New Dad Wonders Whether He Was Wrong Not to Let Anyone Else Hold His Newborn Before His Wife Could

Being a mom for the first time is one of the most stressful, emotional, wild rides a woman will ever take in her life. The hormones, the fears, the joy, and yes, the changes – it’s a ton to handle all at once, and if there’s one thing I think is true across the board, it’s that most of us are doing our best to manage it all.

This woman had a complicated pregnancy and delivery, and when she realized that she might not be able to hold her son immediately, asked that no one else (other than her husband, I assume) get to meet and hold him before she did.

My wife gave birth to our son November 2019. She had a very complicated pregnancy and ended up needing an emergency c-section which we were aware could happen. We had talked about it for a while and she admitted hating the thought she would be the last to hold our son.

So when he was born and she was still unconscious I did not allow anyone in our families to hold him, or even meet him really. They saw me but that was about it. She was unconscious for four days but thankfully recovered and was able to meet and hold our son. It was about a day after everyone else got to meet and hold him for the first time.

Our families were upset but nothing really kicked off except for my mom and sister who were kinda pushy about it.

The husband complied, which meant the baby went four days before meeting his mother, and then the rest of their family.

Now that family is spouting off online, calling them terrible for “robbing” them of the opportunity to meet their grandson/nephew for several days and that the parents were being selfish, putting the mother’s feelings before the baby’s well-being.

Then around January we had an incident. My wife put up some photos of her holding our son for the first time and talked about how traumatic the birth had been and wanted to raise awareness of how dangerous pregnancy and birth can be and basically just saying how grateful she was to have them both be okay.

My mom and sister then really started acting like kids. Saying it wasn’t fair and we robbed them of those first few days with their grandson/nephew. I told them plenty of people meet grandkids and nieces/nephews days or even weeks or months after birth and had this been Covid times it would not have happened for a lot longer.

But they said I was selfish and should not have done that just because my wife couldn’t meet or hold our baby.

It’s the last part that has him thinking, since we all know early touch and interaction is important for baby’s bonding, and so he asked the internet what they thought about his decision to honor his wife’s wishes.

I am only conflicted on this because someone else suggested I robbed my son of having more interaction early on and I should have thought of him over my wife’s feelings on the whole thing and while most of me is screaming hell no, I wanted to see what a bunch of internet strangers would think.

AITA?

Here’s what the internet strangers had to say.

This seems like such an easy response that the family are the ones looking like the a$sholes.

Image Credit: Reddit

The bottom line is that THEY are his parents and other people had better learn to accept that means what they say goes right from the start.

Image Credit: Reddit

No new mom needs to deal with extra drama.

Image Credit: Reddit

This dad did everything right.

Image Credit: Reddit

It’s high time we start treating these mothers like autonomous people with rights and not just bodies who delivered babies for the rest of the family.