Hellobee Boards

Do whatever your gut tells you and what you think is best for you. DH was very nervous about my mom coming from east coast right away because we butt heads a lot and she is pretty high strung but I knew I needed her and it made first week doich easier

You need to be relax, rest, and enjoy your new baby and if you can't do that with your MIL I'd say hold off

I would literally kill myself. She wanted to stay with my the week before my wedding and I seriously thought she had lost it. First of all we have met like once, we don't get along at all and I have the worst social anxiety in the world.

My MIL lives in Arizona and I live in Utah so luckily she will probably not be coming here when I have kids. We will probably go visit her a couple months later or something.

I would rather chew my left arm off! Omg. I know some people have super helpful awesome MILs, I'm sure mine would love to imagine that she is... But she stresses everyone, myself & herself included, out! It wouldn't be good for anyone if my mil came & stayed with us. We live about 15 mins from them, so if anything I would consider moving to be further away to give us more privacy.

My MIL is a wonderful, wonderful woman. We get along, she is independent and helpful - I really, really couldn't ask for a better MIL! So that's where my advice is rooted....

That said...

She stayed with us from the day after birth for 1 week. I really wish we had insisted she wait longer to come out. It was so stressful bringing the baby home, figuring out breast feeding (and switching to formula), seeing the doctor, going on no sleep, dealing with a brand new baby....it's a huge life change. And having anyone in my home during that time just added sooooo much stress. I was so anxious while she was there that I couldn't eat (that's my physical reaction to high stress, I can't eat and get sick if I do try to eat). And MIL wasn't even demanding at all! She really wanted to help and while I didn't feel I had to entertain her....it was just so stressful to have someone else there (and someone who wasn't my mom, even if she is an awesome MIL), while I was trying to figure out what I was doing. If we could go back in time and redo things, I would have had to her come out after the first few weeks.

Uhh, no. Don't think I could deal with either mom stay with me.

I need my space from both judgemental parents. I love them but they would have to stay at a nearby hotel.

I could barely handle the visits from my MIL that lasted an hour or two much less have her stay with us. She is high strung and makes passive comments. We already stay with them most weekends, and staying home for the weeks after DS was born was much needed for my sanity.

@yoursilverlining: This is my fear! My MIL is super wonderful and I love her, but the pressure of having her stay in my house always gets to me. I can't even imagine when I have a baby for the first time in my life too! MIL and FIL stay with us once or twice a year (they live in NY, we live in FL) and without a baby, they still exhaust me just BEING here. I cannot imagine when Harper is born! And having to explain everything I do scares me too. Like already she's emailing me "You'll need a bassinet to put the baby in for the first few weeks," and I'm all "No, we're going straight to the crib..." Simple things like that, but just having to deal with it or vocalize/explain myself to her/anyone just exhausts me to think about it! You situation is exactly what I imagine will happen to me!

I have two MIL's and I would never, ever want one of them to stay with me. She is way too anxious and seriously talks non-stop. My other MIL is wonderful, and she did come visit a few weeks after LO was born. I was very relaxed and comfortable by then, and my MIL and FIL are very laid back, so it was a great visit.

If I were you, I would not commit either way until you see how you feel post-baby. You may welcome the visit or you may not. It is ok, whichever way you choose. Your MIL will understand if you tell her you are overwhelmed and not ready for house guests.

My in-laws live about an hour away, so they'll be invited up when we go to the hospital and can come back for visits, not stay with us.

Yes, but I am good friends with my MIL and she kept some boundaries, so it worked out great. All I had to do was take care of the baby, she did all the cooking and cleaning. She lives across the country, so she stayed days 3-10. My parents live an hour and a half away, so they came over on the weekends for the day.

I love my MIL and both of our families in general, but there's no way I could have let anyone stay with me. I got annoyed enough with the daily visits. I'm the type of person that very much likes my space, though. If you're having one side of the family stay it does seem only fair to extend the same invite to the other side. Maybe you can ask her if she does want to stay and if she has a preference when?

My ILs came to stay with us about a week after the baby was born. But it was all pre-talked about etc. My mom was there from day 1. I would say the hardest for us was probably a little bit of clashing of the two grandmothers and the language barrier did not help. My mom was trying to be helpful and my MIL was offended thinking she did not trust her with the baby. All in all just a lot of people in a very small house.

@mediagirl: Yes! that was the biggest inconvenience. Having to go into my bedroom to nurse every single time. Made the whole pp loneliness factor worse. When it was just my mom and us I had no problems whipping out the boob. MIL, another story.

DH and I put our foot down and said no overnight visitors the first two weeks. He was off work that entire time and we wanted to get used to our new family on our own for a little while. MIL came during that time period just for a few hours to meet the baby. My mom came for a week and a half once DH went back to work, but I knew I wouldn't be able to have MIL there that long...she came for a long weekend after my mom left, so that DH could run interference for most of the time. I'm glad she was only there that long because she had a lot of opinions about how to care for baby and if I had to deal with that for longer or without DH I would have lost my mind.

my parents live close but my MIL lives 5 hrs away. That said, we are coming home to an empty house when we bring the baby home! If I need help I'll call my mom but my MIL will be headed home. She doesnt know any of this yet and I'm ready for my husband to tell her!

We will invite her over a month or so after the birth to spend some time with the new baby, after we are getting into a routine. That's the lowest stress option I can figure out because she kind of drives me crazy

My parents came to visit when our son was 5 weeks old, I thought it was the perfect amount of spacing, in hindsight. I felt well enough to leave the house, my husband had gone back to work and we all had found our groove, more or less.

Good luck!

@sunshineandsushi: This is how I think I will feel.

Both parents are out of town. They are welcome to come for delivery but will stay in hotels, so i'm not stressing about having the house perfect for overnight guests while I'm trying to pop some babies out of my hoohaw! DH will take off a week or two, and I think it will be just us during that time. Then my mom will come stay for (I hope) a really long time since I know I will be overwhelmed with two babies. My MIL is awesome, and I'm planning on her staying with us, too. But she's a teacher, so she won't be able to come for more than a weekend until sometime in May.

We have agreed to fly my MIL down from New York sometime around the baby's birth, but she won't be staying with us. DH was offended at the suggestion at first so I just told him, the baby will be up all night, and we have no guest bed. Do you really want to put her through that? I just don't want to have to worry about somebody staying with us. So we're getting her a hotel. That whole trip should be nice and expensive for us.

I wish we waited until after a month to have visitors. I was an emotional mess, and having visitors made it worse.

@kml636: She's on a fixed income, so I don't know how else this will work. I don't want to make her sleep on our couch

She's sort of scared of traveling and DH's work schedule doesn't allow us to go up north to see them very often. FIL comes down here for four months in the winter (they are divorced), and my dad lives here. It seems so unfair to just make her pay her way or else not get to see the baby for a year+. I'm really stressed out about the expense though, already.

No way! I didn't even let my own Mom stay with us because she'd stress me out! It was hard enough that my in-laws wanted to visit when she was less than a week old! They didn't even stay long but having to worry about the house being presentable, sleep deprivatio and barely getting into the groove of things made for unnecessary stress, IMO. Maybe if they came over to help around the house and not just to visit I'd have been better. But regardless, it would have stressed me out anyway because I'd hated to hear any comments.