Just say no to visitors
OK, expectant parents, this one is for you. I know that your people are SUPER excited to meet your new baby, and you’re excited to show your baby off, but I suggest you say no to visitors in the first week after giving birth.
To support this unpopular opinion, I’m going to give you a fictional example of something I’ve seen many times working with hundreds of new families in the hospital as a maternity nurse and lactation consultant.
First time parents, Sam and Nellie, had planned on an uncomplicated vaginal delivery of their daughter. After 2 days of slow labor progress which affected the baby’s heart rate, they ended up with an unplanned cesarean birth instead.
At birth, baby Adeline needed respiratory support and went to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Sam and Nellie only saw their daughter briefly before she was taken there. Nellie was experiencing nausea from the spinal anesthesia, and Sam was worried for her, as well as for Adeline. Once Nellie was a bit more stable, they asked to go see Adeline, so Nellie was taken to the NICU on a stretcher. Sam and Nellie were worried when they saw their girl hooked up to all the equipment, but felt relieved that they could see and touch her.
When Sam checked his phone, he had several missed calls and multiple texts from family wanting information. Sam wanted to reply, but wasn’t sure how. He decided to send a quick text to Nellie’s parents updating them with a few details.
Sam and Nellie had been awake for over 2 days at this point, with a few very short naps here and there. It was about 7:00am and there was a lot of hustle and bustle in the hospital with shift change happening. Sam and Nellie were beginning to feel really overwhelmed. The texts and phone calls from family kept coming, the nurse was checking Nellie’s vital signs and incision site every hour, and Nellie was hungry, nauseous, and exhausted.
At around 9:00am, the nurse wheeled in a hospital-grade electric pump for her to use every 3 hours while she and Adeline were separated. Nellie had been expecting to be blissed out and holding her beautiful baby in her arms at this point. Instead, she was worried, stunned and using an intimating-looking machine that wasn’t exactly comfortable. Nothing was going as planned and now she was concerned because she only saw a few drops of colostrum inside the pump flanges.
Nellie’s mom called again and Nellie decided to take the call. Her mom said she was on her way. Although Nellie wanted to see her, it didn’t feel like the right time, but she didn’t want to disappoint her.
Nellie’s mom arrived just as Nellie was settling in to take a nap at around 10:00am. She stayed for over an hour, asking lots of questions that they didn’t have answers to. Nellie was happy to see her mom but also was really ready for a nap. Her mother eventually left, saying she would be back later with Nellie’s father. Meanwhile, Sam’s family were asking to come see them in the afternoon.
The rest of the day was a blur of pumping in between visitors, housekeepers, dietitians, nurses and doctors coming and going, and spending time with Adeline in the NICU. Sam and Nellie had zero time to sleep.
Around 6:00pm that evening, Adeline was doing better and was able to be moved to the couple’s postpartum room. Now, with her nurse’s help, Nellie was starting to learn how to breastfeed. There were a few feeds that felt effective, but others that were difficult and didn’t seem to go well. Overnight, Nellie and Sam took turns holding Adeline, who didn’t sleep for more than a few minutes in the bedside bassinet.
For the next few days, their family continued to visit, wanting to hold the baby and keeping this couple from resting and learning how to feed their baby.
By day 3, they were ready to go home. They were completely exhausted by the cumulative lack of sleep, the worry about how breastfeeding was going and how they were going to survive at home without a call bell.
This couple had little to no control over how Nellie’s labor and delivery progressed, or what their medical needs would be after delivery. What they did have control over was the visitors. By the time the birth happened, they realized that they really didn’t want visitors but it felt too awkward to tell their family not to come.
Now, imagine that during pregnancy, Sam and Nellie had discussed how they wanted to handle visitors in the first week after delivery. While they wouldn’t have been able to anticipate exactly how they would feel, they could have gained some clarity and understood each others’ values. Sure, discussing this with family might have felt a bit awkward, but in the end, their family would have agreed to respect their wishes.
Instead of leaving the hospital feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by the lack of sleep, this couple could have said no to visitors and asked their nurses to cluster their care so that they could sleep between feeds. Feeling more rested would have allowed them to handle the stress of the early postpartum period with more confidence.
If you are expecting a baby, here are a few questions to discuss with your partner before your baby arrives:
How important is it to you that our family visit while we are in the hospital? How about once we are at home?
Are there any family members that you really want to see, but others that you don’t? How do you want to handle that?
How would it feel to talk with our family about this now?
What happens if we change our minds about visitors later?
Do we want to designate one person to be in charge of keeping boundaries with visitors? Often this is the non-birthing person, but it doesn’t have to be.
So much is out of our control around childbirth, but this is one piece that new parents can control. It’s not easy to have these conversations, but setting boundaries for your family unit is an important skill, not just around the time of birth, but throughout parenting.
Even without a cesarean or a stay in the NICU, the first week or so after the birth of your child is difficult. You’re recovering from labor and birth, learning how to breastfeed, riding the waves of a HUGE hormonal shift and sleeping in small chunks. You’re also probably spending the day topless because your baby is nursing so frequently.
Give yourself, your partner and your new baby the space to spend time together as a small family unit. This will allow you to sleep when your baby sleeps and nurse when your baby needs to nurse. All of this focus on rest and recovery will help you get off to a better start with breastfeeding and will benefit your milk production.
So, resist the urge to allow a parade of visitors into your hospital room and your home in that first week, and instead, get the rest that you need and deserve. The visitors can wait. And once they do come over, make sure they bring you a delicious pot of soup or casserole.
