You are four days home and somebody is at the door.
You have not showered. You are bleeding. There is a person in your arms who needs feeding every ninety minutes and does not care who is in the living room, and your mother-in-law has brought a lasagne and is taking her coat off, and you can already tell she is not planning to leave it and go.
Everything below assumes she means well. Most of them do. It does not change what you have to say.
Say it before the birth if you still can
Every one of these conversations is easier in week thirty-six than in week one, because before the baby exists you are setting a policy and afterwards you are making a complaint.
If you are still pregnant, the whole thing fits in two sentences:
"We're not having visitors for the first two weeks, and after that we'll text people when we're up for it. That's for everyone, not just you."
The second half does the work. Nobody accepts a rule they believe was written about them.
When they turn up unannounced
Do not let it stand once, because once is the policy.
"I'm so glad you came, but this isn't a good time. Can you come Thursday afternoon?"
Then close the door. Not rudely, not with an argument. The door is the sentence.
If she is already inside and it has been an hour:
"I'm going to feed her now and then sleep while she sleeps. Thank you for the food, it really helps."
Stand up while you say it. People leave rooms when the other person stands.
When they want to hold the baby and you need her back
You do not owe a reason, and giving one invites a negotiation about the reason.
"I'll take her now."
Hands out, said warmly, no question mark. If you say "do you mind if I…" you have asked permission for your own child and she may say no.
When somebody kisses the baby
This one is not etiquette. A newborn's immune system does not manage the ordinary cold sore virus, and the standard advice from pediatric guidance in the US, UK and Australia is the same: no kissing a newborn on the face, by anybody.
So it is not a preference and you should not present it as one:
"Not on the face, please. Their doctor was clear about it."
Attributing it to the doctor is not cowardice. It moves the conversation off your judgement and onto a fact, and that is the fastest route to it actually stopping.
When the advice will not stop
Formula, sleeping on the back, pacifiers, how long you feed for, how you are holding her. Some of it will be forty years out of date and delivered with total confidence.
You are not going to win the argument, so do not have it:
"That's interesting. We're doing what our pediatrician told us."
Repeat exactly that, every time, in the same tone. Boring is the point. There is nothing to push against in a sentence that does not change.
If it is about something that matters and she keeps going:
"I know you did it differently. I need you to follow what we've decided in our house."
When the photo goes up before you are ready
"Please take it down. We're not putting her online yet, and we'd like to be the ones who tell people."
Ask once, plainly, and do not soften it with "sorry". You are not sorry, and "sorry" turns a request into a favor she can decline.
If it happens twice, the conversation is no longer about the photo. It is about whether your no counts, and it is worth having as its own conversation on a day when nothing has just happened.
When your partner will not say any of this
This is the real problem in most of these houses, and no script to the mother-in-law fixes it.
"I need you to be the one who says it. She's your mother, and it lands completely differently coming from me."
Ask for the specific sentence you want said and when. "Talk to your mom" is not a request, it is a wish. "Can you call her tonight and say we're not doing visitors this week" is a request.
What it costs
Some of it will cost you the warm version of the relationship for a while.
The visits get shorter. There is a stretch, usually a few months, where she is careful with you in a way she was not before, and somebody in the family will say you are being precious about it. That is the actual price, and it is worth knowing in advance rather than discovering it and concluding you did something wrong.
What you buy is a house where you can recover, and a set of rules that exist before the second baby, when nobody will have to have any of these conversations again.
One story and one script, once a week
No advice you have read before, and nothing we would not say to a friend at our own kitchen table.
The list opens shortly. We would rather have nowhere to put your address than pretend to collect it.
