The first hour is not for visitors
The hour after birth is busy, and everyone you know will want a piece of it. Your job is to spend it on the baby and on her, not on the phone.
What actually happens depends on the birth and on whether both of them are well. You cannot script an emergency. You can script the ordinary version in pregnancy, which is what Raising Children tells partners to do.
Talk about skin to skin with her. Talk about her resting and starting to recover. Talk about help with breastfeeding if that is the plan, or with a bottle if breastfeeding is not possible.
Talk about who gets told, and when visitors are allowed. Do that talk before you are both crying and an aunt is already in the lift.
Skin to skin in the first hour is not decor. On this page it can help keep the baby warm, steady the heart rate and breathing, hold blood sugar, pass protective bacteria, help bonding, and help breastfeeding. The best chest is the mother's.
While the baby is on her, you can put your hand on them or let them hold a finger. You are not shut out because you are not the one with the milk. If she cannot do skin to skin, the baby may be able to do it on you.
Take that if it is offered. It is care, not a consolation prize.
Then the practical host work, which is you. Message the people who need a message, in the order you agreed. Not the whole camera roll.
Hold the visitors until the hour, and often longer, is done. A hospital is not a living room. She is recovering from a birth, which might include a wound, bleeding, shaking, and a mind that is elsewhere.
Breastfeeding, if it is happening, is a skill in public that does not need an audience with opinions.
You can pass the baby to her, watch the clock she asked you to watch, and fetch water. You can say no to a photo. You can step out to cry in a corridor and come back. What you do not do is disappear into replies while she is trying to latch a baby and smile for someone else's screen.
If the baby or she is not well, the first hour changes and clinicians lead. Stay available. Ask when you can touch the baby.
Ask what to tell family so she does not have to narrate it. The plan you made is a starting point. The people in the room will tell you when it no longer fits.
Follow them, then come back to the same idea as soon as it is safe. Her rest. The baby's warmth.
Your hand. The door.
Source: Raising Children Network