Coping with visitors after having a baby

Congratulations! You can finally bring your precious little bundle home from hospital, you’ve been waiting 9 long months for this special time. It is very likely that there are lots of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends who are all very excited to meet your new arrival. You are exhausted after labour and wanting to settle into your new family life, it is understandable that you may well feel slightly intimidated by the prospect of loud and excited people.

You can’t stop them from wanting to come, but you can make sure that the experience isn’t too much for you or your baby as much as possible.
These tips may help things go smoothly as they meet the newest member of the family:

1. Try to limit numbers

Babies can be easily over-stimulated and may become unsettled by crowds or being held by too many people. Yes, everyone wants to see you and wants new baby cuddles but the sensible thing to do is to try and limit visitors and to ask them to leave when you think either you or baby needs a break.

2. Let them help

Your visitors will love being able to help you out so try to let them as far as possible. Give them jobs to do from putting on a load of washing to bringing you a home cooked meal. You will be glad of the help in those first few weeks and they will be more than happy with a cuddle with little one in return.

3. Try to ignore the advice if its too much

You may have noticed this during your pregnancy with advice being given on a wide range of topics such as breastfeeding verses bottle, finding out the gender, clothing, and what you should and shouldn’t eat. Of course, you may be grateful and they may be giving you the answer to questions you had, but you don’t have to accept their opinions. Finding your feet as a new parent means figuring out some of the trickier elements for yourself.

4. Embrace the new mother look

You’re beyond tired, hormonal and you’ve just given birth! So, it’s perfectly okay to answer the door with milk stained clothing, dark circles and greasy hair. Embrace it.

5. No need to run the hoover round
Please do resist the temptation to just run the hoover round, people wont expect it and it is unnecessary pressure to put on yourself.

How did you deal with visitors after having a baby? Let us know in the comments below
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