What's the best way to manage visitors when I first have my baby?

Dear After Party Planner,

After you’ve had a baby, it can feel like so many people want to help. When you’re establishing new routines, juggling household tasks with taking care of baby, and getting balanced with new sleeping and eating patterns, hosting visitors can be lovely and hugely helpful. But it can also bring about undue stress. It’s often difficult to articulate exactly what you need and when, and when much of the attention is focused on taking care of the baby, the birthing person and the family unit can often get overlooked.

The Guest List

Prepping before postpartum can help you avoid stressful encounters and make the most of family and friends who want to help but might not know the best ways to do so. One easy way to prep is to expand your registry to include items not just for the baby, but for you. Adding services like postpartum doula or midwifery support, massage therapy, lactation support, or pelvic floor therapy to your registry can be game-changing during postpartum.

Also, during pregnancy, think proactively about the parameters you want to set for visitors. Consider things like:

• Time windows for visitation. What time of the day or night do you anticipate needing the most help? What times do you want to reserve for sleep or quiet? What length of time would be helpful to have visitors (a quick hello? A sit-down to chat?)? How much visitation time is too much? What time blocks work best for your whole family unit?

• Protecting the wellness space. Are you comfortable hosting a visitor who has a cold or another illness? What kind of vaccinations, if any, do you want your visitors to have? What measures, such as wearing a mask or washing hands regularly, do you want visitors to take upon arrival or during their stay?

• Home boundaries. Are there certain areas of your home you do or don’t want visitors in? Are there ways you’d prefer visitors to interact with your space? Are there tasks you would prefer visitors not do for you?

• Body boundaries. How comfortable are you with visitors seeing or touching parts of your body postpartum? Which bodily tasks, such as feeding, would you like help with? Which do you not want help with?

• Communication with visitors. How do you want to communicate your needs and wants with visitors (conversations, signs around the house, email, announcements)? What conversations would you prefer your partner or support to handle with visitors? What conversations do you want to have before the postpartum period begins?

Sometimes visitors don’t quite know how to help. Should they vacuum the house? Wash the dishes? Hold the baby? Cook you a meal? To make it easy for everyone and give visitors clear direction, build a calendar in advance of what tasks would be helpful and when. Here’s a FREE Postpartum Visitor’s Calendar example. :)