Hellobee Boards

Food!!!!!!!!!!!! People were allowed to come over to visit (but had to call us first and ask) but they had to bring food in return.

My mom would come by once in a while to let me sleep. She would clean my dishes and do my laundry. Those things alone made the transition with baby easier. Lasted about 3 weeks.

My mom is extremely housework-focused and less baby-focused, so I was REALLY lucky because she did exactly what I wanted. She kept food cooking 24/7 on the stove (3 kinds of soup so I wouldn't get sick of one of them), cleaned the house, did the laundry multiple times a day... she even changed our sheets and made our bed every time we left the house to go to the pediatricians or doctors. She stayed for a month. This time around she's going to stay a lot longer, but this time more focused on the baby since she'll be our childcare while I work. I'm really looking forward to having her help!!!

My mom is my best friend, and she was insanely helpful after LO was born. She came about a week before LO did, stayed a week and a half after he was born, and came back when LO was three weeks old and DH went back to work. Her philosophy was that it was really important for DH and I to only have to worry about caring for LO, and she would take care of the house, the dog, food, laundry, etc. It was perfect. (She also got PLENTY of time with LO).
One thing that I would do differently with a future LO is make the rule that guests are not allowed to stay for more than a couple hours unless I'm comfortable being essentially topless in front of them. BFing was really hard those first few weeks, and I could not manage to get LO latched and feeding well if I was worrying about being super discrete. My dad came up for the weekend after LO was born, but he didn't stay with us and he was good at staying out the way when I was feeding, but my FIL was kind of oblivious, and (despite the fact that he TOTALLY doesn't care if I BF in front of him and he's a physician so it's not like he's never seen random boobs before) and so I felt like I had to leave and go sequester myself upstairs when feeding LO, and that got real lonely and real frustrating, real quick. Whereas when it was my mom or sister or DH's godmother (who also came to stay for a week and was great), I could just hang out, boobs out, on the couch watching TV while feeding LO.
I will also say that I was kind of a hormonal and emotional wreck early on- I was SO exhausted, and I had a hard time telling people what I needed in a calm and rational way. I was lucky that DH was able to step in and kind of mediate and be the one to tell friends and family what we wanted in terms of visitors and when it was time to leave.

Like @blushink said, FOOOOOOOOD!!! It was so nice to have my mom around for 2 weeks feeding us. It would have been nice to have had more help since I was alone after that but I also quickly became a pro at baby care since I had to do everything myself.

I want someone to cook and clean for me and also hold, feed and bathe the baby when I am too tired to. Ideally I dont want anyone staying with us, just want a someone who can magically appear when I need them. I think more realistically though, my mom will stay with us a for short while.. we'll see how it goes

I don't have any kids and am not pregnant, but I have thought about this quite a bit already!

Ideally, my sister would travel by herself to stay with us for a while at first, but that's not likely to happen because she has a 3 year old of her own (who is likely to be at least 4 or 5 by the time we have our first) and could very well have another baby by the time we have one. And I think having her whole family around right at first would just be too stressful for everyone, so I could see them coming to visit after we've gotten more settled in.

My FIL lives nearby (20 minutes away), so he'll come and visit frequently, but I think his "help" will mostly be in the form of bringing over take-out (which I am sure we will definitely appreciate!).

My parents live over 12 hours away, so they'll be visitors when they come to see the new baby. Unfortunately, as wonderful as she is in nearly every other way, my mom is "hands-off" (it's hard to explain, but suffice it to say that I definitely don't see her doing our laundry, cleaning our house, cooking meals in our kitchen, etc.). And I think my stepdad will be really uncomfortable with all of the talk about breastfeeding, diaper, etc. talk, and I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable breastfeeding around him, so having him around will just make things more awkward for everyone. I wish there were a nice way to ask my mom to come out alone at first and then have my stepdad come out with her a little later on! (Same with my sister!).

Our plan right now is that we don't want any overnight help the first two weeks after baby arrives. We are open to friends stopping by to visit but we want to get a handle on taking care of her on our own first, especially without either of our mothers butting in. Once DH goes back to work, my mom will come stay for a week or two to help out. I don't know how I feel about MIL doing similarly...I think she's offered but I may wait and see how I am feeling and if I think it will be helpful or not.

Our LO is 4 weeks tomorrow. We live in the UK and my parents in the US. DHs parents are dead. We didn't have any help. My parents came for a one week , starting at day 17, visit where they stayed at a nearby hotel.
This was perfect for us. We didn't really want/need much help and we fad plenty of time to bond as a family unit. My mom did lots while she was here which gave me a nice break,

Honestly, I don't want anyone staying with us. Not my mom, not his, I just want it to be us. Both sets of our parents live close by, and my mom has already said she will be taking a 1-2 week vacation to be available if I need her. I'm sure at some point I'll need her help, but I just don't feel comfortable having someone else staying in our home while we're trying to adjust and bond as a new family. It just seems like an intimate time that I don't particularly want anyone else to be a part of.

At 34 weeks, we still haven't made a plan for visitors/help (we are such slackers). DH has 2-3 weeks off (he will decide how much he wants to take once LO is here). Our entire families live 3 hours away, so any visits will likely be overnight visitors. My Mom has 5 days she can take off of work for personal leave, then she will need to head back to work, and my Dad runs his own business, so how long he can be around will be contingent on how busy his work is at the time. I think they will likely come out right away, and stay the first week. We haven't discussed with the IL's what their plans are, I think they haven't stayed long when any of the nieces/nephews were born, so I think we are thinking they would come for 1-2 nights only near the beginning, but I really don't know. My sisters will likely want to be up to visit pretty early on, but due to space they might have to either stay at a hotel, or wait until either the IL's or my parents go home.

I have been an NICU nurse for 6 years, so I am really confident in the baby care aspect. DH is amazing at functioning on little sleep, so as long as I can teach him what to do, he will be an awesome help. He is also super organized so I think he will take the majority of the cooking/cleaning/laundry on. Neither of us are very comfortable in expecting people to take care of our personal "chores".

It was so helpful to have my mom cook all of our meals, help clean, do laundry, and take care of our LO so I could get some rest and get on the computer.
DH and I also got to step out alone and it was really nice.

My husband was home for two weeks after the birth. Both my mom and stepmom stress me out so it was better that they didn't stay over, but they did visit periodically in the beginning to cook food and take care of the baby so that i could sleep. That was nice.