We recently told you about the mom-to-be who got into a feud with her mother because she wouldn’t let her mother come visit her baby until two weeks after the child’s birth. Well, apparently this mom-to-be isn’t alone in not wanting family visits so soon after giving birth.
It seems the new trend in parenting is something called “Cocooning,” in which first-time parents refuse visitors for a period of time following a child’s birth so they can spend alone time with their newborn. And we’re not just talking a few days. Some new parents are keeping grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends from seeing a baby for weeks and even months.
The practice isn’t completely new. Cocooning is something adoptive parents often do in order to bond with their children, but apparently in the past decade more birth parents have been adopting the practice.
- While most parents will describe the time as “blissful,” it does come at a cost because family members can get seriously annoyed by being kept away. “My sister was a snot about it,” Brooklyn mom Abby Reddel, who kept her family away a few weeks, tells the "New York Post." “She tried to kind of bully me into letting [our family] come.”
- And then there are the parents who just simply don’t listen. “My dad ended up surprising us in the hospital,” mom Aurora Satler shares, although she does note, “I have to say, he was really good about it — he held the baby, said hi and left.”
- Luckily, while some parents are initially perturbed, they eventually get over it. “Initially, I was disappointed,” Reddel’s mother shares. “I worried from the beginning that Annabel would forget us . . . But I also understood that new parents need some special time with their newborn.”
Source:New York Post