Becoming a parent for the first time can be an incredibly stressful experience.
One man recently became a dad and has admitted to feeling very anxious about the whole thing.
In order to help alleviate some of the anxiety, he decided to send out a list of guidelines to his family for them to follow when they came to visit the baby.
However the requests didn’t go down very well with some people who branded him “rude” and “demanding” because of it.
The man revealed all in a post on Reddit, where he asked fellow users if he was in the wrong.
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He said: “Three days ago, my wife and I had our first baby – a boy!
“Neither of our families are super clear on the whole ‘boundaries’ deal when it comes to newborns. My parents are very old fashioned and think that letting your kid eat dirt is better than any vaccine and my wife’s just have a tendency to be very me-me-me.
“We held off on visits for the first day. I’m a very anxious new parent, so when we decided that we’d have people come and meet our son, I sent an email out to everyone who said they wanted to come visit.”
In the email, the dad says he asked that no sick people come to visit, no one under 18 visits as schools are a “breeding ground for viruses” and that people wearing perfume apply it lightly or not at all.
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As well as this, he also asked people to let him know what time they wanted to visit, keep the times between 9am and 5pm, not stay for longer than an hour, not bring gifts because it would be a “hassle” to get them home and to keep visits to three to four people at a time.
He added: “I felt a little overbearing, but my wife read it over and said it sounded fine.
“I got a few snippy replies back, but most people text me to let me know when they’d come around – save for my parents and my in-laws.”
Problems began to arise when his wife’s parents came to visit and they brought their young grandson along.
The child wasn’t allowed in, which caused tensions – which only got worse when the dad’s parents arrived for a visit as well.
“Their grandson starts to cry and my MIL starts to scold us for forbidding children, so my father pipes up saying that we’re being too coddling,” he explains.
“Them, my mother starts up and tells us we’ve been very rude and cold and says that as grandmother it’s her right to visit the baby when she pleases and she shouldn’t have to RSVP to her grandson’s birth.
“She calls me impolite for sending out a ‘demanding’ email like I did.”
Over 400 people commented on the dad’s post, with many believing he wasn’t in the wrong for sending out the email.
One person replied: “Not the a**hole. Your kid, your rules.”
Another said: “Having a child is a massive deal. And as a new parent you are likely to be more tired and have less patience. Also having 12 people around a baby is a lot, you don’t want to overwhelm the mother or the baby. I think you’ve been reasonable.”
However not everyone agreed, someone else thought the email was “controlling”.
They wrote: “You have to admit that the email is a little bit over the top controlling. I def would’ve felt weird receiving that and would’ve replied in a snippy was as well.”
