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

This is just plain odd.

Just enjoy your baby and get someone else to cook/use frozen eveyrthing

Yes what exactly is it with this surviving business? If all there is to having a baby is stress and hard work, why the hell do we all bother?

I plan to cope by filling DS's first ever Christmas stocking, watching his face light up on Christmas morning, seeing him have his first taste of Christmas pudding, enjoying playing with his new toys and generally having a lovely time, thank you very much. Oh the stress of it all!

But Christmas with a baby is lovely!
You don't have to survive it.

First Christmas as a family, that should be.

As others have said, how about people just enjoying their first Christmas? Relax, soak it all in, take loads of photos. If it's a case of "surviving" it, why not forget Christmas altogether? FGS - whatever next?!

Make the most of them not being able to ask for all the latestest gadgets, they won't be disappointed in your present, infact they won't even be aware of having presents. They won't care that Christmas lunch was a takeaway or was burnt.

Oh and while we're at it, shall we ask Mary how she coped without an AVENT (MNHQ emphasis) baby feeding and wellbeing adviser?

Dear God - what next - 'surviving' Christmas with a baby!

What the heck is wrong with people that they have to start from such a negative perspective?

It is nuts, nuts I tell you!

Perhaps we should all rewind a few thousand years and ask good ole Mary, how she survived Christmas with a baby.

I think MN should think carefully about there association with this woman! She's not exactly a positive spokesperson for parenthood is she?

don't children just make christmas, I don't survive christmas with them, I delight in it.

Am loving the Avent-bottles-as-cocktail-shakers idea. You could fill the steriliser with ice and use it to chill champagne as well.

Stick on a silly hat and go with the flow - who cares if you eat the Turkey at 10.30pm at least you will have had a few drinks and won't care if it is dry

What is all this "surviving" Christmas with a baby FFS! What's wrong with enjoying it? Its not that bad!

For those with newborns: Don't invite anyone over. Don't go anywhere. Stay indoors with a Findus frozen Christmas dinner and a cracker stolen from your DP Christmas party.

For those with older babies: Don't invite anyone over. Don't go anywhere. Stay indoors with a Findus frozen Christmas dinner and a cracker stolen from your NCT group Christmas party.

For those with older children: Don't invite anyone over. Don't go anywhere. Stay indoors with a Findus frozen Christmas dinner and a cracker stolen from your child's nursery/school Christmas party.

Oh, and my top tip for easy Xmas first-baby presents, I had a spring baby and we did a calendar of his first year of photos, one for every month. We made sure to include all the grandparents and great-grandparents and gave one to each. It went down a storm and was easy as pie.

Xmas uses for your avent bottles: I find them excellent for measuring small amounts of liquids in cooking, or indeed cocktails. Plus the bigger sizes make good cocktail shakers.

Probably best to wash out the gin before you donate them to surestart in the new year.

Oh not the old, old thing about pumping and dumping when you have had a drink! This is just incorrect - it makes no difference to the rate at which alcohol leaves the system and only serves to worry mothers about having a drink....the amount of alcohol that gets into the milk is not worth worrying about unless you really, really, drink a massive amount, and if people are worried, they can time their intake.

If in laws are involved, let them do the work--don't feel guilty. And gets lots and lots of sleep!

Start the day with a cocktail, it will go more smoothly.

If you have a tiny baby, DO buy your partner a fabulously appreciative Christmas gift, particularly if your partner is a woman who has just given birth to your firstborn. Note: an Eddie Izzard DVD and nothing else will scar her for life and be brought up at every argument you have forevermore, and quite rightly too. (Is that too personal?)

If you are too drunk to drive - well hell at least your baby will sleep well!

(CB notes to self she is bad alcholic mother who will have a new born at Christmsa who will be suffering the effects of wine...oh yes)

Yes indeedy.
My top tip is to ignore all that our Vick has to say and stick to asking advice from the folk that will give it to you for nowt.
That will be the thousands and thousands of MNers then....

here's my tip - if you're BF, ignore (some of) Vicki Scott's advice and get on the BF page for the real world story, not from someone who's peddling incorrect advice in order to sell more products. In particular, don't pump and dump if you have a drink or two; instead time your drinks/feeding carefully and use a rational rule of thumb like, if you're too drunk to drive you're too drunk to feed...

Dare you not to mod me MN...

Order takeaway for Xmas dinner - I did that at Xmas when dd1 was 6 weeks old. Got Chinese, lovely Crispy Duck....scoffed it all and then hardly any washing up. xx

Use the internet for all your shopping (pressies, food and wine). Get some batteries in. Wrap your pressies as soon as they arrive. Do a menu planner. Find out what's going on in the area so you've got a few suggestions for when you're desperate to get out and plan activities for those times when they need entertaining. Plan your recycling strategy in advance. Declutter as much as possible beforehand so you don't drown in "stuff".
OR go to your PIL so that most of the above isn't your problem !

what caz said.

fill your freezer with party food now and live off it until February. Well that's what I did when my first was born 23rd december... Wecouldn't be bothered to cook and I was so tired....Mind you, I can't look at vol au vents now without being transported back to colicky nights....

If you are breastfeeding, DO NOT drink champagne on christmas morning. It is a bugger for making colic worse and you will have a misrrable day with a screaming baby.