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Baby Showers
SaraSmile19
member
Post-birth shower?? (kinda long)
SaraSmile19
member
in Baby Showers
Both sides of the family have offered to throw me a shower, but here's the issue: DH's side of the family (and some of our friends) live 5 hours away by car. My side of the family (and most of my friends) live 5 hours away by plane. I'm due April 28th. I won't be able to make the trip out to California to see my family during this pregnancy, and I'm not thrilled of the idea driving 5 hours through the snowy mountains and rural countryside to see my IL during the third trimester. Neither is my doctor.
My SIL offered to help me have an "Internet Shower" I could take pictures of the gifts and the games could be played over the internet, but I declined. I felt it would make me look gift grabby, and that's not what I want a shower for anyway. I want to see people!!
My mom is now hoping to organize some sort of shower for me AFTER the baby is born. She hopes I can travel there with the baby so our family and friends can meet the baby, and have our celebration then. She even thinks it's better this way because people don't want to see my belly, they want to see the baby! Now I'm wondering if we can pull off the same thing in our IL hometown. MIL is gifting us a crib for Christmas, and my mother wants to buy us a carseat, we're going to have the essentials when the baby gets here, and like I said, I'm not in it for new stuff. A few extra things would be nice, but I really just want to see all my family and friends together and celebrate the new baby.
Has anyone seen this done before? Is it called something else if it's done after the baby gets here? Thoughts? Ideas? Complaints? Flames? (Please no flames)
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Post-birth shower?? (kinda long)
You're describing a Meet the Baby Party or a Sip and See.
It sounds like a great option for both sides of your family if you can manage a long car trip and travelling on a plane with a newborn. To avoid any possibility of gift-grabbiness you can ask that "No Gifts" be on the invitations, but some people will buy you a gift no matter what (I would).
Glad you turned the internet shower down, that sounds pretty tacky to me!
I agree with most of this, but as to the bolded, "no gifts" should never appear on an invitation because it assumes that gifts were expected in the first place. Anything other than a shower (i.e. a meet the baby party) is not a gift giving event; therefore nothing about gifts should appear on the invitation. If people take it upon themselves to get a gift anyway, it should be accepted gracefully.
I think an after the baby is born shower sounds fine.
But keep yourself in mind- give yourself plenty of time to recover. I always read how easy peasy it was to recover, especially from a vaginal birth and I had a REALLY bad recovery. DS was really jaundiced and we were in the hospital together for a week. Due to that, I had some really bad anxiety about him being held by a lot of people and generally just wanted to be left alone with him for quite a while.
a shower after baby arrives, can still be a shower. And I definitely disagree with putting no gifts on the invitation either way. OP I think a baby shower after LO arrives would be just fine. Aside from the basics there are still a ton of toy, clothes and other baby items your family would be happy to gift you. I agree with PP it was a good idea to nix the Internet shower, there is just no polite or correct way to go about these without looking gift grabby.
You can certainly call it a shower and register, play games, eat, and open presents. Never put "no gifts" on any kind of invite - it gives the impression you expected them in the first place. I have actually hosted 2 post-baby showers for friends. One was Jewish and in her family they do not have showers before the baby is born (I didn't ask why...I doubt it has anything to do with luck...but could be wrong) and the other was Team Green but wanted some gender specific things (blankets, clothes, etc). They had all the absolute essentials which it sounds like you will have as well. If people ask what you want for Christmas...have your list handy!
I agree that the internet "shower" is a bad idea...glad you decided not to do that.
BTW...one mom "wore" her baby so NO ONE touched him. The other mom had her mother hold the baby almost the whole time...and people did NOT ask to hold him. I have had 2 "meet the baby parties" and my kids were under a month old and people did not ask to "hold the baby". They were content at just looking at them.
I'm having my friends shower and DH's family shower after the LO gets here. We (my hostesses and I) chose this mostly because of my due date, mid-January. I didn't want one during the Christmas season as we often have too many commitments as it is (throw in the fact that we bought a new house and decided to move Nov. 30th, it's been hectic to say the least).
I have had one shower with my side of the family (I know 3 showers sound weird, but it's the way it's always been done in our circle of friends and family mostly due to the sizes of the families), and we received many wonderful gifts, but most of the big ticket stuff, we purchased ourselves. I'm not comfortable asking people to spend that kind of money on me, and I wanted some higher end things, so I just bought it myself.
One thing I don't have a lot of is clothes, and that's where an after baby shower is great. We didn't find out the sex, so what I do have is just white, brown and gray 0-3 month stuff. Once LO gets here, I'm pretty sure most of the shower gifts will be clothing and outfits because, let's face it, it's way more fun to buy a cute outfit than a bottle pack.
No one has acted weird when I told them to look for invites in Feb. In fact, many were happy they didn't have to worry about finding room for another thing on the calendar.
I truly wish I had that experience. My experience was, from the day we were home from the hospital, if I wasn't nursing, everyone's grubby hands were ALL over him.
Which likely explains the pink eye he got at 2 weeks old.
Grrrrrrr.
Yes, wear your baby. I did do that at the xmas party we went to when he was 6 weeks old and though everyone asked to hold him, it was easier for me to control the situation since he was tucked tightly into my moby. I could also throw a blanket on over and claim he was nursing.
Daughter #1 - February 12, 2010
natural m/c March 11, 2011 at 8 1/2 weeks
Daughter #2 - January 11, 2012
Ectopic pregnancy discovered November 6, 2012 at 6 weeks
Daughter #3 - January 19, 2014
Started our exploration into the world of international adoption June 2012. We have no idea what this is going to look like but we are excited to find out!