Thanks everyone for your replies!

I'm due to have my 2nd child in July!!

I've decided I'd do things heaps differently this time round!! My husband will obviously be there for the birth, once we have had time with our baby and I'm a little refreshed and depending on the time of the birth! I want our son to be the 1st to meet his brother or sister!!

Then our parents are both welcome to come, followed by the rest of our immediate family on both sides!

I won't be announcing the birth to everyone so quickly this time around as last time as soon as visiting hours opened I was just completely bombarded with visitors and I mean some of them were people we weren't overly great friends with!!

So I only want our immediate family and close friends to know for at least the first 24 hours!!

I'm hoping Bub arrives at night time or early hours of the morning so that'll give me plenty of time to refresh and bond with our new baby and for our son to come in, as the new visiting hours are from 2:30pm-7:30pm, my son and husband are allowed in during the morning period from 7am-midday!

At the hospital I just let everyone come. So much is going on you barely notice people there. When I got home I made sure they called and I set a time that suited us.

Lol haylz ?

I did family only at the hospital then everyone else after that, although our house was plagued with chickenpox for 8 weeks pp so we needed up having no visitors at all.

For our next (3rd) I will be having parents only visiting the day of bubs birth or the day after if the birth is late in the day or at night & other immediate family can visit the following day. All other friends can wait till we've been home a few days. For my 2nd I had my birthing room over run by hubby's family, it was crazy. Within about 20 mins of bub being born I had SIL, SIL's kids, SIL's ex husband & SIL's new boyfriend in my birthing room. I was left sitting on the bed naked from the waist down with only a sheet over me, I hadn't been able to shower or move off the bed, I was just sitting there still leaking fluid & god knows what onto the bed. I've told hubby it won't be happening again. I was so cranky that the midwives allowed it to happen. I wanted to spend those first few hours with just me & hubby. My nephews got to hold bub before my daughter even saw her new brother, she was devastated.

I made it very clear that I didn't want to see anyone. My boys were in nicu/ special care so I used that as an excuse. But even without it we needed time to ourselves to digest it all. Mil threw a tantrum so we let them visit on day 3.

I'm a b**** so I made it perfectly clear that it was my way or the highway!

Immediate family at the hospital, no extended family. It's only 24-48 hours they can contact you once you've settled at home. I was EXHAUSTED after giving birth I didn't even want to feed bubs 4 hours later I just wanted to be left alone to sleep!

If they don't understand or respect your choices then they don't deserve to be seeing Bubs so soon.

Ebsy I'm coming to visit u woman!!!

I think it honestly depends on time of day u have bubs. With my dd my parents were waiting on the mat ward for me but I was fine with that. What I wasn't fine with was mum ringing me every f*** ing hour while I was in labour haha. My oh parents are weird. They came up the next night but I would of been happy for them to come the first night. My brother & Sil came to second night & I had 3 friends pop up the second night to which I was fine with. This time round I think I'll just have family & mu friends can come visit at home. I didn't even announce this time round my pregnancy until I was 20 weeks so I prob won't announce my birth until I'm home. I'll only be staying 1 night too this time round if all goes to plan.

I said immediate family only visiting in hospital and asked others to wait until we were home, and to call/text first. Everyone's been fine with that. I ended up really sick after DD and got a bit bombarded by SO's large family and especially his mum visiting three times a day...we had to politely ask for a break and she had a bit of a sook but got over it.

I'm on my third baby and for my first two I had no visitors what so ever, the only person who seen the baby before I got home was my mum due to the fact she was there during labor. And I think it's the best way so much pressure of yourself, mind you with my first baby no one even bothered to ask to visit so guess I lucked out

If your a first time mum the best thing to learn very early is to say yes if someone offers help and no if you don't want there help!!

I just said no visitors at the hospital except immediate family.

Too many visitors and you'll never get any rest as you'll always be entertaining.

My FIL and fiancé got mumps from the hospital when my ds was born so also remember it's a hospital where very sick people are also residing!

I was worried about this with my 2nd as i remember what it was like with my 1st and apart from hubby n dd1 the only ppl who came to visit the whole time in hospital was our mums and 3 of my close gf's i do find ppl tend to msg prior to coming to ask a suitable time so if they do just be honest and say not now if u dont want them there as u wanna rest or what ever

I'm only having my mum and dad visit. Anyone after that needs to wait till I'm ready

I'm putting a no visitor request at the hospital I think, easier said then done tho. Good luck the others have great suggestions

No visitors at hospital until day 2. Except family.

But with both of mine I organised a meet baby BBQ for the week after we got home. I found this kept visitors down at hospital as everyone knew they'd see bub at the gathering. The only people that stopped in between times were pretty good value and bought food or did my dishes or watched bub while I showered.

Most visitors will work for a cuddle.

I just said yes to all visitors at hospital, as a result I didn't spend enough time just focusing on baby and recovery. Had my 3 year old at hospital with me about 6 hrs a day which was tiring too! When we went back home we had no visitors for 3 days which was amazing and gave us a chance to settle in and get used to being a family of 4.

I stressed so much about visitors invading my privacy with my first son, but as it turned out he was born in the middle of the night and I was excited to show him off straight away. I told family they could visit as soon as visiting hours started at 10am the next day. Friends were welcome to come see us the next day.

This time I am hoping for a VBAC and to go home nearly straight after the birth. I have told family and close friends that if all goes according to plan we won't be having visitors at hospital, but at home instead. I'll send the text telling everyone about bub and welcoming their visits as soon as im ready (probably straight after the birth - we have a big family and I want to get them out of the way)

See how you feel after bub & then let ppl know when you announce... Ie 'visitors welcome at hospital, please contact (hubby) beforehand' or 'baby looks forward to meeting you all in a week or so when we are settled at home, please contact (hubby) if you'd like to visit'.

Close family only in hospital, every one else after hospital once we'd had 24hrs to ourselves at home. They had to call 1st of course and organize a day and time to come visit, and if they just randomly showed up, we would let them stay for a cuppa (about 20-30 minutes) and then politely tell them to f off.

Yes we had family only at the hospital. I found the day I had the baby (or day after depending what time you have them) was a good time for people to visit as you are on an adrenaline high. Other than that it's best to get your partner to be the one who talks to everyone to say whether they can come or not - let them be the baddie :-) we also put a note on a front door saying that we were bonding with the baby and to text and we would arrange another time for them to visit. The first week or so is hard so just see how you go and don't feel pressured to have people over (unless they are useful and will cook you food and clean the house!)

I was very anxious about this especially with my in laws as they are quite full on and there's so many of them. I had that hard convo with dh and he was good about it. We asked for the parents to come first then siblings and when announcing to friends by text we sort of mentioned hospital visits are welcomed from the day after. I found anyone that visits the home generally call first. The nurses were also great at crowd control espe of you're in a shared room. They told me to let them know when I'd had enough and they'd kick them out so you dont hqve to be the bad guy.