tips on creating "boundaries" for learning to BF a newborn?

[pomegranate]

i am due with baby #4 in november and i don't have a good history BF (i have another thread in BF challenges if you want the details).

one thing i would like to do after this baby is born to hopefully help establish BF is to "room in" with baby for at least 2 weeks. (hopefully that will be semi-feasible with 3 other kids!)

what i am worried about is how to manage the other people who will be eager to meet the new baby. specifically my in-laws, and my dad to a lesser degree. i am totally comfy letting my boobs be all over the place in front of my mom and my close friends, but NOT with my dad or in-laws.

i am quite confident that my dad will be understanding about my desire to room-in and therefore have him visit once early on and then not until after the first few weeks. HOWEVER, i don't think my in-laws would be as understanding. they are older (69 and 77) so, i don't want to be totally callous and just tell them to go away. but, when they visit, it is always too long. i find that annoying normally, but insufferable with a newborn.

so - does anyone have any diplomatic ways to tell them (and others if need be) to just stay away for a few weeks? or a good "meet-them-halfway" plan? i was thinking that they could come on day 2 to meet new baby for a pre-determined and agreed upon time (say, 1 hour MAX) and then just wait a few more weeks until they see the baby again.

your ideas, please

[luv-my-boys]

could you pass the buck sort of...seriously Im due in OCT and im deflecting people by saying that our HCP has brought up *the flu* and how we should keep her from too many people when shes a nb until her immune system is better after a few weeks Most people I have said that to were like "oh yeah, she's going to be so tiny" and totally move past the when can we come questions.

[SilverFish]

can you delegate that to someone else? are you planning to have a post partum doula? with other kids and a rocky breastfeeding history, i'd recommend it. that's what i'm planning to do next time, anyway. that can be one of her main jobs, making sure visitors leave you alone... basically, just stay in your bedroom, IN bed, IN pjs, and have her usher people in and out of the room quickly. if they make an issue of it beforehand, i'd say something like, "oh, the older kids and dh are really looking forward to spending some time with you!" and maybe make some plans for them to all get out of the house while you nap and nurse?

anyway, this is not something YOU should be dealing with... delegate to a doula and definitely to your dh.

[sparkysgirl]

can't you just say, "i need to feed the baby, could I have some privacy?" or just tell them you need to take a nap.

[AmyKT]

I don't have any answers, but I'm worried about the same thing. Breastfeeding didnt go well with my first and I'm determined to do better this time, but I know that won't happen unless I'm comfortable. My MIL can't seem to take a 2 hr trip without my FIL, so that's going to be awkward, and anyway, I felt like I was exposing my boobs too often even to my mom and MIL last time. They got to where they didn't even think to knock before walking in on me. I'm so not into that idea this time.

I'm just going to speak up and let people know how it is this time. They know how much I want things to go differently this time, so they'll just have to understand. If they don't, we'll deal with the hard feelings in a month or so. I hope it works out for both of us!

[jessica_s]

I'd recommend keeping the baby skin to skin with you as much of the time as possible. SO what you could do is either have DH or if you feel comfortable call them up and tell them what's going to be going on at your house. You will be hanging out, pretty much naked with your baby and it's really important for the baby to be skin to skin with you (you know, Dr's orders ) and so you'd gladly have them come over and bring something to eat/help with kids/hang out but you might not be able to visit with them much more than a few minutes. Skin to skin has a TON of benefits and also facilitates nursing and being very responsive to your infant. So do it for real!
It might be helpful if you have a place to host them and a separate home base place for you, the bedroom usually works well. That way the entertaining doesn't fall on you and people don't usually come hang out for a long time in a bedroom. There isn't anywhere to sit besides the bed and it feels like a private space to most people. I'm not saying you have to hole up in there, but if you were in the living room you either have to leave or ask someone to leave which can be uncomfortable for some.
I'm a pp doula and so I want to say I think it would be really great if you can get one. Ask about breastfeeding knowledge and about their experience helping mothers, breastfeeding your own is certainly good but it doesn't mean you can automatically be great at helping others. Check out La Leche League in your area (call around to find a Leader you click with and attend a few meetings) and also get set up with a Lactation Consultant (who has IBCLC behind her name) before you give birth as well. Get a team going to help you out!!

[crunchy_mommy]

We had BF'ing issues with DS & we had to request that no one visit. We told my mom & she took care of telling my side of the family, and DH called my inlaws to let them know. Basically he just said baby & I were doing well but have feeding issues so we needed to hold off on any visits until baby starts nursing well. They were really upset but we had to do what was best for DS.

Now next time around I am thinking of doing no visitors again and just let them know we'll tell them when we're ready. We might specify a day when baby is several days old & say something like "we'll have visiting hours at our house from 3-5pm" (or whatever) so they can all meet the baby. Then when 5pm comes I'll just scoop up the baby & say "Thanks for visiting, we'll let you know when we're up for more frequent/longer visits! Have a good night!" type of thing....

[mambera]

Could you just keep the baby in a Moby all the time, with eg a button-front shirt open underneath? Baby will stay skin-to-skin and can nurse discreetly in front of visitors.

[SilverFish]

Originally Posted by mambera

Could you just keep the baby in a Moby all the time, with eg a button-front shirt open underneath? Baby will stay skin-to-skin and can nurse discreetly in front of visitors.

this might work well after a few weeks, but i know that when we were first getting started with bf (2 weeks in the NICU, so we were starting from scratch basically when we got home), i needed EVERYTHING off to see what i was doing and lots of freedom and space to cry, scream, hand the baby off, lie down, stretch etc. none of that is particularly compatible with a bunch of visitors with whom you don't feel overly comfortable. the space to be physically AND emotionally naked was really important to get over that nursing hump (especially if you are needing to fiddle with tubes and syringes and shields and ointments and what have you). the idea of trying to "nurse discreetly" was completely beyond my comprehension!

[smpayne]

I found I couldn't nurse just anywhere, too many positioning variables that didn't work, so I set up a spot in the nursery that worked for me. Every time I needed to feed the baby, I just took the baby to his room and closed the door. If I didn't care if anyone followed, I just left the door opened. We would "disappear" for at least an hour while he nursed. But it gave us a quiet private place away from everyone else.

Scheduling never worked for us, because if we tried to arange someone's visit, baby would pick that day to do everything backwards.

When baby starts getting fussy and needs to nurse, just ask the ILs if they would be willing to take the other kids to the park, library, McDonald's, etc. I'm sure the other kids will need extra attention at this time anyway and it will give them away to extend their visit without sitting around waiting on you to finish nursing.

Besides if ANYONE stays more than a 1/2 hour, give them some household chores to help out with.

[Bellabaz]

Well after about an hour your dp needs to come in and say, well its been nice to see you. But now mom and baby need to rest. Call you tomorrow/later this week. Or send them out with older kids. Can the olders do an overnight or 2? Keeps gps happy and gives you more time to babymoon.

[Quinalla]

I would limit the amount of visits to whatever you think is reasonable and then when they are there, after 20 minutes or whatever makes sense, just say you need to nurse the baby and go up to your room for as long as you need, then come back down to visit and repeat as needed. Say she is a slow nurser, so it takes awhile, or whatever. Have DH entertain them otherwise.

I know during the first 2 weeks, I didn't care when people came by (unless they were helping) but I was not a hostess those weeks and I did whatever I needed to do and didn't worry about guests. Let your DH handle them and do whatever you need to do.

[octobermom]

In the begining if we had a visitor and the baby needed to nurse and I wanted more privacy I just said excuse me the baby needs to eat and went to go do that. DH took over entertaining the guests till I was ready to return.
I made sure there was a comfy spot in a "priviate" area of our home (bedroom ect) to ensure I could escape..

Deanna

[texmati]

I'd try a couple things-- make sure that all visitors know that baby could need to nurse at anytime, and that mom may need to rest, so they can plan their visits accordingly. I'd also have an 'host' on hand-- may be dh or your mom, or your older children, but don't take that job on yourself. We'd also have our laptop hooked up to our tv, so when ds was sleeping/nursing/screaming, the host would bore the guests with baby pictures. by the time that they were able to see the baby, they were pretty much over the cuteness.

Finally-- get a robe and fuzzy slippers, make sure to wear them when guests come over. Walk extremely slowly, and make sure the place is a mess. you do not want to make people think that you've recovered enough for a long visit!

[pomegranate]

thanks so much for all the ideas everyone

i will definitely work on my delegating skills (i'm generally a micro-manager ) my ILs need a lot of TLC when they are here, so i am really hoping to just keep them away for the first few weeks - the "flu" is a GREAT idea plus i think i will have DH have a talk with them prior to birth to say that there will be a no visitors policy for 2 weeks. the only exception will be my mom who kind of ends up being my post-partum doula

thanks again for the tips, i have more ideas to fine-tune my plans

[lolar2]

Originally Posted by Quinalla

I would limit the amount of visits to whatever you think is reasonable and then when they are there, after 20 minutes or whatever makes sense, just say you need to nurse the baby and go up to your room for as long as you need, then come back down to visit and repeat as needed. Say she is a slow nurser, so it takes awhile, or whatever. Have DH entertain them otherwise.

I can think of two relatives off the top of my head who used this exact method, and they both said it worked well for them.

[blessedwithboys]

hang a small dry erase board on your front door that says "Visiting hours: X-Y:00pm, FIRM". dry erase so you can change it based on that days needs. passive-aggressive? yes, but you do what you gotta