A 'Baby Meet & Greet' party at 3 months old?

[Honeymint]

I'm just looking for some advice. I'm just past 40 weeks pregnant and will be a first time parent.

My OH has been thinking about holding baby meet & greet party in 3 months time. When he first mentioned it I thought he meant a medium-sized event.
But I realised today when he described it as 'a wedding sized event' that he wants to host around 60 guests at our house at the end of August, with several families to stay the night as they'd be traveling from far away.

Since the baby hasn't even arrived yet, I have no idea what it'll be like, how the baby will be sleeping and feeding by this point. Plus I've been hearing a lot about how hard those first three months are.
He got the idea from a meet & greet my cousin held for her son's 1st birthday. (Due to lockdowns, barely any of the family had met him at that point) It was a great day, but he was 1 and there were 30 guests.

It's not like I don't want an event to look forward to, but I said perhaps closer to 6 months and perhaps with fewer people? He's upset now because he was really looking forward to it.

I really don't know what to say. I don't want to be a party-pooper but I'm also wary of agreeing when I have no experience of being a parent! I have no frame of reference at all, so any advice is appreciated.

(As an aside, of course closer family and friends will have already met the baby by this point, but I suppose he's thinking it's a nice opportunity for people living further away and for a nice party.)

Depends on a few things but for me - and generally - three months is when the hormones really crash and I always found this a really hard period.

Unless you're not Christians...

What new level of hell is this?
Would 60 people want to waste a day doing this?

Sounds like my idea of hell personally

I wouldn't want that many people hovering over me trying to touch and hold my newborn either

Nooo I was still sat in my granny pants crying with both of my boobs out trying to breastfeed at 3 months!

Hats off to those who have done something like this and said it was all fine. I'd have hated this with a 3 month old.

But then I'd probably hate having to arrange 60 people plus overnight guests at the best of times.

Personally, like others have said, this sounds like hell to me. Completely seriously, I think I would have had a complete breakdown if we'd done this with any of DC at that age. Your hormones can be mental then (I remember genuinely thinking I was going insane with DC1). I'm also strongly against passing babies round like everyone getting a shot of a new toy, but other mothers don't mind this and maybe you won't, so my advice is...

Don't decide anything now (there are too many unknowns - what 'kind of' baby you'll have or how you'll feel physically and mentally)

If you do decide to do something along these lines I suggest waaaaaay less people

Keep in mind if it's at yours you can't leave like you could if it were anywhere else, even if baby is having none of it and is screaming blue murder

Likewise if you have overnight guests, especially 'several families', you're stuck without privacy or peace for a set time (sorry, but this part of your OHs plan really sounds insane)

Have a clear plan of how long it's for and how you tell people to leave

Specify no gifts, or it does look.... greedy

Be prepared for people to not be as excited about your baby as you are. To you they might be god's gift, but to some other people.... not so much

Likewise be prepared for some people to be overly keen and to not give the baby back when you want them to

You'll be getting asked lots of questions about the baby and what you're doing for naps, feeds, toys, clothes, nursery plans, childminder plans, will they have a sibling etc etc etc. Be prepared for people disagreeing with your choices and perhaps getting very pushy about it

Lastly, what you think matters too. Don't let OH guilt/push you into it if you don't want to. You can say no to any of it.... or all of it if you're like me! 😂

If you have a large family scattered across the country, instead of cleaning and hosting at yours which would be a nightmare look for a Youth Hostel that hires out the entire building and everyone pays their bit. You can spend time with family and friends, the baby is likely to be fairly portable at that age anyway and if it's over a longer time period baby might not be passed around so much.

Wait and see what kind of baby you have before you decide. I had one who was happy to be passed round at that age and was napping well. My other child was barely out of our arms day or night at that age and would have hated a party, the noise, the fuss etc.

The responses here are so weird. If someone said they were planning to have a christening for their 3 month old followed by food, nobody would be saying it sounded like "hell on earth" and nobody should "subject their relatives to that" or that it would be "impossible" to organise.

Absolutely no way could I have done this with 3 month old DD. I felt like I was just barely surviving, baby hardly slept and so neither did I. What if you have a colicky baby? What if you have bad birth injuries? What if you have a non sleeper?
Terrible idea to plan this in before you know anything about what you/baby are like and how you're doing. Your DH is mad and utterly, utterly naive.

@DockOTheBay but it is not a christening.
It's basically a meet and greet for a newborn.
Not really sure what the point of that is ?!

He’s fucking crackers 😂

I would squash him flat, OP, and never mind his crestfallen little face. This horrendous idea needs nipping in the bud before it grows arms and legs. You’ll be knackered, touched out and spaced out…you will NOT be up for advanced entertaining.

Most Christenings I've been to have just been an excuse to have a nice party and show off the baby. None of the parents/kids/godparents have been church goers. This is the same without the formality, just the fun bit.

This is one of the maddest things I’ve ever heard! A baby meet and greet! What sort of fresh hell is this?! I came here to read all the funny responses, but most people seem to be taking it seriously. Hiring a food van so that 60 people can have a meet and greet with a baby? Reality TV has sent people all mad surely.

Thank you everyone for your replies (even some of the angrier ones 😬)

Its interesting that the responses seemed a mix of ‘hell on Earth’ and ‘it’s great, we did something like this’.

To answer some questions:
We didn’t hold any other events like baby showers. I hate the idea of gender reveals so we didn’t have that either. We actually haven’t done anything much since before covid now.

We would definitely be specifying no gifts. We have enough hand-me-downs to dress the baby until they’re two 😂

We can’t get them Christened at the same time. I’d actually like to but it seems like you have to suggest you’ll be a regular church-goer after and I definitely wouldn’t be. It’d feel bad to lie to a church just for that even if it would be nice.

For those saying they’d hate to be invited, it’s actually because we both have such large extended families who are desperate to see the baby but live far away. We wouldn’t be inviting people who didn’t want to come. It’d be mostly a lot of excited aunts.

I’m not trying to ‘show off’ or get attention for the baby. I’m very introverted and actually surprised how excited people are for the baby. Ideally for me these would all be smaller visits, but everyone lives so far away I can see it makes sense to have them all come down at once so they can mingle.

—

I think seeing some people reply saying it’d be like a Christening has made me think it might not be so bad. But then 60 people is way too many. I always thought I wanted to expose the baby to germs rather than keep them in a bubble but I think 60 at 3 months is way too much.
I’m going to discuss it with OH and suggest that we have fewer people, don’t have people staying overnight and maybe have the party a bit later.

Sorry for this long post, thank you everyone it’s been helpful to see all the different sides!

I was thinking this too..

OP I think you need to wait until the baby is here to make these type of decisions. See how you feel then. Also a lot depends on family dynamics. I've a very large extended family so lots of lovely aunts as well. My daughters first communion was one of the first events here after lockdown and all my aunts plus my husbands uncles and wives were here and I was delighted to see them. Could you hire a venue and have it there. I had a lovely hotel for my eldests christening and it was great . No pressure on me at all. And several guests were able to book in and stay overnight .

I would wait until the baby arrives and you've had a few weeks of chaos before organising this. All babies are different but I know I would have found it exhausting at this point. Things that seem fine pre-kids turn into a one handed juggling nightmare when there's a new baby involved.

Surely all the important people in your life will have visited to meet your new baby over the course of 3 months before you plan to hold this gathering.

It all sounds pretty pretentious to me.

You clearly know some odd people.

(I'm not sure that it's true that you need to lie and pretend you are going to become a regular churchgoer in order to have your baby Christened but that would be a matter to discus with your vicar.)

If you do not want a Christening you could always style it as a humanist-type naming ceremony. I don't think that that is necessary though, you could just have a gathering, but yes, agree with your OH on something you can manage in terms of numbers and how soon after birth it is expected.

Clearly some people hate seeing friends or family since they have taken such offence to a party!

OP to provide another side I felt 100% normal 3 months PP. I had flown, taken long car journeys to visit family, and I was generally out and about most days getting lunch, coffee with friends, shopping with baby etc.
I was definitely not home crying with my boobs out so there is every chance you will feel fine.

Maybe host it in a church hall or event space to save on the cleaning and hosting.