To eat Christmas dinner while baby naps?

[bubs80]

Baby normally naps 1-3 should we eat downstairs ( leaving baby upstairs in a travel cot and with baby monitor on) or just eat after with everyone ( and maybe baby will sit nicely in high chair and have a snack)

Baby will be10 months old. We are having dinner at in-laws arriving around 11 and baby will eat lunch around 12 before nap.

Baby currently has all naps in bed with me. It's lovely but will I be anti social if I do that Christmas Day lol

We don't yet have a travel cot

What's everyone else done Christmas day in terms of eating lunch around nap times ?

You obviously want to be told it’s fine to nap upstairs with him and then eat at 3, so do that.

I would Bring him down tbh.

@GrumpyHoonMain bring him down for nap?

My 10 month old is exactly the same, he only naps on me and we have to stick to our routine otherwise all hell breaks loose!
Not much advice but wanted to let you know I'm the same!
I wouldn't stay over personally as I'd want to get baby back to his sleep routine as quick as possible.

@bubs80 do what you are comfortable with. Like you said , if you enjoy napping with him and he likes it fine. They are only little once, I mostly did this and sometimes even at night! We were all happy and she is happy to nap now at nursery.
Christmas Day though just go with the flow, the older my little one got , the easier I found this. My MIL once said to me they are way more resilient than you realise and she is right.

You can't guarantee he will react like you expect in a new environment on an exciting day with lots of people there. It will probably throw his routine out of whack.

I would tell MIL to serve whenever and you will just work around it.

If the baby is napping and goes down in the cot - great. You all eat and have a nice time without worrying about him.

If he will only go down with you - get someone (DH?) to save you a plate and heat it up afterwards. It's nobody else's business if they think it's weird that you nap with him - so what?

If he's awake, let him come and join in. Highchair with little tastes and/or toys, or pass him around laps and people take breaks from eating.

Is he the first baby in the family? It seems like a lot of worry for a family day - he will probably just slot in here or there.

Oh and I don't think it's rude to disappear with your baby. It's your baby so you do whatever you both need.
Find it odd when people say 'babies need to fit in to our lives not the other way round'. I fully intended on changing my life for my long awaited baby 😍

Just go with the flow. DD will be 10mo for Christmas and she will definitely be eating with us as it's her Christmas dinner too, and we will just manage naps however they fall as it's just one day. I usually lie beside her for naps but I won't be doing so if it disrupts dinner for anyone else. She can just nap after or I'll put her down earlier for an hour or so.

Teaching your baby to self-settle doesn’t mean tears at all - you can absolutely do it without. And why should you? Because it can’t be feasible for you to have to be next to them every single minute they are asleep for the foreseeable future. Because it’s good for the health of both of you to encourage good sleeping practices. Because it clearly doesn’t work for you all the time as is or you wouldn’t be posting.

Mind you DD just feeds herself, she doesn't need any help from me bar me putting the bits of food in front of her. She will just sit in her high chair and eat while we eat and what we eat quite happily.

@Bonfuddled I know I hate that phrase too . I do put my baby 1st he is absolutely my number 1 priority and I plan my days around his needs. I don't think there is anything wrong with it at all .

In my experience you can make whatever plans you like but it all goes to hell in a handbag on Christmas Day! Between the excitement, over stimulation, different foods, unfamiliar environment...just take whatever naps you can get. Tell your MIL to serve up whenever suits her

@FenellaMaxwell i am posting to see whether people would think I'm rude if I lie with baby for 2 hours.

I honestly think being so tired to timings and routines just makes things harder a lot of the time. Why does he need to have lunch at 12? Some days DD has lunch at 12, other times it's 2.30. Just give him a slightly later breakfast and a snack to tide him over to 3? We've just had a weekend away and DD had meals at completely different times all weekend but that didn't matter as that's what happens at home much of the time too.

Maybe we just have a very easygoing baby (well I know that we do!) but I really think that for a special occasion like Xmas day I wouldn't be fretting about him eating a little later or having a shorter/later/earlier nap than usual. It's good for them to be adaptable as they can't dictate other people's timings for things all the time.

It's still 6 weeks away - your child will change enormously in those 6 weeks. Nap times will change as will feeding wants.

Whatever you say now is unlikely to be the case in (nearly) 6 weeks. Fo for the time the baby naps but be prepared to have them in the high chair snacking

@Celebelly because I know my baby and I know he can't do any longer than 3 hours awake time .

So my 1 year old normally eats lunch at 12 and dinner by 5/5:30. Speaking to in laws today and we've decided that he'll have his lunch as normal then open some presents, down for a nap once he's tired. Probably by 1:30. Then he'll be up by 3 and we're having dinner at 4. Then bath and bedtime by a normal 6:30-7. He is very good at falling asleep in the travel cot because that's what he has all his daytime naps in and if he doesn't get his full 2 hour naps per day, he's not that grouchy so I appreciate it's different for you but just an idea :)

He will also have had an hour nap in the morning before we get to in laws so he won't be overtired...hopefully😏

Will your baby sleep in the car on the way over? Mine would have done which would have thrown the whole schedule out anyway.

I don’t think it’s rude, I do think you’re nuts though!!
But we are all completely different and I would just accept it if a relative had to go to sleep for 2 hours with their nearly 1 year old child because the baby couldn’t sleep on their own, saving them some food for when they came downstairs.
However I was keen from the get go to get my children taking day time naps independently so we could be flexible and do things while they were sleeping. Does he sleep well at night? I’m not sure why you still need daily 2 hour naps

When she naps for sure! My DS was one day shy of 12 months for his first Christmas and he napped through our smoked salmon breakfast, then again through Christmas dinner. It was fantastic!

Some people might think it's rude, or weird, or indulgent or whatever, but you don't have to give a stuff about it.

Last Christmas my daughter was 6 moths old and I timed our Christmas dinner for when she was asleep, I just wanted to enjoy my Christmas dinner! This year I'm doing the same!! She won't know any different and I can enjoy my lunch without constantly seeing to her and picking food up off the floor! I'll do her a plate up and she can have it re heated for her tea

I'd love to have a 2 hour nap at xmas!! Why don't you just ask you mil if it's ok to sercr Ds's lunch at 12h, then for you to go and nap with him while the others have canapes and whatever and then come back down for xmas dinner at 3? If she's happy with that then that's fine.
Or just say you'll be there at 3 and baby can nap in the car on the way there. And then you can all have dinner together, change him into his pjs and set off around 7?

But whatever, it’s Christmas Day 🤷🏼‍♀️
We have always hosted Christmas Day since we had children and if we weren’t able to put them to sleep on their own it would have been hard going on dp to get everything sorted. Our second and third have November birthdays so they were 7 weeks and 5 weeks on Christmas Day, someone either held them if they were awake or put them in the Moses basket if they were asleep.

About driving home same day: when our kids were younger we often used to bath them at my parents’ house and get them into PJs and one of those baby sleeping bags with holes for car seat straps, or a comfy dressing gown and thick socks, and then put them in the car and start the drive home AT THEIR NORMAL BEDTIME. Then they’d almost always fall asleep in the car and could be transferred into the cot at home just as they were. Gives you a couple more hours at their house and avoids the baby falling asleep too soon and messing up bedtime.