AITA for banning everyone who critiques our parenting from meeting our son?

A new father shared how he banned family members who critiqued his and his wife’s parenting from meeting their newborn son. His wife has been recovering from postpartum anxiety and OCD after a difficult pregnancy,

and these comments exacerbated her struggles. While some family members claim their intentions were good, the father decided to prioritize his wife’s mental health. Was he right to take such a firm stance? Read the full story below:

 

‘ AITA for banning everyone who critiques our parenting from meeting our son?’

My wife has minor anxiety and ocd. She has been on meds for a long time, but had to go off them when she got pregnant. None of the pregnancy safe meds worked for her. Pregnancy was really tough for her, she spent a lot of time reading about what foods and activities and such could harm a fetus, and she was basically paralyzed by fear that she was hurting our son whenever she did anything.

It was really rough for her and she hated being pregnant. She had a mental breakdown and confessed to me that she didn’t want to breastfeed, she was feeling violated by the pregnancy and wanted her body back and to go back on her meds, but she was worried that our son would be terribly harmed if she didn’t.

I talked her out of breastfeeding because the pros were far outweighed by the cons and she clearly didn’t want to do it. After the delivery, I was using the bathroom and my father was in the room with my wife. A lactation consultant came in and asked my wife if she was ready to breastfeed.

My wife said she wasn’t going to breastfeed and the lactation consultant started pushing and reminding her of the benefits of breastfeeding (which to my wife, was reminding her of all the ways she was harming our son by not breastfeeding.) my father also started pressuring her.

She said she just kept saying “I don’t want to,” but was very close to capitulating because she was so tired and anxious and she just wanted it to end. I came back into the room and kicked out the lactation consultant and my dad for not listening to her when she said no. Things got considerably better when we left the hospital. My wife was able to get back on her meds and was happy.

This was the first part of the pregnancy/birth process that she actually got to enjoy. Her meds can take up to a month or two to have full effect, so the anxiety and ocd issues are still there, but much less. The conflict comes in because I told my dad he couldn’t be around my wife and son for the time being because he participated in pressuring her when she said no.

I’ve also run into an issue when sending pictures of the baby to family. A number of people wrote back nitpicking how my wife my holding the baby, what she was feeding him, the crib we’re using and so on. I stopped sending photos, but my wife and I talked and she said she was still feeling fixated on everything she was doing wrong as a mom, and these critiques would make it worse.

So I told everyone who critiqued our parenting that they can’t come meet the baby. They probably can in a month or so when my wife will be more secure mentally and as a mom, but until then, no one can come. Thus far, the only people who have met my son are my wife’s parents, her sister, and my mom.

A lot of my family is saying that this is unfair because they have good intentions and are just trying to help. My mom told me I should give them a chance, but I think the risk is too big. Am I the a**hole for banning them?

Check out how the community responded:

mutantj0hn −  NTA. I’m currently 39 weeks pregnant and honestly I think you are doing a wonderful job sticking up for and advocating for your wife and child. The birthing person’s mental health is HUGELY important—and a fed baby is a healthy baby, whether it’s breastfeeding or formula.

It sounds like you both are doing a great job putting your baby’s needs first, and you are doing a great job making sure your wife feels secure, safe, and at her best (as good as she can feel given the situation) while trying to navigate the new/terrifying “fourth trimester”.

Your family/the critics sound incredibly insensitive to the hormone-fueled, extremely mentally and emotionally (and physically!) taxing life change your wife is going through, not to mention you as her main support system. You’re doing a great job. Your family unit’s health—mentally, emotionally, and physically—is what matters most.

HellaHighAtHogwarts −  NTA- your wife is as risk for PPA and PPD. Babies don’t spoil so there’s plenty of time for them to meet the baby later when your wife is feeling more secure in motherhood. People act like crazed assholes around new babies.

peachykeen5552 −  NTA. I stopped posting on this sub a while ago when it became too frustrating to deal with all the teenagers who were giving “advice” on things they know nothing about. This is a perfect example of one of those times.

You need to do what’s best for your wife during this TEMPORARY (seriously, is everyone missing that this is temporary) time. Doing what’s best for your wife here is also doing what’s best for your kid. A lot of commenters here don’t understand mental health, especially that medications and therapy and such take time.

Neither of you were wrong for having a child and for doing what needed to be done to keep that child safe. If keeping people out who comment on your parenting, regardless of their intentions, is what will help your wife while she readjusts to her meds, that is the thing to do.

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you you’re being selfish or sensitive. Clearly a lot of people here don’t understand parenting or mental health. Take everything you read here with a grain of salt—most of the posters are teenage boys.

cricket73646 −  INFO: are the concerns of the people who have seen the photos valid? Have they pointed out the crib is unsafe or anything like that?

ErgonomicCat −  Fork all of them.. Seriously.. You are absolutely NTA. Who the hell critiques the way someone is holding a baby based on a picture?

PandaBehr08 −  NTA. Props to you for taking care of your wife during this time.

1Tallboi −  NTA. No one has the right to see your kid except you and your wife. For everyone else it’s a privilege that can be revoked at any time

TheLoveliestKaren −  NAH/NTA, depending on some things. I know unsolicited advice can be annoying, but at least the food person and holding the baby person may have just saw opportunities to make your and your wife’s life easier. Their thought process may have been something along the lines of “Oh, I remember when I held my baby like that and it almost slipped out of my arms!

I don’t want OP and wife to go through that. I’ll just mention it quick so that they can avoid that scare”. *Those* kinds of people, I think, can be trusted to listen to you when you tell them to cut it out because it’s more important that wife isn’t made to feel like she doesn’t know what she’s doing and it is a bit cruel to ban them when you’d never even mentioned that you didn’t want to do a generally normal and accepted thing.

I don’t blame them for thinking it’s unfair for you to all of a sudden not trust them to do what you ask of them just because they weren’t able to anticipate your expectations before you mentioned them. I’m fully on board with you not letting your father visit as he already did damage in a way that he really ought to have known was unwanted(and your wife explicit said she didn’t want to).

I’m also a little more accepting of the idea that you’d not let the crib person visit, because I’m hard pressed to view that in a way where it could be meant to be helpful rather than judgemental, because what are you supposed to do? Buy a new crib?

I don’t think you’re necessarily the a**hole for banning any of them, if you just don’t feel up to putting in the energy to figure out who can and cannot be trusted. I just think those who seem more benign with their advice aren’t assholes for being upset by being banned when they didn’t really do anything wrong.

CertainlyNotYourWife −  INFO: have you discussed this with your family and they continued after being told the sensitive nature of the whole thing? If the above is true and they persisted after being told advice and critiques or anything other than “you look lovely and the baby is adorable” with the consequences being they are cut off, then they are the a**hole here.

If they said things out of being well intentioned but just ignorant or otherwise tone deaf to the situation I think they deserve a chance and the opportunity for a sincere apology. Especially since the other side of the family is getting to see and bond with the baby. On another note, the lactation consultant was out of line.

As one myself I find the practice of pressuring mothers to breastfeed regardless of their valid reasons (and any reason at all is valid) absolutely disgusting. Makes the rest of us look bad. The correct way to approach it is ask for more information and understand the patients reason why.

Maybe there is just a need for education to dispel a few myths or maybe there is a lot more to things. In your wife’s case the benefits are obviously on the low end of the balance there. Her choice should have been acknowledged, accepted and the consultant should have offered ways to help make drying up her supply more comfortable.

xandmom −  NTA. I don’t have any of the sometimes crippling issues your wife has, and I wouldn’t tolerate annoying people who want to criticize my parenting. In fact, I don’t, and had the lactation consultant banned from my hospital room because she annoyed the crap out of me. Keep supporting your wife, gold star on that, and tell anyone who wants to nitpick to f**k off.

Is this father justified in putting boundaries in place to protect his wife’s mental health, or is he being too harsh by restricting family access to their newborn? Share your thoughts—what would you do in his situation?