Carole makes a good suggestion if you are short on space it is a good excuse.
Mine and my Hs parents live approx an hour from us and they just visited for couple of hours max (although next time we might limit the mumber of visits a bit more) they were good visitors in that they usually brought something for us to reheat for our dinner etc but it still used up our family time and meant I was forever popping upstairs to fed littel one (don't underestimate how long it can take for you bot to master BF let alone BF discretly). Lots of visitors also mant we didnt sleep when little one slept.
Dont get me wrong having visitors is great especially the ones like my sister who brought lunch with her and then told the visiting mid wife that actually seeing a different mid wife every visit was not helpping anything. but I think you do need family time and also if you want to spend the day in pijamas eat take away and watch junk tv because you have been up all night you should be able to.
I would suggest both sets of parents have a visit for a few hours early on (if poss) but no overnight/ long visits until little one is setteld in and you are all used to each other. Even then tell H he can cook or ILs can fend for themselves if they arent happy with when meals are.
I can't think of anything worse, especially if she is expecting meals and lifts like you mentioned she did before your wedding! You'd think as a mother herself she might realise what it's like in those early days, that you might want some privacy when you're possible suffering a bit in pain from the birth, trying to get BFing working, and generally bonding as a family.
A couple of hours is ok, and all that we had from anyone (all that I could have coped with, even my own Mum at the time), but a couple of weeks seems ridiculous.
I wouldn't have wanted anyone staying over, but I think I'm a bit unusual in that I relished having visitors over the first few days. I felt really low after the birth and having people round really cheered me up. I got quite teary when I was at home with just H (or just my mum when H was at work).
We got home from hospital at around 4.30pm and we had our first lot of visitors at 5.00. The final set of visitors were my parents, sister, BIL and their baby and they stayed until around 10ish when we went to bed. My mum and sister came round and spent the whole of the following day with me as H didn't really have any paternity leave.
I had a c section so spent the first two days in hospital, on the day he was born I was strict on it only being immediate family visiting (our parents and sisters) as I had a catheter in and was 4 hours post operation although I was up and about. My second day my H large family descended and I had 12 visitors at one point, it was really overwhelming and if I did it again I would only have immediate family at the hospital! When we got home my mum and MIL popped back and forth with meals to help with housework etc, so were fab. My mum had said before I had the baby, kick us out when you want and whilst we are there make us do things for you- give us jobs so and H can just sit with the baby so that was good. I'm the opposite in that I loved having the visitors but I always felt like I would ask them to leave when needed.
Love your thinking Carole but we live in a 3 bedroom! There is our room, spare room and what is now the nursery. During my week off next week l am putting the finishing touches to the nursery.
I couldnt think of anything worse! The parents visited us in hospital then we banned everyone for 2 weeks! It's such a special time for you to bond with your new arrival. You will be sore as you say, knackered, probably tearful and will feel like you aren't sure what you are doing for a while. The last thing i wanted was to worry about tidying the house or looking after anyone but our new little family.
Replies
Carole makes a good suggestion if you are short on space it is a good excuse.
Mine and my Hs parents live approx an hour from us and they just visited for couple of hours max (although next time we might limit the mumber of visits a bit more) they were good visitors in that they usually brought something for us to reheat for our dinner etc but it still used up our family time and meant I was forever popping upstairs to fed littel one (don't underestimate how long it can take for you bot to master BF let alone BF discretly). Lots of visitors also mant we didnt sleep when little one slept.
Dont get me wrong having visitors is great especially the ones like my sister who brought lunch with her and then told the visiting mid wife that actually seeing a different mid wife every visit was not helpping anything. but I think you do need family time and also if you want to spend the day in pijamas eat take away and watch junk tv because you have been up all night you should be able to.
I would suggest both sets of parents have a visit for a few hours early on (if poss) but no overnight/ long visits until little one is setteld in and you are all used to each other. Even then tell H he can cook or ILs can fend for themselves if they arent happy with when meals are.
I can't think of anything worse, especially if she is expecting meals and lifts like you mentioned she did before your wedding! You'd think as a mother herself she might realise what it's like in those early days, that you might want some privacy when you're possible suffering a bit in pain from the birth, trying to get BFing working, and generally bonding as a family.
A couple of hours is ok, and all that we had from anyone (all that I could have coped with, even my own Mum at the time), but a couple of weeks seems ridiculous.
I wouldn't have wanted anyone staying over, but I think I'm a bit unusual in that I relished having visitors over the first few days. I felt really low after the birth and having people round really cheered me up. I got quite teary when I was at home with just H (or just my mum when H was at work).
We got home from hospital at around 4.30pm and we had our first lot of visitors at 5.00. The final set of visitors were my parents, sister, BIL and their baby and they stayed until around 10ish when we went to bed. My mum and sister came round and spent the whole of the following day with me as H didn't really have any paternity leave.
I had a c section so spent the first two days in hospital, on the day he was born I was strict on it only being immediate family visiting (our parents and sisters) as I had a catheter in and was 4 hours post operation although I was up and about. My second day my H large family descended and I had 12 visitors at one point, it was really overwhelming and if I did it again I would only have immediate family at the hospital! When we got home my mum and MIL popped back and forth with meals to help with housework etc, so were fab. My mum had said before I had the baby, kick us out when you want and whilst we are there make us do things for you- give us jobs so and H can just sit with the baby so that was good. I'm the opposite in that I loved having the visitors but I always felt like I would ask them to leave when needed.
I couldnt think of anything worse! The parents visited us in hospital then we banned everyone for 2 weeks! It's such a special time for you to bond with your new arrival. You will be sore as you say, knackered, probably tearful and will feel like you aren't sure what you are doing for a while. The last thing i wanted was to worry about tidying the house or looking after anyone but our new little family.