By Amalah of Alpha Mom
Dear Amy,
I am having my first baby in this month. (Yeah!) My family all
lives out of town, but my inlaws are 5 miles down the road. As the
date gets closer, I'm having to deal with everything from my
MIL begging to be in the delivery room (no chance in heck) to the
latest situation of my aunt telling me the whole family is coming
to stay with me at Christmas. One week after the baby is due! Crazy
talk! Even if they do not literally stay in my house, I can imagine
15+ people being more than I can bear, especially at the holidays.
What is a reasonable amount of time for me to recover and bond with
my daughter before permitting extended family to descend upon us
for extended lengths of time? Oh, and any hints for making my MIL
feel useful while simultaneously keeping her out of my
hair?
Monica
Two weeks. You deserve at least two weeks of peace. And by "peace" I of course mean "no family staying with you for any length of time, unless you specifically invite them, and this goes double for in-laws who live within the unannounced-pop-in-visit range."
Trust me, it is worth any amount of hurt feelings and potential family huffiness to absolutely insist on the two-week rule. Those first few days? You will think you are going crazy. You will feel split open and destroyed. Your boobs will be hanging out all time and possibly bleeding. You will be sleep deprived and in shock and completely in love with your new little family and will want nothing more than to pile up in bed with your husband and daughter and just STARE AT HER.
And you will probably not want to share.
Now, some women want their own mothers there, and for some of them that's a wonderful solution. I was not one of those women, although when my mom said goodbye to me at the hospital I did get a little panicked about my Two Week Decree and considered begging her to stay with us. But I knew it would end badly in a few days, and I knew we needed our space.
She came to stay with us the third week, after Jason went back to work. And it was lovely. She did laundry and made me lunch and reminded me to take a shower and a nap. After a week, she left and my mother-in-law came down. Which was also lovely. At first. She stayed busy painting all sorts of cute little animals in the nursery and doing housework, but you know how it is. It's different when it's not your own mother, and I think we both drove each other crazy after a few days.
Anyway, my point is, you must lay down the law NOW, when you are pregnant because people listen to pregnant women more than they listen to hysterical five-days-postpartum women who can't stop crying. Tell your aunt that everyone is welcome to stay in hotels and see the baby in small groups so as not to overwhelm her, and that under no circumstances will you be hosting holiday meals or having 15 people over at once for more than a few hours. And tell your in-laws that they must call before coming over, and again, the visits should be kept short while you get used to the baby's schedule.
You can always change your mind later if you feel up to visitors, but if you're thinking you want some privacy, then demand your privacy and don't let anyone make you feel guilty about it.
More of Amalah's juicy advice can be found on her weekly Pregnancy Calendar.