Something I dont understand

[Traci_Momof2]

I was told no stairs unless absolutely necessary and if i had to (because of my house layout) then to take it very slowly and very easily. Around the same time, DH had a co-worker who had a c-section and ended up back in the ER because she did too much with stairs and ripped her incision open.

No, the doctor told me no stairs. It’s actually quite a common order after a C-section. You can’t treat a C-section like just a slightly different birth. It’s major abdominal surgery. The movement required for climbing stairs (which is different from walking) can create injuries and complications. I’m actually surprised you weren’t told about the stairs thing. It’s pretty well known.

The women of my synagogue we always plan to take meals for new moms, sick friends or those in a community that are sitting shiveh after losing a loved one. It is indeed a great help. I had C-sections, so I wasn’t even allowed to go downstairs for about a week after I got home. It was great not having to worry about meals and instead of having takeout (and some people don’t have the means to eat takeout for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a week), to have home cooked meals every day.

Weird....You weren't allowed to walk downstairs after a c section and after 2 of mine I was walking a quarter mile from the Children's hospital to RMDH and back 2 days after mine

[Traci_Momof2]

There’s nothing wrong with asking for help if you need it. It doesn’t make you a hero to overwhelm yourself and it certainly doesn’t make you a better parent.
If you felt you didn’t need any help, good. Other people do need it and it doesn’t make them any less of a parent or a less capable one to ask for it. This myth of the sacrificial mother who should be able to do it all without any help from anyone is very harmful to mothers. We should get rid of it, not perpetuate it. Parenting is hard, yes. But it shouldn’t be a pissing contest in who had it harder and came out of it with flying colors.

I think parents should be able to take care of their children themselves. I had an emergency csection and a baby with colic and had a two year old. I still managed. It's called parenting.

thank you! I think that mentality is VERY harmful. Its why Andrea Yates killed her kids. She even asked for help and was ignored. Women need to feel its okay to ask for help and receive it if need be.

If you don't need or want help-GREAT! But don't shame other mothers who do. I did not sleep for months with my twins. I started legit hallucinating. I saw aliens crawling on my lawn and in my tv. I knew it was not real but I 100% saw it clear as day. Its scary. That can happen when you go without sleep long enough.

I had my mom come every morning from 6am to about 11 or 12. She watched the twins so I could sleep a few hours. Because I never got any sleep at night. Ever. DH slept because he still had to work. I am not less of a mother because my mom helped at first.

Agree that her mentality is very harmful. New babies can be very hard. I think it was 2 or 3 days after we got home with our first, and sleep wasn't happening easily. DH was in the nursery changing the crying baby, and I was in the bathroom (very next room over) bawling my eyes out because I truly thought that never again in my life would i get a full nights sleep. Now logically, it's ridiculous to think you would NEVER EVER get a full nights sleep, but between sleep deprivation, hormones, and recovery pain, I was a wreck and I just truly thought I would never sleep again. Poor DH had a crying baby and crying wife both at the same time that he had to deal with. And trust me, I do not normally cry easily or get emotional easily, so it was actually kind of scary for DH to see me like that. (The only thing scarier for him was being in the OR for my c-section because I too was one who was screaming bloody murder during the whole thing. I felt intense pain and I have never ever screamed like that in my life.)

[famousglm714]

The only way I might be upset about them going away would be if MIL had promised to help me with the baby and I had been depending on that help. But that would never happen in my case because I wouldn't be asking for help. I loved being left alone in the days immediately following the births of my kids.

I've never understood needing help with a baby.

This. But I need all the help I can get with my 7 year old. She was probably expecting people to fawn all over her and watch her kids/the new baby and now she’s mad because it turns out life does not revolve around her.

[Deleted User 876]

The only way I might be upset about them going away would be if MIL had promised to help me with the baby and I had been depending on that help. But that would never happen in my case because I wouldn't be asking for help. I loved being left alone in the days immediately following the births of my kids.

I've never understood needing help with a baby.

Same. Multiples I guess I could understand, that's a handful. A regular birth and singleton though? Not really. I had a friend try to schedule her own meal train and mothers help for the weeks following the birth of her second. No one signed up.

Wow! Talk about entitled!

[LiveWhatULove]

I don't know how I feel about this. The poster may very well be entitled.

But as I raise my children, I am trying to form life-long attachments, healthy ones, that will ensure we will still want to be part of each other's lives, even as they enter more mature phases of their lives.

If any of my 3 children are expecting a child, I would not plan a vacation around the time of birth. I would want to be available to run to the store, to help with older grandchildren, to be emotional support. Not overbearing, but present if needed.

And vice versa, if I was facing a life altering change in my elderly years, I would help that my children would not plan a vacation around a move or surgery, unless it was essential to their financial, professional or immediate family well-being.

I don't think all families need to have such sentiments, but family support, true unconditional love and respect, can be so healthy. We are not meant to be isolated, nuclear beings. We are meant to have tribes, communities to care for us. I want that for our family.