I've just had four days of emotional blackmail over this from my dad, mum and sister - they refuse to respect my wishes. The birth centre will allow them a 2-hour visit, but only 2 visitors at a time, including DH, whom I am not asking to leave. So there's no point them visiting, although they don't believe me. Must admit, the ruder they get the less I want to see them. They're still coming regardless on the 5th, so I just have to hope I'm going to be OK then.

After quickly reading some posts, I do see how it would upset them (I understood that before) but they can't even respect my wish to BF for more than 3-4 months without telling me I'm wrong and freaky and only weird people who get something out of it do that. OK, if I were BFing an 8yo I could understand that, but not a baby! TBH I wouldn't be too upset if I didn't see them again now; they're even ruder and more opinionated than I am! Even DH was left agog at their selfishness and rudeness. I know they're looking forward to the baby, but so am I!

My parents live about 270 miles away (about 450km), so they'd be staying for days. And have nothing better to do than spend all day with me, keeping me awake, telling me everything I'm doing wrong. Which is everything. I can't even say anything right! (Hmm, maybe because half the time I'm saying they're welcome to visit, just not for the first few days, so I can see where they're coming from with that one.) BTW, my parents are the reason I live down here and am in two minds about going back there if we can: I'd love to be able to see everyone, just not them so much!

If I weren't so stubborn and macho I'd have been crying almost all Christmas long, but they weren't going to see how much they'd upset me. Not like they got upset - just angry that I didn't bow down to their wants and wishes. Well, what about my wants and wishes? Who's having the baby anyway? DH will be there with me almost all the time anyway, so I don't need them just for company - they're not the people I would choose for company at that time anyway.

And, sadly, my mum and sister do judge people on hair and make-up, probably why they think I'm fairly inconsequential most of the time! At least DH is on my side and will kick people out, including his family. I'm less worried about his family visiting, because they've seen me looking dreadful and still love me! They also don't tell me what to do all the time: I need time to know what I'm doing for myself before I'm bombarded with my mother telling me I'm wrong. I just can't afford to believe her and my sister over things like "babies need bottles, they can't just have breastmilk": I'm just ignoring that now, after trying a couple of times to correct my mother.

BTW, Tanya, I have on Liebling's website that no visitors are welcome for the first week post-birth: my mother, MiL, sister and SiL have all been to that website and all ignored that part! I think I'm just going to have to live with the fact we (DH, Liebling and I) don't get the first week just to get used to being a family, but I would like a few days before I'm constantly surrounded by people telling me how dreadful a mother I am!