Please don't take offense because I am glad that you have gotten this off of your chest. BUT! OMGosh, seriously?

Have you ever considered that you are taking this completely out of context and she trying to be kind and helpful? If she wants to do your laundry and help out around the house for gosh sakes LET HER! Take a break!

If she wants to play with her sister, yes her SISTER, let her! Everyone knows she will not ever in a million years say hello as her first word so let her have a little fun with her!

Personally I cannot believe you would ask her to leave. I could understand if she were stealing from you, using drugs, violent, belligerent...... but helpful and kind?

Read through some of these posts.... you should consider yourself lucky. It sounds to me as if you are VERY insecure and see your stepdaughters as a threat or competition. They are not, they are his daughters. They had him for 15 years before you came along......

If you have depression/anxiety you should really consider getting help before you push everyone away including your hubby.

No one can push you into depression. If you have depression you need to seek treatment and therapy.

Not me, your husband or lack of step children will cure it.

I am sorry that you did not take what I had to say constructively however you need to look within to find the answers. This is not your step daughter's problem, it is yours.

Just out of curiosity how old are you?

I am sure it does feel awkward having someone in your home when you're not used to it. But these girls are her sisters... Have you considered talking to someone? Ppd is serious, I know I definitely experienced anxiety after my babies were born too.

I would definatly see if you can talk to someone else perhaps a professional about your feelings? I know exactly what it is like to be pregnant and feel like no one understands why im mad or sad and I take offence very easily. But after ive calmed down I know that it really was ME and my hormones taking control. Not to say you don't have annoying moments around the house im sure you do, I hate when my scheduale gets screwed up too. buuuut you are dating a man with two almost grown daughters so you have to expect those things once in a while. Just be happy their not 5 years old with a bad temper! Soon they will be off doing their own thing. It definatly sounds like she wants to help you with the baby and be involved with her new baby sister. maybe if you get these issues checked into you can start enjoying life agian and possibly be a big happy family or as close as you can get to it.

Hello Mandaunca - welcome to ST - thanks for coming and giving us your story and venting - it sounds like you have a lot on your plate and it also sounds like your SD's had problems with your DH stemming from the divorce - I would not be too hard on yourself step life is very hard. Do you have someone you can talk to?

I see your point about your 17 year old coming over and trying to take over the care of your baby - as new mothers we want to raise our children as we want to and while we appreciate a little help we still want to be in charge. I think in your case you are probably quiet and the oldest SD knows this and tries to run right over you. BM's got to have all of that time by themselves with the children to raise them exactly like they wanted to - they did not have some 17 year old going around saying hello, hello, hello, hello to try and get the baby to say hello - so most of the mothers heard either da da or ma ma as the first words if the SD was trying to be so helpful why did she not say da da or ma ma - because she wants to torture her SM.

I completely understand why your were so upset after giving birth and so many people came to see you that first day since you specifically asked your DH for it to only be you and him and the baby. I can feel your pain because when I had my C-section it was very tiring - my SS came to see me he was 12 - in the first 5 minutes he had crawled into the bed with me and had raised it as high as it would go - I looked at my DH and said get him out of here until tomorrow - you see he had no interest in seeing his new sister - he wanted to piss me off because he never wanted a sister - so unless anyone actually had that situation happen where the skids came in just to annoy you then they can't understand your frustration.

Your DH knows you have these issues and he knew it before you got pregnant so he should have honored your wishes and let you have the first day to yourself - most people at least those with manners know that the first day is very special of a child's life and will not visit the hospital unless invited by the mother. If this was yours and your DH's first (meaning he had no prior children) this would not have been an issue - but welcome to the world of Step Parenthood - I hope you stay and learn and contribute and vent all you want.

Welcome to the site; It really does feel good to get things off your chest - just getting it out there feels like you have accomplished something. And yes, there are people on here that are rude (U have that anywhere) I may give advice that isn't what you want to hear; but doing it in a more tactful way would have been better!!

Anyway; I agree and see your poing about things; being a first time mom is scary and you want things to go your way and you feel helpless when dad takes this from you or anyone for that matter and this is okay; your hormones or OUT of control right now. I will say (do not take this wrong) I would take a SD like that instead of mine who is rude, lazy, an minupulative little liar..... I don't know the full story and there's probably more to it.
I feel for you about saying something and having it ignored; try to get you point across about requesting what may be stupid little things to him are important to you; and that sometimes it may be best for him to just shut up and do it; just to please you!! LOL

I hope you find this site helpful - I know I did Good Luck to you

Welcome.

Having your own baby sure does bring up a lot of emotions you never thought you'd feel coming into this step-family thing. The "perfect" circle of you, your husband and your new baby has intruders.

My baby is 10 months old and I can relate to a lot of the things you talk about.

I didn't want my step-kids at the hospital, luckily DH respected that.

I wanted to be there and have all the special firsts. Luckily I get to be there. Part of me didn't even want DH to get them because it was like he got them with his first two kids and this one should be mine, but he wasn't actually there for many of the firsts of his first two.

I wanted to be the one to teach her things, I still want to be the one to do so. MIL annoyed me like crazy trying to teach my baby "mama", which is what MIL was calling herself. My baby's first word, however, was "dada" and up til today, she refuses to say "mama". That simple thought brings me so much joy, I'm ashamed to admit it to anyone else but my DH.

I changed my baby's feeding schedule to get rid of my MIL's input (we were living in her house at the time), she took my baby from me every night to give her a bottle and I was VERY unhappy, until my DH stood by my side and got me my baby back.

SD wanted to help with baby, esp dress her. Luckily she's not old enough to do much else, but had she been too much in my space I know it would have gotten to me.

This time was and is soooooo SPECIAL to me. My SD's mother didn't have to share these first moments with "part-strangers" and I did feel a bit cheated to have to do so.

Being an introvert certainly doesn't help much, you need your space, your privacy, your quiet to enjoy your special moments, and loud, extroverted people can easily get on your nerves. Many times, I would simply take my baby into our room and hide away when lots of family members were in the house. I was breastfeeding so I had a good excuse.

I say that your DH needs to stand up for you a bit, respect your wishes, and convey that to SD. This is your time to enjoy and savor. SDs will probably have their own "first babies" in time and they will get their special moments. If you do get to have some control over how much you share your baby with these other family members (and they are indeed family, there's no getting away from it, that's something you'll probably have to come to terms with), you will feel better. There's absolutely nothing wrong with starting small, until you become more and more comfortable with the thought of sharing your baby. But babies are a joy to everyone, so realize that everyone will want to share in the joy. When you're comfortable enough to share away, you might even appreciate those "baby-free" moments, to pamper yourself a bit.

And don't ever worry that anyone can take your place by being motherly with your daughter, no one can ever come close to you in being the most important woman in your daughter's life.

I think a lot of your feelings come down to the very natural possessiveness you feel as a new mother, a possessiveness which is exacerbated when you have existing older SKids ready to swoop and start 'mothering' your baby. That can easily start to grow into anxiety and paranoia when you are emotional and exhausted after the birth, and have step-relationships to contend with. I understand how you feel because honestly even though I like my SKids, and really wanted them to be positive and involved when I had my first baby, I did find them overwhelming at times.

My DH had 5 children from his first marriage, the eldest was 19 when DD was born. Their mother had already had a sixth baby with her BF, who was about 18months, and the SKids thought they knew ALL about babies. Between DH who had already had so many babies, and the SKids who were all full of their mother's childcare techniques and ready to pounce on their cute new baby sister, I felt under a lot of pressure and quite defensive about being shown up as an amateur. I wanted to forge my own habits and routines as a mother without feeling the shadow of BM hanging over me. Normally as a new mum it's just you and your baby and you start with a clean slate, able to make your mistakes and go through the 'tearing your hair out' trials and sleep deprivation in some degree of privacy. When you have older SKids it can feel like you have an audience of ready critics. I did not want to be second guessed or critiqued by my SKids. They didn't even mean it badly, but when SD19 would comment that 'you never wake a sleeping baby' when I would often wake DD up in order to set a sleep routine, it would annoy me. I don't think I ever said anything cross to them about it, generally I would just smile through the annoyance and reiterate my approach, over time I gained confidence and they came to respect that I had my own way of doing things and I was good at it.

I did worry about exactly the scenario's you did: first day in the hospital, coming home with baby for the first time, and baby 'firsts' being monopolised by over enthusiastic SKids. Despite my best intentions there was some resentment on my part that I was obliged to factor in the SKid introductions as a priority when a part of me just wanted to treasure her arrival with DH for the first day or so. I didn't want her to be passed around like pass the parcel - some experts actually say it is not good for the baby to be handled in that way so early on. I was torn between encouraging their relationship with the baby and sometimes wanting to hunch over her saying 'mine mine mine!', but fortunately we were non-custodial then, so I did get time alone. In the event the hospital and homecoming was fine, the SKids behaved well and DH didn't let them stay too long.

Your DH's crossness over routines and sickness excluding his older daughters from seeing your baby is probably because he can sense your gatekeeping and of course as father to all the children what he wants is integration and for his children to love each other. There is also a sense in which a new baby can be an incentive which enables Dad to entice independent older children home for a visit!

In all honesty your SD's sound like nice girls, and way better than a lot of the SKids you ready about on here, but I can completely see that it was probably a bit suffocating having one of them living with you when you were adjusting to being a mother. But perhaps now things have settled down you need to try and forgive and forget a little, and see the positives in them and their relationship with your daughter? My older SKids are like fun aunts with DD3 and she loves it when they come to visit. All older teens get preoccupied with their own lives and spend less time with mum and dad, they don't do it to hurt, and it doesn't mean that they don't genuinely love their half sister. And no matter what YOU are in charge and YOU are the mother.