@shanan So much this! We're not on a SUPER strict schedule for naps and bedtime, but those things need to happen eventually. Any time we see friends, they come yo us because we can hang out and do whatever, take a small pause to put LO down for naptime or bedtime, and then continue hanging out, PLUS all of his stuff is at our house. It works SO WELL and I don't get why other people don't want to do this.
@truthandpeace Agreed.. but on the flip side we ended up doing that with our in-laws because it’s even worse if they overstay their welcome. When we brought the baby there, we could stay 45 min then leave and say we needed to feed/nap/change whatever.. but having visitors stay more than a little while was the absolute worst and so we ended up bringing the baby to them to avoid long visits.
@ajflyguy7 I can't decide if the lingering by non-parents or by people who are parents is worse.
We had a child-less friend couple that visited 6 weeks after birth who brought a cooler of beers and asked "what's for dinner?" When I asked them what their plan to get home was, they suggested they just stay the night. Thankfully my partner stepped in, I was about to lose it.
@jessfoss01 I learned pretty quickly that I prefer option 1! I would much rather have the choice to leave when I need to. I had friends come over when my LO was 5 weeks old. They stayed until 1am. And that was the last time I ever did that!!
@truthandpeace I have a 4 year old and it's still hard to bring him over to visit people if they don't have kids. Not just the toys I need to bring because they don't have any (nor do I expect them to!) but the whole environment is just not kid friendly. My mom in particular has a Pinterest worthy house full of fragile things in precarious displays (like a couple wood crates stacked on each other) and I'm afraid my kid is going to knock something over. My SIL had a candle warmer going in the hallway the last time we visited - my son bumped the table but thankfully it didn't spill. It's stressful to worry he's going to break something, and it's no fun for him to be told to be careful, don't touch that, etc. Yes, he should learn to slow down and be gentle, but visiting family shouldn't stress us all out. And now with a baby it would be too hard to watch him and the baby at someone else's house. So they can come here or not, but we're staying home.
@maya3006 I think this is where I would say, “if I come to you, if the kid breaks anything that’s not childproofed it’s on you. Feel free to come to me.” Too much pressure!
@truthandpeace No the hell you are not being dramatic. People who expect brand new parents to pack their baby up and go see them early on are BONKERS. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I seriously feel that’s selfish as fuck to expect new parents to do that.
@truthandpeace I wish I had been more firm about it in my daughters early months, but now I just don’t care. If people want to see us, they know where to find us. And not surprisingly, my in laws have come over ONCE in the last year, so clearly they didn’t want to see her all that bad after all. We don’t have a bad relationship or anything, I just really value my two days off with my kids more than anything that could possibly be at anyone else’s house.
@truthandpeace So my baby was 1.5 months on Christmas, not even. My sister decided to complain that we weren’t coming to Christmas Eve because my husband works in law enforcement and had to work and I didn’t want to drive over an hour myself with a newborn, not knowing how the weather would be, how tired I would be, etc. Plain and simple, I didn’t want to come and this is something most people can grasp as to why. I was then told, “well, there’s more of us than there is of you, so why should we have to drive to see you?”
@zach_ I have a friend who had her baby about 2 weeks before Christmas. Their family didn’t understand why on earth they didn’t feel like making the 2+ hour drive to them for Christmas. With a newborn. After just giving birth. They even have other family that was in the same area as the new mom so it wasn’t even a “more of us to travel” thing. So my husband and I made the drive to their house and we made dinner and had a lovely time just the 5 of us (we typically spend Christmas Day with these friends and their family).
