People helping during first weeks

[ecoteat]

My MWs and a lot that I read keep saying to line up help ahead of time for the first week or two after the birth. My MWs have asked a few times if we have people arranged to bring us food and help with cleaning and stuff. Since this is our first, and we really have no real understanding of what those weeks will be like, it's hard to imagine that we'll really need all that and we feel weird asking people. This is especially true since my husband works from home and has a very flexible work load and I'm not going back to work until September when the new school year starts. My principal offered to organize some meals from the other teachers, which is very nice, but I'm not going to count on it.

So what do you think? Those of you with kids: did you need help at the beginning with your first? Were both parents home and able to keep up with things? Am I expecting too much from myself?

[NYCVeg]

I'm also a first-time mom, but...

We've arranged to have my mom come and stay (not with us) for at least two weeks after the birth to help with cooking, keeping things in order, fielding phone calls, and, of course, getting to know her granddaughter. And if we allow other visitors, they darn well better bring food!

Dh is taking a full two weeks off, but even with that, I think the help will be useful. I've been told to basically expect to nurse and sleep and do nothing else for the first two weeks (my mws feel pretty strongly that the new mama should avoid doing any chores, cooking, etc. to ensure that the placental wound heals properly and quickly). And even though dh is not nursing, I expect he'll be pretty exhausted as well. As my primary support person, labor will be quite a lot of work for him, as well, so he'll be tired from that. He'll be getting my drinks and food during the night when I'm nursing, and doing diaper changes, and I seriously doubt he'd be able to sleep through all the nursing/changing/crying anyway. He'll have to walk the dog 4 times a day, since I'll be out of commission, even with my mom here, pick up a lot of the slack in terms of doing errands and helping around the house. And he may have to do some work (albeit from home) as well.

I think we'll both be much better off having help. From what I've heard from other people, it's wise to take advantage of ANY offers you have in the first few weeks--even if it's just someone dropping off a lasagna, that's one less thing you have to think about when you're exhausted.

I know there are people who do it completely without help, though. But as a first-time mom, not knowing what to expect, I feel it's pretty important for me to have back-up support so that I don't get overwhelmed and can really concentrate on developing my nursing relationship with my dd.

[Marylizah]

Well, I'm a first-time mama too, and am wondering about the same thing.

Here's our plan:

--I have 2+ weeks worth of home-made frozen dinners already prepared, making meal prep easy for DH

-- We have the possibility of getting groceries delivered directly to our apartment, which we'll be taking advantage of

-- We'll have a cleaning lady come in after the birth for at least the first month, probably once a week

-- My mom can't be here until the end of the month, but I know she'll be a huge help when she does come (if baby comes soon we'll have about 2 weeks before she arrives)

-- My DH will be taking off the 1st two weeks (there will be 2 days towards the end of the month when he HAS to be at work, but other than that he'll be home

I'm sure it'll be harder than we think, but we've tried hard to line up some support. We don't have much family here (just my BILs) and I doubt they'll think to bring food or even be able/ interested in helping us out, other than cooing over the baby, but hey. What can you do?

[Peppamint]

I stayed home a lot with my first babe and just cuddled her- I'm thinking dh took a week off work, but it's been five years and I forget. I did a few light household chores like washing up a couple of dishes after dh went back to work but that was it, and occasionally I'd drive to my mom's house 10 minutes away to hang out over there. Otherwise, people came to visit us and I made a few quick runs to the store.

I think it's better to plan for the help and if you don't feel you need it, you can cancel arrangements.

[Boobs]

Not to crash the club, but....

I actually decided to become a postpartum doula after my 2nd was born because I needed help sooo badly and didn't have any. It was very very needed.
I'm sure there are mothers who can do it all beautifully on their own in those first few weeks, but I certainly wasn't one of them. My 4th degree tear made things especially difficult.

Get help if you can. You'll be glad you did.

[DoubleOven]

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[Marylizah]

Just had to add:

A woman I know here who just had her baby 2.5 weeks ago went to the other extreme.

Her mom is staying with them for a month and literally does everything. All the cooking, cleaning and she even brought with her all the decorations for the baby's room and even chocolates and stuff to give to visitors. All in all, her baggage weighed in at over 120 lbs!!

Not only that, but last we heard baby was sleeping with g-ma at night and being brought in for night-feedings to his mama.

The mama only rests and bfs, and dad gets diaper duty.

Now, these are people from a different culture, so it may appear kinda extreme (it does to me) but hey, when I saw the new mama she looked rested and happy. So it works for her!

[JayGee]

My parents came to stay for 2 weeks when my first was due. Unfortunately, he was born 12 days after his due date, so I only got their help for about 3 days before they had to head back across the country to their home! I could have used the full 2 weeks, but what can you do?? After my second, I had a ton of help ~ MIL stayed for 3 weeks, DH took another week off from work, and then my parents came again for 2 weeks. I also had friends bringing meals every other day for the first 2 weeks.

This time my parents are coming for 3 weeks, DH is taking a week off from work after they leave, and my MOPS group is bringing me meals for the first 2 weeks .

[girlsmamma2]

well, i'll jump in here on the other side. With my first dd, she was born at 36 weeks and a winter baby so we were super worried about her catching something and getting sick. My dh stayed home for 2-3 weeks but other than that we didn't have any help, as we didn't want any visitors to accidentally make her sick. We are kinda independent that way, I kinda feel like if i rely on help, it's not realistic so it really isn't help since they eventually leave, if that makes any sense?

With my second dd, grandma was here for her during the homebirth (now that help is priceless) , and afterwards helped with a few things, cooking, laundry but i ended up needing her to go home after a couple days because while TOTALLY well intentioned, she was trying to distract our older dd when i needed to nurse or just be still with the baby, and dd would get very upset because as she saw it, grandma and everyone was telling her to go away from mamma who was holding this new baby. Dh again had 2 weeks off, and i knew dd well enough that I said grandma had better go home because i think it was making things worse and harder for dd than better. And as soon as she left, dd calmed down, we all found a way to fit on the couch together thru nursing or whatever and it was just "us". So, for us, the help was ok but ended up being in the way of the bond we were trying to establish for the girls from the get go. In a perfect world, I"d have help for the homebirth, then have them leave the next day. But it's hard to ask for help and then kick them out.....it was kinda uncomfortable but it was obvious that dd needed her mamma then.

This time, grandma is coming to take care of the girls for the homebirth and I'm not so "against" help as I used to be . Also the girls have a huge bond with their grandparents so it will be fun for them now that they are older. But if they want to spend every minute next to me with the new baby, i won't deter that at all. I can find a way, after all this is what I'm having a third for! So I'll do a happy medium this time. But with the exception of the birth iteself....I don't feel I "need" the help. It just depends on what kind of a person you are and what you are used to. I find visitors more of a pain than a help sometimes!

[gnutter]

with the last baby my mom was here for a week-they came the day after ds was born. At the time I thought it was nice to have help but I didn't NEED it. This time I have no real help-wyatt has jaundice and only really started waking up to nurse on his own the last few days. Before that I was having to get up everyfew hours and try to coax him into nursing. DH is so tired from work he is no help around the house. MY teenager has been my biggest help. Now I WISH my mom was here. I realize now how great it was that first week being able to rest. I pretty much had to jump right back in to everyday life two days after having this baby. I am tired and finding myself to be extra weepy. Not depressed just tired. We have gotten a few meals from friends for which I am extremely grateful-not having to cook dinner is such a luxury right now. So take all the help you can get. rest as much as you can. Soon enough you will be doing it all on your own and the more help you can get in the beginning the easier it is later-especially if this is your first baby. Plus its more time that you get to cuddle in bed with the newl ittle one

[Mom2Adam]

With our first, we had no meal preparation or help lined up. DH had already taken 3 days off by the time we left the hospital, so he had two days and the weekend with me to help adjust to new baby. He took over most of the cooking, we didn't worry about cleaning. Nobody stayed with us (my mom is not the type...). We had probably about 5 or 6 meals total from neighbors/friends. Otherwise that was it.

For this one, I have about 2 full weeks of meals in the freezer. DH will take off about 2 days the week of the birth and then the following week take a couple of days. I hope to get a few meals at least. Otherwise, that's it for us. I am feeling a little nervous - DS is a very high energy/high needs almost 3 yr old...but we don't really have any other options! I am sure it will work out fine!

[boscopup]

Jumping in from November...

DS was born early, so I was completely recovered from vaginal delivery by time he came home at 4 weeks old, but ladies from church brought meals over every night the first 2 weeks he was home, and it was WONDERFUL. Your time is spent nursing that baby, changing diapers, nursing some more, changing more diapers (sometimes 2 or 3 at a time ), etc. DH stayed home from work that week, and did some work at home, but it was just so much easier to have someone else doing the cooking that first couple weeks, so we could concentrate on figuring out what we were doing as parents! The ladies would stop by once in the late afternoon, and that's it. So I didn't have people here all day or anything.

For cleaning... I think my mom did some vacuuming and dishes and laundry on occasion (she lives 45 minutes away), but mostly we were able to keep up with the necessities ourselves sort of, but remember I wasn't recovering from delivery at that point, and my baby was still 6 weeks out from his due date, so slept ALL THE TIME. So things were a bit easier with him, but I still was very glad I had someone else bringing us meals. Otherwise, it would have been the same easy-to-fix item every night, like pizza.

So basically, yes at least accept meal offers. You'll be glad you did! It's not bad to accept help that's offered to you. And like a PP said, if you find you don't need the help, you can always cancel it! But not knowing what your delivery will be like or what your baby's temperament will be like, etc., I'd plan to have help in case it's needed.

[ecoteat]

Thanks for the input. I think of us as being pretty independent and it actually makes us uncomfortable sometimes to have people doing things for us; it always seems like there's someone else who needs help more than we do. Our only family nearby is my husband's cousin, who we are very close to, and she will probably be around a lot. Our parents and sisters aren't coming until the baby is a month or so old and they are only staying for a few days, so I'm not expecting much from them. We do have some frozen food and a pantry stocked with good, easy food (Yay, Trader Joe's!). If meals appear at the door, great. Either way, I think we'll be fine.

[luckylady]

good for you! With DD#1 I was OK with no help - DH did stay home for a week and she pretty much nursed around the clock.

This time DH home 2 weeks, my mom comes after that and I have lots of friends bringing over dinners and such.

[KindRedSpirit]

We had quite a bit of help with our first.It was nice,people would come,drop food,take a load of laundry,and say a quick hi and off they went.So we had lots of help and lots of privacy as well.I like the idea of a good backup lined up in case...I think it is priceless to be able to bond with your baby and new family structure and find your way as a mother in play,without everything on the line,without too many distractions.A babymoon is really priceless.Have fun and enjoy!every thing else will always be there,but the first weeks are irreplaceable.Especially if there are some unforseen thinks to work out...

[SugarAndSun]

Personally, I prefer short visitsin the beginning. If people want to help with food, shopping, etc. -- awesome! However, I find that people like to help by holding the baby, which is what I wanted to do. So if the bathroom stays dirty, oh well.

With my second, I would really appreciate anyone playing with my ds1 and keeping him busy while I nurse ds2.

With your first dc, take to bed, nurse and gaze athim or her. Nothing is going anyhere. Get some good books too!

[Vanessa]

With ds, my mom was there to help, but she could only stay for about 3 days as she needed to leave to help my sis with a rough m/c. Really,though, we mostly worked on making my baby announcements, went out shopping a bit, and things like that. It was fun, but things were pretty well under control.

This time, she's coming for 2.5 weeks. The baby's due 4 days after her arrival, so I hope he comes somewhat soon in the visit as I could definiltely use the help with ds. I'm not that worried about the house.

[goosysmom]

Originally Posted by Boobs

Not to crash the club, but....

I actually decided to become a postpartum doula after my 2nd was born because I needed help sooo badly and didn't have any. It was very very needed.
I'm sure there are mothers who can do it all beautifully on their own in those first few weeks, but I certainly wasn't one of them. My 4th degree tear made things especially difficult.

Get help if you can. You'll be glad you did.

This was and is me......and I only have one...

I had NO help even though my mom lived a mere 10 minutes from my house...She wanted me to come over when dd was a month old and help her pack up her attic and basement bc she was moving and was upset when I said no, i couldn't.

MY dh took a few days off work but they were all consumed with sd bc her mom reniged on taking her an extra 2 days bc she forgot she had to work (her schedule is a 2 month schedule and we asked her after it came out) so he spent almost 100% of the time with her and practically ignored me and our new dd so sd didn't feel left out....

Take all the help you need......I would've given anything for it....I've just started learing to become a doule so I can help another mama who needs it like I did......

Wow, I didn't realize, 2 years later how upset that all still makes me....eek.