I'm writing this as one of the visitors, since I've done far more visiting than being visited these last twenty years.
I have ten grandchildren, and the youngest is a few months old, and I've been the woman at the door with a dish of something and my coat still on, and I've been the woman who stayed forty minutes too long and didn't notice, and I've been told so afterwards by a daughter who was quite right and who I'd raised to say so.
Two things are true at once. People who want to meet a new baby are almost always moved by love, real love, the kind that gets on a plane, and a badly handled visit still costs a new parent a feed, a nap, and sometimes a good deal more than that, and both of those have to be held in the same hand.
If you're the parent, send this to whoever is coming. Don't sit up at four in the morning composing something diplomatic. I've written it so you don't have to.
Ask whether today suits, and then take no for an answer without negotiating and without letting your disappointment show on your face, which is harder than it sounds when you've been counting the days. Don't turn up unannounced. And don't use being nearby as leverage, which is a thing grandmothers are particularly good at — I say this from the inside — and shouldn't do.
A new parent saying not today isn't saying not ever. I promise you that, having been on both ends of it, and having sulked, briefly, on one of them.
Don't come if you're ill
This is the one that isn't up for discussion, and I say that as the most indulgent person in my family about almost everything else.
A newborn's immune system is immature, and a cold that's nothing in an adult can be serious in a baby of a few weeks, and that includes a mild sniffle, and it includes the tail end of something you've almost shaken off, and it includes a child of yours who was unwell the day before yesterday and seems fine now.
A baby under three months with a fever is a medical emergency, and you should know that before you decide your cough is nothing.
Why the rules exist
So: no visit with any respiratory symptoms at all, however slight. No visit within 48 hours of vomiting or diarrhoea. Tell the parents if you come down with something after you've been, because they'll want to watch for it. Ask whether they'd like you up to date on flu and whooping cough vaccination, because a great many parents want exactly this and very few of them feel able to ask an older relative for it, and you can spare them the asking.
Wash your hands
On arrival, before you hold the baby, without being asked and without being reminded, and not a squirt of gel in the hallway either. Soap and water, at the sink, properly.
Leave your coat and your bag by the door too, so you aren't carrying the whole of the outside in with you.
Forty-five minutes is generous, and an hour is a great deal, and the parents won't tell you when to go, because they're polite and exhausted and you're family, so you must decide before you arrive and then leave while it's still going well, which is the part I failed at.
Offer to leave every time the baby needs feeding. Some mothers will wave you back into your chair and some will be enormously relieved, and you won't be able to tell which from her face, because a new mother's face is doing several things at once, so offer every time.
Do the visible task
The most valuable visitor is the one who does something. Not the one who offers repeatedly. The one who asks once and then does it. Bring food that can be eaten with one hand, and food that freezes, and I say that as a woman who has been cooking for other people's households for four decades and has never once had a dish of stifado refused. Stack the dishwasher. Hang the washing. Take the bin down. Make them a hot drink and put it within reach of wherever the feeding is happening, because a cup of tea on the far side of a room may as well be in another country.
Take an older sibling to the park for an hour. That's the best thing any visitor can do, and it's almost never what people offer, because it isn't the baby.
What you must not do is create work. Don't need entertaining. Don't ask where things are kept four separate times.
The baby isn't the point of the visit
Ask the mother how she is, and mean it, and then wait, because the polite answer arrives first and isn't the one you came for, and the real one comes a beat later if you leave the silence open.
Ask about the birth only if she raises it. Say nothing whatsoever about her body, her recovery, how quickly she's getting back to herself, or her plans for going back to work, none of it, however kindly meant. Don't photograph the baby without asking, and don't put anything anywhere online without explicit permission, because that decision belongs to the parents and a great many of them feel strongly about it in ways they won't say to your face.
Whatever they're doing is the house rule, and that applies where it differs from what you did, and it applies especially where it differs from what you did.
Ask before picking the baby up, every single time. Don't kiss the baby, particularly on the face and the hands, because cold sores can cause serious illness in a newborn and most people simply don't know that, and I didn't for years.
Hand the baby back the moment she's unsettled, without taking it personally and without trying to show that you can settle her. You probably can. I certainly can. That isn't the point, and this isn't the week for it.
Don't wake a sleeping baby. Don't encourage the parents to wake a sleeping baby so that you can hold her. Follow their feeding and sleeping decisions without commentary of any kind, which brings me to the hard one.
Keep the advice to yourself
Unless you're asked for it. This is the hardest rule here for people like me, so let me be exact about why it counts.
The guidance has changed since most of us last had a newborn, and a good deal of what was standard practice in my day, in Greece and then in Hong Kong, is now specifically advised against, and I've had to unlearn several things I was certain about, including some I'd been recommending to other people with great confidence and a straight face.
If you disagree with something the parents are doing and it isn't a safety matter, say nothing at all. If it's a safety matter, say it once, kindly, and then leave it alone.
For parents: the script
You're allowed to set these rules, and you don't owe anybody a reason beyond wanting to.
Something like this works: "We'd love to see you. We're keeping visits to around half an hour for the first few weeks, and we're asking everyone to skip it if they have any cold symptoms and to wash their hands when they arrive. Please don't be offended if we disappear to feed."
Send it to everybody, with no tailoring person by person, because a blanket rule is far easier to hold than a judgement about one particular aunt, and nobody can decide it was aimed at them, even if it was.
If somebody is offended, they'll recover. I've been mildly offended by one of my own daughters over exactly this — I recovered, she was right — and we've had lunch since.
The questions I get at lunch
How long should you visit a newborn?
Forty-five minutes is generous and an hour is a lot. Decide before you arrive and leave while it's still going well, new parents rarely feel able to ask a visitor to go.
Should visitors wear a mask around a newborn?
That's the parents' call and that deserves asking about, never assuming. What isn't optional is staying away entirely if you have any symptoms, washing your hands with soap on arrival, and not kissing the baby.
Why should you not kiss a newborn?
Cold sores are caused by a virus that can cause serious illness in a newborn, and adults can transmit it without any visible sore. Avoid kissing the baby's face and hands, and ask others to do the same.
How do I tell family not to visit?
Send one message to everybody, and don't tailor it person by person. A blanket rule about timing, symptoms and hand washing is much easier to hold, and nobody can conclude it was aimed at them personally.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.