Visitors (rant)

Re: Visitors (rant)

• tylery member

  September 2015

  Oh man, this situation sounds all too familiar! There's really no "nice" way of saying it, so you should just be straightforward with your husband and ask him to respect your wishes as a mother. It's exhausting as is tending to a newborn, and there's no need for additional tension from excessive visitors and their germs! Besides you deserve some bonding time of your own, as well as a chance to catch up on some rest.
  
  Just play the mom card! You carried this child for 9-10 months, and endured labor and delivery; therefore, your husband needs to grant you your requests! (And your requests aren't different than any other mother, lol).

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• honeybee530 member

  September 2015

  Ugh. I could have wrote this post myself! MY DH doesn't believe overstimulating a baby is even a real thing. Well last week after a staff function where as much as I tried to avoid it, LO was passed around like a football and had a horrible night once we got home. Now we have plans to head to our home town later this week and his mother is planning a get together for his enormous Italian family to meet our babe. Like 30-40 people wanting to hold my baby. DH refuses to acknowledge that this could be way too much for his little body and thinks I'm just trying to make excuses because it's his family and not mine. I put my foot down and told him there are two options: cancel this obnoxious get together or have it but I will be the ONLY one holding DS the ENTIRE time. I explained that I will call the shots on this one as the baby and I are the ones who pay the price when LO is overstimulated. Which is a real effing thing. Like PP said...play the mom card. Period. We need to stop worrying about other people and put LO's needs first. If we end up looking like a bitch so be it. I'd rather stand up for my baby than be the nice guy and let him suffer. [-(

  
  

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• JNOVA2015 member

  September 2015 edited September 2015

  I think your expectations are a little unfair. It's not your husband's sole responsibility to limit guests, it's something you do together. It would be an issue if you were trying to get people to leave and he was undermining that, but it sounds like you just want him to be the bad cop and kick people out when you a) don't want to do it, b) haven't been making your own guests leave, and c) haven't communicated this expectation to him in any way. You can see where he might not have gotten the signal that he's supposed to be limiting visitor time. I assume he isn't a mind reader.
  
  Given this, I would have a non-confrontational conversation with no blame. Say something like "it's been really nice that so many people want to meet LO, but it is really draining me. I think we should start trying to limit visitor times to 30-45 minutes and one visitor a day" (or whatever you think you can handle). Then you BOTH enforce what you've agreed on. You don't just sit there politely and expect DH to kick everyone out like he's your bouncer.
  
  FWIW, this will also correct on it's own. After a few weeks your heavy visitor period should mostly have run its course.

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• hcook321 member

  September 2015

  @JNOVA2015 thanks for responding, you definitely make great points. I will say that it's been hard for me to communicate what I feel to him so maybe it is unfair. I'd be perfectly fine with him asking my guests to leave as well but when I really sit back and think about it, it's truly both of our faults. The problem lies in that he doesn't have to do any of the nursing and I'm not pumping at all right now to correct oversupply issues so he may not fully understand how exhausting it is and pairing that with an overstimulated baby makes both of us super cranky because I'm not getting a break to rest. I certainly don't want him to feel like a bouncer so I'm glad you brought that up. I guess I just need to do a better job of communicating to him. I will say however, he does a good job of pushing it sometimes though and it really gets to me. I.e., making me feel bad by sending me articles about a couple taking a 2 week old camping, asking to go hiking this weekend when I'm obviously not cleared/in no shape to be out hiking miles, pushing to have his mom babysit our less than 2 week old at the time so we could go out to lunch when there's no bottles (once again, not pumping), for him if he were to get cranky/hungry and his mom doesn't have the TDAP so I'm trying to limit exposure. He also hasn't tried to limit his mom because he knows she's super sensitive but it drives me up a wall that she calls every single day and that they have visited 6 times in the last 2 1/2 weeks he's been around and he hasn't put his foot down. It's probably just a combination of all things and that we need to sit down and have a good, honest talk about this all...

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• JNOVA2015 member

  September 2015

  That all makes sense. It honestly sounds like you guys just aren't communicating well right now. He certainly could be more sensitive to how overwhelmed you are, but he also won't understand that you're tired and overwhelmed unless you effectively communicate that to him. I think a calm no-blame conversation is the way to start!

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• hcook321 member

  September 2015

  Update- we talked and it went pretty well! I did say I'm trying to be more positive about visitors because I do appreciate that we have family and friends who care for us. He said he'd have no problem supporting me in taking our baby away to go eat or for me to go upstairs and nap. There were other issues to work out too and I'm glad we chatted about those as well. I knew parenthood would be hard but man, nothing prepares you for this at all! Thanks ladies!

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• JNOVA2015 member

  September 2015

  Great to hear!!

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