Jgiesbrecht: Of The Eld: Book them a hotel. when they act butthurt about it, just make your eyes really wide and say something about how you "just thought that was how it was discussed, considering we wouldn't be up for paying all the attention to MIL and FIL that they deserve"
This. She's had babies before and although she doesn't remember it- you could always ask her if she had house guests. While having a baby is an exciting time, it's not a party, nor a "vacation." I didn't even let my own mother come to stay with us. I waited until DD was 6 weeks before having house guests. And it was still hard then...
This exactly. We told people they could come out for Christmas (was due day after, little guy born Dec. 1 though), but there was no way they were staying with us (also helps we only have a 2 bedroom house, and nowhere to put air mattresses and no sofa bed). I literally declared that NO ONE (not even my own mother) was welcome to stay with us when they visited, everyone needed to find a hotel or something.
Even having 6 extra people during the day SUCKED. It was great when it was us and my parents/sister, but once my in-laws got here, all *** broke loose. My in-laws literally shoved my husband and I out of the way anytime we tried to take care of DS, saying that "we shouldn't have to do that" or "[ I ] shouldn't have to cook dinner when [ I've ] been doing SO MUCH to take care of [ my ] parents for a week." I was extremely offended because 1. I love to cook and it felt like they were sticking their nose up in the air about my food and declaring it not good enough for them to eat, 2. our neighbors and friends were super generous and gave us meals for almost 3 weeks after our son was born, so we had A TON of extra meat and such in the freezer and since my MIL just got laid off, offering to cook was our way of trying to save them some money since they already spent a good bit to come out to see us, and 3. because it felt like they were implying that my parents had sat there and demanded I take care of them and that they were superior because they didn't "need" to be taken care of (completely opposite, they asked if I wanted help when I was doing something or asked if I'd like it if they got DS when he started to cry if I was doing something else, unlike my in-laws who shoved me out of the way). I'm big into the asking if someone needs/wants help not assuming kind of attitude, and unfortunately, my in-laws assume so it grates on me. I'm grateful they love DS and want to help, I just wish we could find a middle ground between assuming and asking that made it less grating on me emotionally.
If you can, I would say make sure you've adjusted to being the three of you now before you let people visit (even if they don't stay with you). We had adjusted to it, and it was still incredibly difficult on me emotionally.