New arrival

[mermaid101]

Hello
I hope it is ok for me to post here, and I hope you could help me with something.

A friend/work colleague will be adopting a child who is five in the next few months. I am delighted for her and her husband; this has been a long journey and they are absolutely thrilled.

when a new baby comes, I would normally buy a gift and a card and arrange to visit. Is there a sort of accepted etiquette for welcoming the new arrival? I really want to find a way to do this but am not sure what the best approach is?
thanks so much

I would send a card and gift, but not expect to visit, with adoption they will need time to settle as a family and often for the child new people are alot to deal with. I would put something nice in the card like ' looking forward to meeting .... when you are ready/ they are all settled in', something like that to show you care but no pressure there. There's many lovely cards and we kept all of ours, all so heartfelt they were lovely.

I would hold off on any visits as they'll want to be in their own bubble for a while and not introduce new people. They'll also still be receiving social work visits etc so this time is really for bonding and being supported as a family.
I received lots of lovely presents. I got a few lovely books - not specifically about adoption but things about how much I love you etc.
Some other nice ideas would be a print for the child's bedroom or a photo frame for them to put a picture up or some kind of toy or game that they can all play together.
The parents will appreciate the gift but might also hold off on giving the child new things at the moment as so much else will be new for them.
It's lovely that you want to show your support and happiness for them.

If they are a good friend that you see often (outside of work), include a photo of you or your family in a card. It really helped us to place important people in our story for our children. When we weren’t quite ready to introduce people to them yet, the photos meant we could still talk about important people in our lives with the photo, when our kids were ready to. Thank you for being thoughtful and a good friend to your friend.

Card and gift.
Unless you know different then something slightly under age may be better as children are often behind their peers. So something aged 3-5 not something aged 5-7.

You can buy adoption cards these days. Any gift will be welcome - when we adopted some people didn't acknowledge it in any way, which I found hurtful. In fact I got cards and presents much later, after I sent out adoption announcement cards. A lot of people won't send anything so it's great that you are doing this.