We wanted the first 2 weeks just for our little family to bond and adjust. My wife told her parents that at 6 weeks postpartum (around now) they could visit. They seem offended that they didn't get to come immediately. Now they're guilt-tripping my wife about it. How do you handle this without your partner feeling caught in the middle?
The guilt-tripping will get worse if you cave now. My in-laws did the same thing and we finally had to be firm: 'We appreciate you wanting to meet baby, but we set this boundary for our family's mental health. That hasn't changed.' They weren't happy but they respected it after.
One thing that helped us: we scheduled specific visit times instead of open-ended hanging out. '2-4pm on Saturday' feels way less invasive than them just showing up to 'help' and then criticizing everything your wife does.
Set a boundary and stick to it. Your wife needs to tell them 'we said 6 weeks, it's 6 weeks now, you're welcome to visit Thursday at 2pm for 2 hours.' Guilt trips only work if you keep negotiating. They'll get over it.
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Your wife's parents, your wife's job to manage them though. That's the real issue here - not whether they visit, but whether she's willing to have her partner's back instead of managing their feelings.
Honestly 2 weeks is pretty generous. We did 4 weeks with our first and people thought we were being crazy. You're not. Also the 'offended' thing is wild - they're not entitled to labor recovery photos lol