was awesome. With ds the only people who came were my ils and dd which I loved even better. My husbands family all came a week after he was born and since we formula fed they all got to hold him while I slept plus dhs aunt brought a ton of food from Costco! My parents came a few days later and I went up to Seattle with them so my family could meet baby.
This time my only request is my older kids come first with mh and if people want to visit they call us first. And I'm not sure about home visit just yet.

cdseno · June 2014

I loved having visitors in the hospital because my husband ended up having to go to work for a little while and I was bored when there was nobody else there, but I didn't have any issues nursing so it was easy for me to just latch him on while talking to someone. And all my visitors brought treats for me which made it twice as nice

. My sister doesn't always know when to leave though and we have an awkward relationship and I am pretty sure this time she will show up with her 2 year old and 11 year old step-daughter (who is really awkward), so I am prepared to ask the nurses to find a way for her to need to leave not long after arriving. I actually minded home visitors more because some people overstay and it is hard to tell them to go. It is even worse when they bring food for you and then eat some of it like you all want to have a meal together. My in-laws came the first or second day we got home with our first and they brought no food that I liked or was comfortable eating (like full of garlic and a chocolate cake) because I was a FTM breastfeeding and I didn't want to upset my son's stomach, so I had to make my own lunch while everyone else sat and ate a fresh meal. Some people are great to have over, and some just don't get how it works with a newborn.

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