Christenings

[justforthis7]

How much notice would you expect for a christening? One month? 2? 6? And what age is the baby usually?

In 1992, almost 80% of Church of England baptisms were of babies under a year old. By 2011 this had dropped to about 60%. One in three Church of England christenings is now of a child between the ages of one and 12.

When the parents can afford it.

Depends who you are asking and how big a thing you are having. We checked dates with godparents and family and confirmed. We were 13 in total and as it turned out the notice was only 2 weeks for date everyone was available.

It's usually a baby aged from 6 months - 1 year. And I've found people tend to send out invites two or three months in advance, but might let you know the date before that so you can keep it free.

That's what I've experienced anyway.

I'd expect a month or two's notice. I was 3 months when christened but you can get christened at any age. If you're active in the church family then do it while your child is young if you want. If you're not a practising Christian (or even if you are - my parents were but my mum only got me christened due to family pressure) then why not wait until the child is old enough to make the decision they want to be a Christian.

We had to find a date all the godparents could make and was available (school chapel so not all Sundays were)...utter saga with DS2 and everyone got 6 months notice as a result.

I’ve never been to a christening for a child over 4 months old.

A months notice is more than enough for most people (check god parents are available before booking obviously)

Mine were both 4 months. First Sunday both sets of grandparents were free, probably about 4 weeks notice I suppose.

With DC2 we had a choice of two weeks and chose the second one because it was when the Bishop happened to be visiting so he did it! And he was delighted. At his rank he hardly ever gets to do Baptisms anymore and it was lovely.

Thank you everyone. And how many godparents did your kids have?

Traditionally it is 2 women and one man for a girl and vice versa for a boy.

We like people to have 3 godparents but allow 4.
I don't know if other churches are as strict as us, but we don't allow more than 4.

Baptisms (the proper term) vary so much, sometimes we have less than a day to prepare ourselves (typically hospital chaplaincy situations) to those booking specific dates months ahead (where in all honesty the meaning of baptism is lost as it's all about the party!). If there was a normal I would say 4-6 weeks from a church point of view (large city centre)

Of and we rarely have under 6 months unless they are a regular member of the congregation and/or there's illness (child or significant member of family which means time is precious). But word of warning, once they are really crawling it's a nightmare getting them to cooperate, 4-6 months old is a good sweet spot, or wait until preschool age and they can understand!

Oh and no official max on godparents but no ones ever asked for more than 4, most have two.

We had a thanksgiving service for our dc as babies and then dc1 chose to be baptised aged 12. Dc1 was 6 weeks old at his thanksgiving which was a massive mistake as I was still too tired and hormonal to enjoy it properly. Other dc were all about 4 months which was a lot better. We gave about a months notice I think.

We had DS christened at 9 months old. We were also buying a house that year 🙈🙈 stressful.

We had one set of godparents, though I know in the Methodist church it's traditional to have 2 sets.

We gave everyone 1-2 months notice.

Nice little party in a local restaurant for everyone to come back to after the service too. It was a lovely day.