To cancel christening?

[WorriedandScared93]

My 4 month old DS is getting christened mid December. For the past week he has had a very bad cough and cold, congested and generally unwell and not himself. Not sleeping and generally unhappy. I’ve taken him to the GP for tests and nothing can be heard on his chest so I’ve just been told to keep an eye on him. His cough is so bad he is sometimes sick with it. Whilst I’m worried sick myself, I’ve no idea how long he is going to be like this for.

We have a christened booked for him mid December. I want him to be well for this as well as others not hear how bad he is with his cough. This christening will be the first time some of my family have met him.

I had a standard text from my GP practice today to say basically flu, covid and general viruses are high currently due to everyone being out of lockdown and mixing. I am conscious now with that many people around us/ my DS he will become worse or become ill again. (I know how this sounds but a lot of people kiss him/ get in his face etc which me and DH have said makes us uncomfortable).

We have invited 40 people so we would need to ring them all individually, as well as cancel church and reception after which reluctantly I would be happy to do if needed.

Shall we still go ahead? I’ve no idea whether to cancel or just go ahead with the day and risk anything? Or we can re book in the new year and spring?

If your reason to cancel the christening is “so he will be well” then I wouldn’t. Unfortunately with little ones you can’t predict when they will be ill or not. Children pick up bugs from other children/groups etc.

However you do sound very anxious. Your LO is only 4 months old. I do wonder if you might be better cancelling for your own MH. Maybe wait till next summer when your LO will be nearer 1. A bit bigger and more robust. You may feel less anxious about people kissing him and generally being around him.

Thank you @BlueBellIris ! I have sent the invites out so it's a bit awkward to now cancel, I'm not sure what to do. But yes little one is quite unwell and only 4 months. I don't know if I'm 2 weeks time he will be better

He may or may not be better. Or might have a new bug. Or you and your DH might be ill. As I say if you are simply doing re illness then I would keep going.

Yes you’ve sent the invites out, but you just send out (in the same way your invited) message that you’ve taken the decision to cancel. You can simply say owing to a run of poor health you’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the christening and will be in touch with a new date when that’s arranged.

A complete overreaction IMO.

My baby girl gets recurring episodes of bronchiolitis when she gets a cold. Often ends up with breathing problems and hospital visits BUT we still had her christened with her sister after an episode of bronchiolitis. I made it explicitly clear she was not to be kissed by anyone and only held by us or grandparents. Do you know what everyone respected it and understood why we'd asked it.

You cannot protect them from every cough/cold/illness (trust me if I could stop her getting so unwell with colds I would) yes RSV is on the up but it is every winter it's just we've had lockdowns the last couple.

Practice good hand hygiene, ask people to not kiss him. It takes little ones a while to recover from colds and there's every possibility he could get another cold straight away.