Setting boundaries?! Help

So kind of long story. Me and my husband are living with my in laws right now to save money, we were planning to move to Idaho in May/June but in December we found out we’re pregnant with our first baby. Obviously he wasn’t planned but we’re very happy and we decided to stick around until the following January so everyone would have time to meet and bond before we move states. (We’ll be like 20 hours away from both of our immediate families). When we made the decision to leave in January we initially were looking for an apartment because my husband, my in laws, and I all agreed us staying for 9 months wouldn’t be sustainable. However, about a month ago now they came to us and said that they discussed our living situations (because truthfully we were scrambling for an apartment) and decided to offer us to continue living with them up until we move to Idaho. Obviously we immediately said yes because that would allow me to be a SAHW/M while I’m going through college, pregnancy, and postpartum without putting a huge strain on our finances. But overtime I started thinking about it and I’m a little nervous about when the baby comes. I want everyone to wash their hands before they hold him, not kiss him, and avoid him if they’re not feeling well especially because my husbands youngest sibling is 14 in high school and his mom works with elementary students I feel like illness for them is unavoidable. But these past few weeks all anyone can talk about is how excited they are and how we’re gonna have a new baby in the house and this talk is putting me on edge because I’m a very non confrontational person and I don’t know how to tell them they can’t love on our baby that way especially because 1-they’re letting us live with them and 2-my husband told me when he was a baby they used to hand him to friends at church and people would pass him around commenting on how cute of a baby he is and they wouldn’t give him back till the end. This is probably a bit exaggerated but nonetheless I wouldn’t be comfortable handing him off anywhere. Eventually I settled on letting the postpartum rage I’ve heard about take over in the future and then blame it on that but I’m scared it’ll cause issues between me and my husband because it’s his first baby too. (And this isn’t to say that all these same rules wouldn’t apply to my family, they definitely will) I just don’t think he sees it from my point of view and ever since thinking about it I’ve really struggled to stop. I just don’t know what my game plan should be and if I bring it up to my husband what should I say.

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before my baby was born i had similar feelings, i didnt want visitors for X amount of weeks, etc when my baby was born its like all of that flew out the window and i allowed visitors the next day. i say that to say u have no idea how you’ll feel when baby is here. however, i do think its fair to have a conversation before baby comes with everyone in the household. personally i’d let my husband lead the convo since its his parents. but maybe outlining some expectations would be helpful in guiding the convo. thankfully your baby will be born during nice weather when u can open the windows and get fresh air often. my baby got his first illness at 6 weeks and he was okay. try to breastfeed for antibodies! all will be okay :) congrats!

I think you’re causing yourself a lot of anxiety. Stop jumping ahead. You can encourage your husband to bring up the topic of hand washing and using burp cloth/receiving blanket whenever holding the baby. But seriously you’ll appreciate all those hands around you when you need a minute to take a shit alone. You’ll still hear imaginary babies crying tho 😂 that never goes away

I felt the same way, and waited til the baby was here to tell my husbands and my parents there will be no kissing, etc and it took them a little to be ok with it, so my advice is definitely tell them before the baby gets here. Set clear boundaries because there’s nothing worse than postpartum hormones and feeling like you’re not being listened to or respected. As for the people above, my feelings pretty much stayed the same before and after. we didn’t do visitors until she was 6 weeks, and still kept it to only close family. no one was allowed to kiss her or hold her without a mask or washing hands first, I made my parents get the whooping cough vaccine and just went crazy. It’s our job as mothers to protect our babies and I did just that!

Your husband should follow your lead and put boundaries in place with his family. Have all these conversations NOW. Don’t wait, when in the moment you’ll freeze and not mention it. No one not even the parents should be kissing the new born like that. It is dangerous but not everyone is aware, be kind and gentle but make them aware now. You can’t control people at the end of the day. You can try this set up and if they don’t respect your wishes access plan b. I moved from my dads to his mums bc actually his mum was way more respectful and allowed me all the space to grow as a mother without interfering with my process. So do it, go for it, set up your ideal pp heaven and see how close you can get to it. PP rage doesn’t hit everyone. I have been in a bliss state biologically- the only annoyance has been my dad’s lack of respect for hygiene towards my baby. Since we moved - everything has been great.

lol what I did was when I was around them and baby talk would come up I would pretend like I remember something that I read and talk about how rsv was at an all time high for babies because nobody is washing their hands anymore after covid happened and I would show them a TikTok video about a baby who went through rsv (horrible I know) and I would emphasize how we should all make sure we work hard every day to make sure that doesn’t happen to baby’s. We also live with my parents and lots of people so I know

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