Time off school to meet new baby

[Artioo2]

I'm having a planned c section in a few weeks time, date all booked in although we don't know time yet. DS is 5 and the day we're due to have it is a school day. I'm wondering whether it's reasonable to either take him out of school early, or not send him to school that day, so that he can meet the baby. I want him to meet the baby before any other relatives if possible, so he feels involved, so if the c section is first thing in the morning, it would be great if he could come quite soon after.

I'm not setting my heart on it, and don't want to cause trouble with the school if this doesn't count as an 'exceptional circumstance', as of course he could come straight from school and everyone else wait until then to visit, but I can't find any info on the school or council website (or anywhere else online come to that) about this particular situation, so just wondered if anyone else had done similar, or what you would do in that situation.

I wouldn't book anything in advance as you have no idea what will happen on the day. You have no idea where you will be on the list and that is subject to change as planned c-sections may be bumped by emergency c-sections. Nor do you have any idea whether you & the baby will be immediately visitor ready as there may be complications. You also seem to be ignoring visiting times!
I think I might plan it so that Plan A is you DH is with you for the labour & presuming all goes well & you are happy to be left, he collects your son from school & brings him to see you & the baby. Your son is likely to get bored after a few minutes and as no one is going to appreciate a bored 5yo, DH can then take him home, to the park or something fun which only big boys can do.
Plan B is that your DH is unable to do pick up but you're able to have visitors. Someone else collects DS from school & brings him to the hospital for a few minutes. If you want to see that visitor, DH either takes DS home and the visitor stays or DH takes DS to the hospital shop to buy a comic or for a walk, they come back & see you and then the visitor takes DS home.
Plan C is that DS in unable to visit after school as you can't receive visitors (or haven't even had the c-sec yet) so you need someone to collect DS from school & take him home or to their house or something.

Duh, I hadn't even thought of visiting times, thank you! That solves the issue entirely, having looked it up. :)

I would just not have other family members until my DCs had met the baby! So tell the visitors to wait.

The visiting times solve that one too - no one can visit until a time he can come anyway. :)

After both of my planned sections, I was in recovery for hours - more with the first than the second. Visiting hours don't count for spouses or kids, they can be there all day if they like.

I'd leave him in school and then ask a willing friend or relative to bring him in afterwards. FWIW, DC2 was at the childminder on the day I had DC1 (he was 3) until my mum picked him up about 5.30 and brought him to the hospital.

DD2 was born at 6:30pm (natural delivery) but we were kept in as meconium in waters. DD1 (age5) was with her dad (XP) that evening and night. XP called school the next day and told them baby has been born, DD1 hadn't seen her yet and wouldn't be in school that day.

School were absolutely fine with this and DD was first in the room at visitor hours. She would have been far to excited and distracted to get anything out of school that day and I felt she needed to feel as if this special occasion involved her as well.