Woman asks if she's wrong to demand 2-3 months of support from mom after baby's birth.
Being a mother is hard! Especially when you feel alone. When this mother begs her husband to let her mother help them for 2-3 months and he disagrees, she takes to the popular Reddit forum to ask:
'AITA for telling my husband I need at least 2-3 months of support from my mom after our baby's birth?'
I'm 24 weeks pregnant (32F), and my husband (33M) and I are starting to talk about what family support we will need after the baby is born. We live cross-country from both sets of grandparents.
My mom doesn't work and is able to come to help us with the house chores and take care of me for as long as we need, but my mother in law still works a job that requires her to be in person and wouldn't be able to come for more than a week.
My husband's position is that to better equalize the time our moms spend with the baby, and to allow us time to bond with the baby alone, my mom should come help us for at most 1 month after the birth.
(He has a good relationship with my parents, and vice versa, for context -- but he has also expressed some concern that he won't be able to bond as well with the baby if my mom is around.)
My position is that nearly all our friends (and in fact our own moms themselves) had their own moms support them for much longer, at least 2-3 months, and found it supremely helpful.
Oh my. Good point!
I think that if we're lucky enough to have the chance to have family support for housework, cleaning, meals, etc. for free, we should welcome it with open arms. I think we'll have plenty of time for 1:1 bonding once the hardest part of newborn care is over.
We're at an impasse. Given I'll be the main caregiver for the baby for 5 months after birth, AITA if I lay down a boundary that I can't do it alone after month 1, and that I need my mom there for at least another month or two? We're an East Asian family, in case that's useful context for why the expectation of family help is higher than it might be in a US context.
Well, is this mom to be the AH? Let's see what Reddit had to say.
NAH yet but why doesn't your mom comes after he's gone back to work, rather than straight away? Your husband is likely to want to bond as a family of 3, rather than with your mother. And even if she is very respectful, she will still be there, and will need to adjust to being grandma. There WILL be unsolicited advbice, she WILL get on your husband's nerves. It's very natural. -mamanbear
NTA. also plenty of ppl have their moms present for the birth for support/guidance - if op is having her mom with her for the birth it makes more sense for mom to arrive and stay than to wait or leave and come back - warriorfemale
NAH! I think you need to emphasize how incredibly important it is to have your mom there during that post-partum stage. As in, not doing so will irreparably damage his standing in your family's eyes, and likely his own. This may be low, but I would also talk to your MIL about this since she would be able to understand. -danuhours