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You didn't mention one single thing about her husband. He needs to man up and put his wife's needs first...before his family's. He will set the precedent by calling his family and saying, "We're going to have a quiet Christmas Eve at home this year with the baby, we will see you at x time at so-and-sos house on Christmas Day" Then he needs to stick with it.
THIS^^^^
Your daughter's husband is the one who should be managing the relationship with HIS family. And he should be advocating for his wife and child. You gotta do what you're gonna do, and leave your daughter and her husband to work this stuff out.
Back off, Mom -- she's a big girl, now, and needs to figure out how to negotiate these issues with her husband. Do what is comfortable for you, but try very, very hard to stay out of your daughter and your son-in-law's decisions on this.
She married into this family, so I'm assuming that she knew that they were far more socially active than your family. What did she think, they were all going to turn into homebodies after she married into the family? This is THEIR family traditions, and they are just as important to them as yours are to you. New Mama needs to toughen up and, with her husband, learn how to set some reasonable boundaries. She's stressed over the holidays? Who isn't?
Thanks for the input, everyone. She is going to put her foot down about not taking the baby to church or any Christmas Eve parties. I didn't mean to sound critical of her in-laws - they are good folks and I like visiting with them very much, but more of on a smaller scale. I don't care much for parties.
I had suggested having Christmas at HER house, where everybody could come over and see the baby - discretionally - and she wouldn't have to take him out. We had Christmas dinner at her house a few years ago, but she didn't like having all that company in her house. I did all the cooking, and I didn't think it was a big deal. Like I said in a previous post, she's not very sociable and it is very hard on her.
BTW I bet that 95% of the pediatricians and gynecologists would have been absolutely horrified for a new baby & new mom to go through all that stress so it definitely won't be a lie.
It is a good time for your daughter to start setting boundaries with her husband's family.
Agreed, but at 6 weeks many new mothers are back to work full-time. No OB-GYN is going to give the mom of a baby that age a pass for a simple party. The vaccination situation, however, is crucial for an infant too young yet to be vaccinated itself.
I'm a low-key kinda gal (a bit of introvert) myself so I get that she doesn't want to go to parties and church.
But the issue I see here is that she doesn't want to spend any time over the holiday with DH's family. It sounds like she only want spend time with her family. She's invited her family to their home for Christmas Eve/Day but not his. That's not really fair to DH who may want him, his wife and the baby to spend some time with his side of the family. It seems a little one-sided to me.
And I'm not talking about dragging the baby out to a party but isn't there some time on Christmas Eve/Day that they can have a low-key visit with his side of the family which may mean she should invite them to her home. How about hosting a Christmas day breakfast? That would at least eliminate the "party" atmosphere and a lot of the drinking (just don't serve mimosas).
It is probably too late for this year (a week before Christmas and probably all the gifts have already been purchased) but for next year she should just set a precedent by announcing (well in advance before her in-laws start shopping) that they will now only be giving gifts to the children of the family and then give the adults a nice Christmas card.
Really, no one is entitled to a gift and if anyone complains, they are the petty ones.
I don't think she should come up with excuses. She just needs to learn to say no, the first time is the hardest. She can just say she's made other plans.
Families fall out over less. My lawyer friend told me he has had clients in the probating of a will go to "war" over Ma's tupperware.
It is once a year. I tend to think the couple needs to handle this on their own BUT it needs to be a consideration that family is important, even vital, these days. Building family unity is more important than a few days of inconvenience. I think some level of sacrifice is worth it especially for the child's sake.
Babies are resilient critters. However, I would be reluctant to put a child in a nursery (at church) during the flu season. I think a mother has every right to call ALL the shots on that and that is not negotiable. No one has more claim or usually the interest of a child at heart more than a mother. The husband needs to man up on that one and support his wife.
That's what I told her. We could stay home and babysit. Her in-laws and all the relatives expect her to bring him out, though. He's only a month old. Thanksgiving was tough on her, because she was still recuperating from a tough birth and there were over 30 people there passinghim around - not to mention a lot of them drinking. She doesn't want to go through that again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by germaine2626
There are many pediatricians who would have absolutely forbid parents from taking a newborn infant large gathering so soon after birth. The pediatrician of my new grandson said that everyone who was going to have close contact with him in the first month absolutely, positively had to have their whopping cough booster shot, no exceptions. I really doubt that DH's family made sure that was true.
Personally, If she needs an "excuse" this year I would "blame" the pediatrician. "The doctor was absolutely horrified that we exposed our new baby to so many germs and second hand smoke at Thanksgiving and made us promise that we would not take our newborn into a large group setting again until he was at least six weeks old." (as long as that falls after Christmas) Back that up with some infant death & serious damage statistics after a baby gets Whopping Cough and you should be set.
BTW I bet that 95% of the pediatricians and gynecologists would have been absolutely horrified for a new baby & new mom to go through all that stress so it definitely won't be a lie.
It is a good time for your daughter to start setting boundaries with her husband's family.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ukiyo-e
Agreed, but at 6 weeks many new mothers are back to work full-time. No OB-GYN is going to give the mom of a baby that age a pass for a simple party. The vaccination situation, however, is crucial for an infant too young yet to be vaccinated itself.
I disagree. Even if you start your six week old at a day care center, how much smoking is going on? And how many drunk adults will be passing your child off to other drunk adults at the day care center? Of course, I'm just being silly.
Also, this baby is a month old, there is still a big difference between a month old and a six week old infant. Your pediatrician may Green Light taking your child to day care (where everyone is up to date on their shots) but still express some doubts to a huge family reunion with a lot of smoking and drinking going on and maybe adults without booster shots.
However, I was mainly referring to the Thanksgiving party in my comments. If the baby is a month old now then he was only about a week old when he went to the huge Thanksgiving party. See the parts that I highlighted in red. I do think that most doctors would have been horrified to learn about the Thanksgiving Newborn Baby Hand-off Game. The new mom & dad could use that as an excuse if they didn't want to attend all of the festivities at Christmas.
Of course doctors and family expectations vary dramatically. My son was born a few months after my cousin's son was born. She and her new son were released from the hospital a few days before Christmas during a cold streak in Northern Minnesota. Her pediatrician said that it was fine to take her newborn son outside as soon as he got out of the hospital if he was "dressed for the weather". It was 10 below zero----not wind chill----actual temperature and she took him Christmas shopping several times. When my son was born in May, his pediatrician said that it took babies a week or so "to regulate their body temperature" so he shouldn't spend a lot of time outside "where he could get chilled" in 40 degree weather. Her pediatrician said attending gatherings were fine as soon as he got out of the hospital. My pediatrician said that he preferred that his new babies not be exposed to large groups of people, go shopping, attend large parties or weddings, even have their own baptism until they were at least a month old and preferably six weeks old.
Last edited by germaine2626; 12-17-2013 at 05:16 PM..
Yes, but there's no need to insult the entire family by blurting out that "the doctor said we shouldn't expose Baby Gaga to all your germs!"
Family dynamics change when the first grandchild is born. This is normal and natural. The daughter should pick one event to take Baby Gaga to, and then for all others, tell everyone that with a newborn in the house, they are staying home this year.
There will be more holidays to come. She has to learn to deal with this on her own.
Your daughter and son in law need to be firm and tell everyone what they are going to do when.
We never took our children anywhere we did not want to go, especially when they were not very old and the mere thought of taking my 2 week old baby to someone's home for Thanksgiving did not and would not ever happen.
Currently we do not do the Christmas Eve/Christmas Day visits. Our children have children and they spend that time at home with their children so the children can have their gifts first thing Christmas Morning.
We visit between the day after Christmas and New Years Eve and we are always home by 5pm on New Years Eve; we don't want to have to deal with those who think it is a good idea to drive drunk.
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