When did you start referring to baby by their name?

[Kelsey28]

Just because I'm being really nosy! When did you start calling your baby their chosen name? Did you wait till they were born? When did you tell other people what you were going to call them? I've see lots of name announcements at around 16 weeks on instagram though these all seem to be American families!

[NewtScamandersNaughtyNiffler]

My babies didn't have a definite name until they were born.

[Ilovecaindingle]

Even when we had def picked a name we never used it til after the birth. ...

[LurkingQuietly]

There are two people on my FB (I know, I know) referring to their unborn babies by the names they've chosen. "2 more months til I meet baby Charlie" etc. Makes my toes curl.

[AvaBird]

I'm 16 weeks and am having a little girl. I have a name in mind and plan on doing an announcement when I've fully settled on her name. So, I'd guess at me being 7 months at the most when I do my announcement. I plan on using cupcakes to reveal the baby name or balloons.
We're doing our gender reveal in three days, have made treasure chest maps and are distributing them. When they find the buried chest, it will be filled with themed gender clothing, sweets and toys. So, we've had to buy lots of frothy dresses and frilly tutus.

[kel12345]

We couldn't as we didn't know the sex (and had major difficulty choosing a girls name). The baby was fidget most of the time, or little one. Or to confuse people we'd say her or she, and then him or he.
Even now at 16 months old my son is still called little man mostly.

[mum2bejen]

We started calling bump by his chosen name pretty much as soon as we'd decided what he was going to be called, but only when we were at home and we didn't tell anyone else what we'd chosen.

After 6-7 weeks of calling bump the name, we both realised that we didn't actually like the name as much as we thought and ended up changing it completely about a week before he was born.

He was originally going to be Joshua, but we ended up calling him Matthew! It suits him perfectly and I can't imagine him being called anything else.

[LillyBugg]

Didn't use it until after Baby was born. If no one knows it then no one can judge it. You're far more likely to have someone say they don't like a name before a baby is born than when you introduce your baby as 'this is my son...'. That would just be rude.

[MarmiteDoesYouGood]

As soon as we had decided on it for certain, which was at around 30 weeks pregnant.

We live outside the UK, in a country where deciding and announcing the name before birth is totally normal, and keeping it a secret until after the birth - or not even knowing at that point! - is seen as really strange. We got asked "does he have a name yet?" a lot, because not knowing by week 30 was quite unusual!

Friends and family all referred to him by his name from the moment we told them. I actually quite liked it. And given we had decided for certain, it would definitely have felt weird for me to keep calling him "baby" or whatever instead of his name. It made me feel closer to him actually.

[Jojo13]

We never found out the sex either time and didn't announce the name until the birth.
I like the surprise element. Find people referring by name whilst still a bump a little bit weird and I also hate gushy 'reveals' but that's just me.

[AudreyBradshaw]

He's 6 weeks old on Monday and I still call him "the baby" instead of his name

[TheDowagerCuntess]

Names chosen will before they were born, names announced after their birth, and used after their birth.

[Jooni]

I was always adamant that we wouldn't use DD's name until after she was born, even though we were 100% set on a girl's name before I even got pregnant, but we did end up referring to her by name a bit in private, probably from around 30 weeks.

I don't want anyone to know the name before birth this time round. Last time DH told " a couple of people" who then told people and soon the whole family knew. I was quite pissed off as I wanted it to be a surprise for when she was born.

[Threelittlerobins]

I'm expecting a baby in may. We know the sex and have settled on a name but won't be announcing it until he's here.

People seem to think it's ok to make rude comments on name choices if you announce when you're pregnant for some reason. Once baby is here they just have to suck it up.

[PotteringAlong]

I didn't find out the sex of any of mine so names were used after birth only.

[Natsku]

Where I live its normal to not refer to your baby by their name until after they are christened (so the devil doesn't take them or something silly like that). To the point that if I ask the name of a newish baby people won't tell me, even though it has a name, its a big deal. But DD wasn't christened so wasn't a big deal for us, but she didn't actually have a name until 10 weeks old because couldn't settle on one, and she continued to be called "baby" for long long after that.

[Natsku]

When she was in my belly I called her "pötsi" which means belly of a ruminating cow - essentially 'fat belly'

[CoodleMoodle]

We decided on DD's name before she was born, and didn't tell anybody until she was born. DH and I would refer to her by name when we were alone, but when we were with others she was 'the baby' or sometimes 'baby girl' (when we were feeling twee).

Now she's nearly 3 and is mostly known by her nickname, or 'toddler'. We do use her name as well... but mostly her nickname.

[cx5221]

After they were born and even then I found it really weird for the first few days.
I think this was because we were quite torn between a couple of names both times so when we chose one it felt strange calling our dd her name, me and dh would look at each other the first few times as if to test it sounded ok.

[AtSea1979]

At the 20 week scan for DC1. I have Xmas cards prior to birth with name in. DC2 was only decided in last month before birth.

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

When he was born - I didn't find out the sex during pregnancy. The bump was called Horace.

[AlexandraEiffel]

We used it after the 20 week scan. We were told he might not survive long after the birth, so we wanted him to have his name, exist as a person from then on in case that was the most time we'd get with him. (He did survive and still does)

[00100001]

The gender reveal party sounds bloody awful.

[Sittingunderafrostysky]

DS2 is nearly 10 years old, and I still accidentally call him The Baby sometimes.

[Sunflower1985]

I'm loving all the different bump names. Mine is currently 'peanuts' as it used to be the size of a peanut but has since grown. So I started calling it 'bag of peanuts' shortened to 'peanuts'. That's not crazy, right?

It took us 3 days to name dc1 after birth. 37 weeks pg with dc2 and we can't decide.

[TheTantrumCometh]

Alexandra - glad to hear that your DS has done so much better than expected. That must have been terrifying.

We didn't find out the gender with either of ours and won't be finding out this time either. I've always found it a little odd to use a name before birth but I think that's just because it's just so different to how I do things, rather than me actually thinking there's anything wrong with it.