Sister-In-Law Can't Meet Her Baby Nephew Because She's Too Broke To Stick To All The Rules His Parents Have Set

Making the transition to parenthood and bringing home a newborn baby is challenging at the best of times. Amid the pandemic, it’s a whole other story. For many soon-to-be moms and dads, everything comes with new worries and questions, so making a plan can bring some calm to the chaos.

However, one couple took it a few steps too far. User No_Letter_1344, a 34-year-old mom who just had her son on Christmas Day, sparked a debate in a recent post on r/AITA after revealing some of the rules she and her husband have for guests that come to see their newborn baby.

Sure, keeping your child safe and insisting that friends and family must be “up to date on all vaccines” and won't visit late at night is reasonable. But demanding to bring gifts and do household chores takes it to a whole new level.

The woman asked if she was in the wrong for not bending the rules for her sister-in-law, who “studies in a different part of the country” and rarely comes home. Read on for the full story and share your thoughts in the comments below!

No_Letter_1344’s story has amassed more than 13.1K upvotes and 6.2K comments in just a few days. The post started with a few decent requests but quickly turned sour when the author named her unreasonable demands. “Before you ever come, no matter how many times, you will be given a list of food or groceries to bring with you AND a chore for a list of your choosing,” the user wrote.

It seems that all this was a bit much for the sister-in-law, a 20-year-old college student, who couldn’t afford to buy the things this couple requested. She instead offered to clean the whole house just so she could visit the newborn baby, but the woman and her husband refused to bend the rules.

When other family members confronted them about the situation, saying they’re using their child as “a cash grab”, the husband told his parents that they were on a “time out and blocked them”. Members of the r/AITA subreddit quickly determined that the author was completely in the wrong for creating this list of demands and refusing to allow her family member to visit the baby.

Needless to say, having a child is a major event in a person’s life, and being instantly surrounded by a flock of visitors might be stressful. While setting some rules might be beneficial, it’s important to know which of them truly matter.

Sarah Goldberg, a pregnancy massage therapist and childbirth educator, told ABC Everyday that who visits and when should come down to what’s best for the baby and mom. “When a baby is born, they [ideally] need undisturbed skin-to-skin contact for a minimum of 90 minutes; that’s when all the baby’s hormones and mother’s hormones are working really hard to bond and connect,” she explained.

“Your time in bed snuggling and cuddling your baby is imperative for a healthy postnatal recovery, so I implore rest, rest, rest—and rest does not happen when you have a thousand visitors.”

Some parents prohibit picking up their children or kissing them. Archana Koirala, a pediatric infectious diseases physician, said it’s important to understand that “babies need to be cuddled, they need to be touched, they need to be loved. So when you say, ‘No, you can’t do this, you can’t do that’, you’re actually providing restrictions potentially on a newborn’s development.”

Also, if your visitor is a smoker, you should have a conversation before allowing them to visit. Even if they won’t be smoking anywhere near the baby, the smoke can hang around in their clothes. Your best bet would be to ask them not to do it before the visit, request that they wash their hands, and ideally, ask them to consider changing their clothes to minimize the risk of exposure.

While it might be a difficult conversation to have with your friend or family member, you have to keep your baby safe and healthy—and that’s what setting rules should be all about.