When should we schedule helpers?

I'm 23 weeks, and my mother, and mother in law, and a few friends/relatives, have offered to come stay with us after the babies are born to help out. From what I understand, this help will be greatly appreciated!

But, do you need help when you get right home from the hospital? Or will we want to sort of wing it on our own? These are our first babies, and really have no clue what we are in for (my husband keeps asking why people think we won't have any free time!).

When did you have relatives help out? When were they just in the way?

At this point I'm 50/50 vaginal/c-section as well... (aren't we all?)

Any guidance would be great!
M

 

It's all depends. You can have your helpers do various things. You and your hubby certainly don't want to feel too overwhelm with people. What we did is asked them to help others things like cooking, cleaning and running errands and so forth. So when my parents offer to come over the first night( I asked them to pick up dinner.) Then my MIL offer to come for a little bit to help with housework then I asked her to pick up little things like diapers and groceries. And don't forget to thank everyone.

I will say. Have a boundary with your parents. Tell them that you want to try and learn everything. And they can give you guidance and suggestions. My MIL wanted to change DS all the time, then I had ask her to watch and give me pointers.

Good luck to ya.

 

But, do you need help when you get right home from the hospital? YES!!

Or will we want to sort of wing it on our own?
The first night home from the hospital DH and I had no clue what to do. (Well I mean, other than feeding them.) Thank goodness my mom spent that first night here. At one point my husband just handed the crying baby over to my mother and walked out of the room, we had no clue what we were doing. We found it was the best when we had 3 adults to 2 babies. That way everyone could rotate sleeping, cleaning and feeding. The perfect ratio for us was 3 to 2.

When did you have relatives help out? When were they just in the way?
Later on in the first year when relatives came to help it only got in my way. But that wasn't until after the girls were 12 weeks old and I had gotten them into a regular routine and didn't like that routine interrupted. You definitely want all the help you can get for the first 8 weeks.

 

I only had a singleton the first time around, but I can tell you that DH and I were literally counting down the minutes until my parents' plan landed once we got home from the hospital. (They got here two days after we were released.)

I think it depends on how helpful your relatives are, versus how much they just want to come and hold babies. My parents of course wanted to spend as much time with their first grandchild as possible, but they were also great at pitching in and helping out with meals, house cleaning, baby care, etc.

My mom has been staying with us for the past couple of months because I'm on strict bedrest with a toddler at home, but we plan on having her stay for a full month after the twins are born. It's a great idea to want to bond with your babies without guests for a week, but for me personally, I was so overwhelmed I wanted HELP!

 

I was the exact opposite - I didn't want anyone else in the house other than us! I just wanted to be able to nurse on the couch without worrying about who was in the room. Although food and cleaning help was appreciated during the day, we really didn't want anyone staying with us. We had lots of offers to help but didn't use them. Thankfully our family lives just down the road, so they had their own homes to go back to. It's so hard to know beforehand how you're going to feel so just take it a day at a time when the babies are born. If you need help it's great that they have offered, but know that you may not need much either.

 

I would say you could definitely use any helpers right from the beginning, take advantage of the offers. :good:

 

My best friend was great- she came over to do overnight help (I'm nursing, but had a C-Section & couldn't move well) every friday for 6 weeks. It was okay to nurse in front of her, she would change the babies and bring them to me while I was sitting down, getting the EZ 2 Nurse strapped on, made sure I had a glass of water, snack & burp rags handy. She also would do small stuff like make us a meal & bring it over then vaccum or something while she was here. My MIL came out when they were 2 weeks old, which was a great break overnight for my DH. He got to sleep & she got up with me- by then any shred of modesty I had was GONE anyway.

I would say that it's hard when they are older, too, so you want to space out the help. Maybe a week between visits, but by the time they are a few months old, 'help' can actually just annoy you unless you are really clear as to what you need (please do my laundry or please entertain my older child, etc).\\

 

Congratulations and good luck!