Post your top tips for surviving Christmas with a baby here.

PETERS top tip for surviving christmas is:

Make sure i take my pills morning and night and that I dont run out of them.

lol!

really don't agree with this one

1. Do whatever it takes to avoid hosting a family Christmas at your house if your baby is very small. Even taking a journey into account, being at someone else?s home means you?re not worrying about whether you?ve done all the shopping and whether everyone?s having a good time!

no. do whatever it takes to do what will be easiest for you. in many cases it'll be stay put so you don;t have to remember a load of stuff to pack (knowing that asking, let alone relying on friends to get you stuff is ludicrous) and making sure t'other half cooks

I second prettybird!

I vote for FairyTaleOfNewYork to win the prize for that tip! Yes, I know it's supposed to be random, but some tips just deserve recognition.

surviving xmas?

Heck we are enjoying xmas this year, for the last 3 xmas's we have been praying that peter survived long enough to enjoy the next one.

my top tip? sign up to the donor register and maybe give someone else the gift of life.

Ninebabiesdancing: "I don't reward stupidity."

SPOT ON

FFS

Stupid competition, stupid premise, stupid stupid stupid idea to have this pile of cack from Philips Avent in the first sodding place.

Simply expect to enjoy it and you will. Relax and go with the flow.

If you think it will be awful and stressful, then guess waht, it will be!

It never crossed my mind to worry about surviving Christmas - indeed I looked forward to it even more 'cos ds was 3.5 months old, I had got into a routine with him and I was off work, so could get well prepared. In fact it was one of my least stressful Christmases ever - no wait of expectation and more time to get ready and a lovely baby to enjoy.

"7. If you are breastfeeding but looking forward to letting your hair down a bit over Christmas and know you?ll be tempted to overindulge in festive drinks, take along a store of frozen breast milk for the odd feed or two. You?ll need to express your milk and throw it away rather than breastfeed while alcohol is still in your system."

Or you could stop handing out ridiculous, undermining po-faced shit advice and get on with being a midwife and mum to Poppy.

Stop polluting MN with your absurdity, Vicki.

One of the loveliest Christmases we have had was when my ds was three weeks old. But then all Christmases are lovely when your children are little. (I use the word "lovely" as it is most appropriate). Of course you will be tired but the joy of Christmas will take over.

Don't spend time and money getting your little one loads of toys like I did first time around only to find that he spent most of the day playing with the wrapping paper and boxes.

Twinklemegan on Thu 06-Dec-07 23:35:36
I have to say to Mumsnet Towers that you're quite possibly shooting yourselves in both feet with this one. I always thought Mumsnet was aimed at the thinking woman, the woman who didn't need to be a slave to so-called experts.

Sadly this Vicki/Vicky rubbish brings in hard cash for Mumsnet. But considering how much money is involved I am suprised at the number of simple mistakes made by this 'expert' I'm impressed though I now now the companies name 'Philip Avent' it is now on the list of companies I will NEVER buy from, I don't reward stupidity.

I knew the pump and dump thing was wrong plus point 6 suggests the need for a routine for breastfeeding i.e. Do stuff so.."feeding pattern will more likely be preserved" But ALL the experts say demand feeding is by far the best way to go.

Plus I am not locking myself away from the fun times with all the family, just to breastfeed

alcohol AND BFing????????? you can do both????????????????

they couldn't have said that when I WAS BFing could they!!

you learn something new every day! Didnt know you could drink and BF!

Christmas is looking better for me already! Dont think ive had a drink since LAST christmas!

Top tip - GET OUT THE HOUSE! Even if its jsut a walk around the block.... fresh air is needed!

I'm hoping that Turtle arrives before Xmas - I'm really excited about having a newborn at Xmas time!
And I certainly won't be asking people to buy me nappies - family and friends have already been more than generous in buying baby bits and pieces!
I'm making sure I'm prepared by getting all my Xmas shopping done nice and early, cooking up loads of food for the freezer and will hopefully be looking forward to a lovely Xmas
Ooh and I've stocked up on some pate, I've sooo missed pate!!!

wine, chocolate, wine, more chocs, more wine.........

of course, if you are BFing, then wine isn't recommended, so then you could try....

hot chocolate, scrummy biccies, hot choc, scrummy biccies.

oooh, and a good sense of humour....always handy.

(of course, this may warrent serious tips, but with the mornign I am having right now I am hiding upstairs while the kiddies sort their own fights out so humour and wine and choc is what I am dreaming of and all sensibleness has left the building)

Get your friends to buy in nappies for you?!!?!? But it is your baby! You wouldn't expect em to buy you some fresh knickers

I have never loved xmas as much as when I have had my children. If you can only hope to survive xmas with babies you're doing it wrong! It's no harder than any other day, but better, you don't have to rush off to work/school/nursery, you don't have to fret about entertainment cos of all the relatives about and there's lots of stuff to do together.

So top tip, enjoy each other, sod difficult relatives and don't fret too much about social niceties, make up for fohpahs the rest of the year

But then, if having a baby wasn't so difficult we wouldn't have to buy all those lovely labour-saving devices now, would we?

ds1 born late xmas eve

top tip - put on xmas paper hat, hand baby to dh and get pissed by lunchtime xmas day

eat and drink all the stuff you werent allowed to for 9 flippin months

sing karaoke till the wee hours of boxing morning

and get into the swing of things the next day

I have to agree I find this a bit odd. You "survive" Christmas with a baby in exactly the same way as you "survive" all the other days with a baby and all the other christmases without one.

Christmas with babies is lovely - at one and the same time you feel you're doing Christmas as a family, but, in reality, they don;t make much difference. With a baby you can sit at the dinner table and indulge and be adult - and you can relish the whole cycle thing of life - you're probably starting to find adult christmases a bit tedious and samey, so you can gaze adoringly at your baby and think ahead about Christmas with a toddler, christmas with a four year old...etc.

I started reading Vicki's tips but had to stop when I read that if you;re going to stay with friends to ask them to buy nappies for you. wtf? how pfb is that? you have friends who are entertaining you, cooking you lovely food, and you ask them to get some nappies in. if they didn;t have kids they woule recoil in horror. if they had kids they would quite possibly be tempted to tell you that perhaps they already had enough on their plate. if they were polite.

"surviving" Christmas with a baby?

What's the problem? [puzzled]

I've had Christmas with a 3 month old ds and Christmas with a six month old dd and cannot for the life of me see where there were any problems.....

Got a fab photo of dd at 6 months trying to get to the lovely shiny paper!!!!

Ooh just seen. there's a prize right then, well then that's different.
So...

Throw a bit of free-range turkey at the kids and let them enjoy the pretty lights.

aw I love mn, any other mumsy site would be flooded with replies directing useful ways to distract babies from trees and how to puree a turkey dinner so 'the baby' can join in...

But no not sharp mnetters. Surviving! Pah! Throw a bit of free-range turkey at the kids and have them loving the pretty lights!
{grin]

this isn't serious right?

top tip put them in a red baby grown add ribbon through arm holes and hang on tree until hungry

I have to say to Mumsnet Towers that you're quite possibly shooting yourselves in both feet with this one. I always thought Mumsnet was aimed at the thinking woman, the woman who didn't need to be a slave to so-called experts. I thought that was why there isn't that much info on your site other than the absolutely brilliant talk boards. Why try to be all things to all people? There are so many other sites covering all that crap.

Just my humble opinion.