Family visiting the baby after delivery
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For the birth of my 1st, we were pretty close to family. We relocated about 8hrs away prior to having our 2nd. We had a 3 week no visitation policy for both kids though lol. No hospital visitation at all for my 1st. My parents came to watch our oldest when we had our 2nd so we did break the rule for them. Outside of my parents for our youngest, no one met or saw them in any fashion until they were 3 weeks old+. No photos were sent, no one knew induction dates, I don't post them or updates to SM. People knew my soft due date but that's all I'd come off of lol. There were many factors to our decision but the biggest one was that we just wanted to adjust to our new normal without the pressure. Those early days are a lot and I never knew how recovery would go. The last thing I wanted was to be navigating all that new, and having to "host" or "mediate" being so fresh postpartum and all that entails. Maybe offer specific dates as to when you're accepting visitation to curb the self inviting on their end?
I've also seen people do scheduled visits and time slots. It allows people to feel like their in control by picking the time, but also limits the length of the visits. My friend did Thursday 5-7pm and Sunday 12-3pm. Obviously it'll be different for you since you're further away from family but you may be able to adapt something similar, or even put a cap on the # of people at a time.
We are taking the first ~3 weeks to get settled with our baby before any family are welcome to come stay 💕 it’s all in the communication, wording and boundaries
Well for me my mother is watching my other children while I'm in the hospital so of course she will meet her then. But even if she wasn't my mother is dying. She's 14 years in to what she was told was a 5 yr death sentence. She's still trucking though. This baby is named after her. She would be invited to meet her within seconds of her being born. My dad is working probably so it'll be a day or two before he meets her. My inlaws live 16 hours away but are coming at the end of the month to spend several weeks with us.
For my first we had everyone meet him right after birth. For My second we didn't allow visitors until I had been home a week and this time for my 3rd were waiting until he's gotten his first set of vaccines. This decision was made because when he's born his older brothers will be back at school and we really wanna limit the new baby's exposure to people and germs. We haven't really talked to family about our boundaries yet for this time around but we will when it's get closer to the due date. The only people who will meet in the new baby in the hospital are his older brothers.
It’s definitely dependent on how you’re feeling after birth. If you don’t think you want the company politely tell them you’re not up for guests right away. If they’re mad about it then they can be mad.
Nobody should be inviting themselves, you two should be doing the inviting. My FIL and SMIL we invited to come from Arkansas to Texas with our first, they saw her within 2 hours of her being born and then they went back to Arkansas. MIL helped us bring the baby back home, my parents met my daughter right after birth but didn't stay long. My SIL came and spent a couple hours with me later that same day. After that though, nobody came to visit unless I asked them to come!