Still not met three week old grandson.

Perhaps we should remember that this thread isn't about the DIL's feeding struggles but about Happygran's sadness at never having seen or cuddled her new grandson who is now nearly 4 weeks old when DIL's family have lots of contact. Of course it feels unfair.

Happygran, do come back and let us know how you are

According to google the chart posted by OutsideDave was drawn up by someone called Caitlin Hudson to illustrate her own early weeks of motherhood. I don’t see how they’re necessarily relevant to anyone else’s situation. Particularly as in order to get a full night’s sleep as a breastfeeding mum, she must surely have had a night nurse!

Jaylucy yup had all the breastfeeding struggles! But I seriously fail to see why that means that GPs living so close cant meet their grandchild! (On the information.ation that we have been given) Ofcourse, as I said in my previous post there may be stuff going on we don't know!

Jaylucy that's a bit harsh. The other GPs have visited. So bonding may not be a problem but OP just wants to get acquainted with her gc.

Incidentally my DiL didn't let me see my gd after she was 3 mths for about 5 years. I managed with a lot of courage to sort out the disagreement and wwe talk now but sadly it created a distance that cannot be fixed. My gd and I will never be close.

I’m curious about the schedule - can you provide more context Outside? What sample size is it based on, for example? Were the measurements validated? What are the comparisons? It seems a bit arbitrary (and yes, I breastfed all of mine for nearly a year)

Farmor15

Exactly so. Its utter nonsense.

As someone else that struggled with breastfeeding I can fully understand her struggles - in my case, I would have given up without the support I got from the midwives.
I'm sure there must be a way of you seeing the bub, if only over the mobile phone or maybe if you don't have one, your son could film him and bring it round to show you?
What's all this about not being able to bond? Sorry, but you are not the bub's parent. However long it takes, you will still love him - how do you think grandparents that are more than a few minutes away get on ? Why is it that just because , at this point your son is rightly going along with his wife's wishes that she is controlling - just because you are not getting what you want ?
Give the poor girl a break and stop thinking about what you want - she needs to feel that you are supporting her, not against her - do you know if she has tried nipple shields? They were my saving grace!

That schedule posted by OutsideDave - pbs.twimg.com/media/EN9_0PCXUAApNWf?format=jpg&name=small
may have been recorded by data scientist but is totally ridiculous! Looking at it properly, it would suggest that from month 2, mother is sleeping from 10 pm to 6 am, without being woken to feed baby. There are a small number of babies who will start sleeping through the night by about 6 weeks (mostly bottle fed), but my recent experience of breastfed grandchildren is that they will continue to wake in night for many months.

If that part of schedule is wrong, I wouldn't believe the rest.

Many posters (including me) breastfed for up to a year or more and have recent experience of grandchildren who were breastfed for much longer than a few weeks. Despite the feeding, and in some cases pumping, there was time for both sets of grandparents to meet the baby within a few days of birth.

I sympathise with Happygran and hope you'll get to meet your grandson soon.

OutsideDave
Unless you pumped or nursed, you can’t have any context for what that schedule looks like, and I am guessing after many of these responses very few PP breastfed or expressed milk past the first few weeks...

What a sweeping generalisation and incorrect if you have followed this thread. All of my children were breastfed, all of my grandchildren were / are breastfed and in my professional life I have supported and guided many thousands of breastfeeding and bottlefeeding mothers. If you go back to your chart you will see that in the first two months the only activities they have included are sleep/feeding or pumping/ caring for baby. No meal preparation, going outside the house, free time, self care. Suddenly at month 3, back to work! Do you truly think that is any kind of representation of what it is like to be a new Mum?

I breastfed both mine for over a year! I also pumped milk regularly as I had to leave first baby for follow up painful appointments for a very difficult birth with resulting problems. I won't bother with further detail!

My only reason for saying all that above is because I think the assumption that because people think not allowing grandparents who live close by to see their new grandchild for 3 weeks is wrong is because they haven't breastfed/pumped/ whatever is a valid assumption!

I accept there may be things we dont know, there may be more going on. I agree that mum and baby are the priority. I agree that this is a precious time for a new little family etc etc. But I dont agree that on the basis of what we know, there is any reason why it is so impossible for new grandparents to meet new grandchild for half an hour!! New parenthood does not and should not remove any empathy or understanding for others, from people's brains however much one is suffering/recovering/struggling with a new born!!!! And I speak from experience!

I had my first at 27. I had a vaginal delivery, which my mom did not, and I breastfed, which my mom didn’t either. So she didn’t have much in the way of advice. Same for sleep training (her twin wisdom didnt translate as well for a singleton) and just about everything else. Fortunately, I was fairly self assured and knew what my baby needed and what I needed to be able to meet those needs. Despite certain folks attempts to undermine my confidence ahemMILahem I had a fairly easy go the first time, and I’ve honestly attributed it to not really caring how anyone else thought about what I was doing beyond my baby, and my spouse. Perhaps that’s what’s working best for this DIL.

That’s the actual schedule, as recorded by a professional data scientist. There’s nothing in there about meeting anyone. It just shows how ones time is organized. Unless you pumped or nursed, you can’t have any context for what that schedule looks like, and I am guessing after many of these responses very few PP breastfed or expressed milk past the first few weeks...

I didn’t have different experiences thankfully - lots of support and advice with all three of them. I wasn’t sure if I was going to manage to continue to breastfeed the third but an absolutely brilliant community midwife sat with me for ages and helped me get reacquainted with it. Positive experiences each time.

has said.

Mimidl

You sound like a lovely family

Grammaretto

Similar experience, when I had baby no1 I was sometimes treated as if I was a bit halfwitted.

My last at 36, I was in hospital for about a week, but the nurses never bothered me apart from stopping by for a chat, I said I was going to bottle feed, and no one tried to dissuade me. Completely different experiences.

I don't care what anyone else had said, I think its awful that you haven't seen the baby yet. Its your grandchild as much as the DiLs parents. Its so exciting having a new baby in the family. What a shame. You must be so disappointed. You could have been invited even for a quick half hour the first week.
I think I would tell my son how disappointed I am.

Mimidl, your kindness and thoughtfulness towards your mil was beautiful. I hope you have gone on to have a good relationship with her. You sound like a wonderful daughter in law.

This could be another thread and not particualerly helpful but from my own experience. I was a young mum and an older mum. I would say I was treated differently by other people.
As a 20 yr old, everyone thought they could give me advice and I listened to some of it. By the time I was nearly 40 and having #4, I knew my own mind but even when I wanted help - and my sicky, sleepless baby was something new to me! - not even the health visitor offered advice. They assumed I could manage. I suffered from constant backache and mastitis for the first time and I was tired easily.

When I met my partner almost 18 years ago, I forever heard stories about his brothers partner not being welcoming to them when they had their child, and in fact stopped talking to my in-laws for 6 months after the birth because mil had the nerve to ask to hold her gc!!!
This meant that when we were expecting ours, I told my mother the story and told my in-laws they were welcome at the hospital as soon as baby was born.
When they arrived my mother was holding the baby, but immediately handed her to my mil.
We also used mil's name as our daughter's middle name just to make her feel even more included.
It's so sad when in-laws don't get on with their dil.
I do hope she sees sense soon @happygran1964 as baby is missing out on so much love.

I know a lot of people who have had babies too both amongst my peers and my children’s peers, some of whom started producing in their teens. My elder 2 DC are 20 and 22 and the ones who have had their babies earlier don’t differ from us older ones - everyone is different, everyone faces their own challenges, everyone does the best they can.

I had my third child at 36, One in my twenties, one at nineteen. My two daughters have similar age gaps.

It is only my experience, but I definitely see that it’s harder for older first mums, probably because they’ve got such high expectations,

I’m not a health professional, so I’m not speaking from a professional position. But I know a lot of people who have had babies.

Sara that might be true in your experience but there’s nothing to suggest that older mums ‘overthink’ things while the youngest ones just get on with it, and imo it’s not helpful to generalise and denigrate on the basis on age as it could be quite hurtful for older mums or grans of first time older mums reading this (I presume you mean first time mums as opposed to women like me who had their third child at 38?).

Strange...I have a six month old and baby sees my in-laws minimum 3 times per week for about an hour each time. They live a 3 minute walk away.

Other weeks, my husband goes over twice to their house for 20 minutes while I eat lunch and then Saturday we'll be at their house for a couple hours for lunch.

I was, however, quite resentful of feeling like I owed them visits. There was a period in which they were seeing the baby 5 times per week and it felt like it was never enough. My husband's mother would guilt trip us "I haven't seen you in two days" or "finally I get to see you" or "I didn't see the baby yesterday".. it was annoying me that I felt like I was spending my maternity leave arranging visits for them. They were too pushy and have since backed off as I've been a lot more assertive. Read my loong threads on "MIL drops by unannounced". I have two threads.

Do NOT go there without calling or be too pushy. But three weeks is far too long to not see the baby.

What was your relationship like before baby came??? Mine was stellar! It's only after having baby that I ran into problems.

Will you be a caregiver to this baby? You can hopefully offer childcare further along and be more involved.

I suggest cooking something delicious and asking if you can bring it over.

They don't realize they are hurting you, trust me! Unless you had a bad relationship before, DIL is not doing this on purpose.

I would just text her something like "Hi (name), I hope you are feeling better. I know this is an exhausting time. We're here for you when you need us. I've made (dish) because I know you like it. Let me know when we can drop by for a quick visit to drop it off."

Or don't cook anything and just ask when you can drop by to see THEM, not the baby.

When you do get access and take care of the kid, I recommend getting a few "ground rules" to know some of DILs and son's preferences. This can squash tension because what DIL can say to her mom "stop that, mom!", she can't say freely to you.

Sirchenjin

I’m not meaning to generalise, I know not all older mothers find things more difficult, but from the families within my own experience, the younger ones just seem to get on with it,while the older ones seem to overthink things.

I agree that most people do a good job, but it’s such a precious time, and it’s sad if you can’t enjoy it, and dare I say, share it.

Sorry love I wasn’t replying to your post, I think ours crossed

It’s quite ironic that social media is being bought into it - because here we all are, discussing a new mum we don’t know and giving the OP (who we also don’t know) advice on social media! It’s the way of the world now - a lot of different voices telling us different things.