We all know the excitement and anticipation that comes along with bringing a new baby home. All of your friends and family have followed the progress of your pregnancy, adoption, or surrogacy. Now, the bundle has arrived and they all want their turn to visit, hold, bounce, swaddle, and coo over them. But what is best for you and the tiny one? This is the perfect time to discuss the boundaries that you will need to implement in regards to visitors.
Of course, you want to share in the joy, but your first responsibility is to yourself and that new baby. Putting those needs first should never come with a guilt-trip. Anyone who tries to hand one of those to you needn’t bother. Here is a simple list of rules to help with those first few weeks. Do not be afraid to inform your guests of this list prior to their visit. If they can’t support this and respect your boundaries, they can wait and visit once the baby is older.
Don’t expect to hold the baby during this first visit.
Stay away if you are sick.
No kissing baby on the face or hands—your germs transmit to their hands and we all know babies always put their hands in their mouth. Let’s do our best to keep those germs away.
Please wash your hands first.
We appreciate it if you would avoid strong perfumes.
No posting photos without permission. It doesn’t matter if you are the grandparent, godparent, auntie, or Lady GaGa herself, if you did not grow said tiny human, adopt or gain guardianship of, then I repeat—DO NOT POST! “But the parent has pictures all over social media, what’s the difference?” I control who sees my posts, I cannot control who sees yours. DO NOT POST!
Give our crying baby back to the parents.
We appreciate no unsolicited advice.
Ask first, don’t just show up. We may be napping.
We love short visits; it allows us to keep baby on schedule.
Keep noise to a minimum, baby may be napping.
Sticking to these boundaries will ensure that your new family will settle in with the least amount of anxiety, stress, and distractions. This is the time to explore and enjoy each other.
You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “That’s all fine and good, but are you going to tell my parents they can’t come to visit their new grandbaby right away?” Having a child means having tough conversations. Let’s start with the grandparents because they will have plenty of opinions on raising their grandchild. Generally speaking, grandparents mean well. Oftentimes, they will not understand your way of parenting. Your choices for nutrition, clothing, or even what name you choose can be up for debate because that is, “Not how we did that in our day.”
We want to foster a positive relationship with our parents and have a solid foundation for our children and their grandparents. How do we manage this? Boundaries, set them, and do it now. Immediately following this, you need to have a conversation. Be sure that the grandparents, aunts, uncles, or whomever understand why these are in place. It is not uncommon for people to think boundaries were made to keep them away. Alleviate any fears of this kind. Remind these loved ones that you want to foster a healthy relationship between them and your baby. Don’t be afraid to remind them what a great job they did with you as a parent, and now you need the space to emulate that. You can appreciate their advice, but you feel disrespected if they don’t trust you to parent your way. Lastly, tell them that this is their time to relax and enjoy the fun stuff. You parent and they can play!
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