I'm going to preface this by saying that I LOVE my in-laws. There are a lot of them, and they can be a bit overwhelming, but they are wonderful, generous, amazing people. We told our families no one at the hospital until after baby was born (most family lived in the same town). I was induced in the evening, then had an emergency C-section at 3:30am. Between recovery and everything, we had less than two hours before family mobbed us, and stayed all.day.long. I was exhausted, in pain, and trying to figure out breastfeeding, which hurt like hell. By the time we finally went home, I was so tired I was hallucinating, and the visits still didn't stop. Family members were even being helpful, bringing dinner and offering to run errands, but it was exhausting. In retrospect, I really wish we'd set firm limits. I would have made sure we had at least 6 hours post-birth before people came to visit (ideally a day), and we would have limited visits to 30 minutes. I would have flipped if anyone stayed in our house, no matter how helpful they tried to be. What we needed more than anything was for just the three of us to sit, cuddle, nurse, and enjoy our time together.
With the second baby, we lived several states away. My mom flew up to watch my older son, and it was all lovely, and calm, and peaceful, and I got plenty of rest. Everyone still got to see baby, just a few weeks later after we'd had time to adjust into a new routine.