Post your top tips for surviving Christmas with a baby here.

[OliviaMumsnet]

We have some more tips from Vicki Scott, Philips AVENT'S first baby feeding and wellbeing advisor. This time, Vicki's covering surviving Christmas with a baby which you can read here but we'd also love to get your top tips on how you coped with your first few Christmasses.

Everyone who sends a tip will be entered into a prize draw to win a Philips SENSEO Pod Coffee Maker (RRP £50) and a Philips Aluminum Juicer (RRP £100).
Thanks and good luck
MNHQ

okay, but how do I post a normal tip?

and where's the link to Vicki's pearls of wisdom? "dear MNer, i'm so glad you asked about how to make coffee quickly on christmas day while caring for a baby. i'd recommend the Philips Senseo, it'a a highly expensive pod system than you won't tire of, nosirree. not even when you catch yourself in the supermarket thinking 'i'm paying how much for these pod things when i could be spooning it in and saving myself a fortune??!!'."

Remeber that this willbe the last year that your baby won;t realise thet you are eatinmg all of his or her chocolate as well as yourt own.

In fact, if you are really lucky, you will have a newborn, who you can eat the choclate in fron of without them batting an eyelid

Scoff scoff scoff....

Vicki's tips on surviving Christmas with a baby

and of course, my one-size-fits-all-occasions top tip when dealing with children of any age:

It's never to early for gin.

Dont think its a good idea to dress up for Xmas night party in your dark red, boned, tight wedding dress when 6 weeks post natal, which then floods with breast milk, and looks hideous [grin}

minim - you fitted into a tight, boned wedding dress 6 weeks after having a baby?

Make sure you get plenty of pics of you baby dressed up in "amuising" novelty clothges (think Little Christmas Pudding/Santa's little helpertype stuff)

These can be used in the future for bribery purposes, especially arpound cool friends and potentail consorts

(Consorts, I sound like me mother)

I promise I will stop now.........

Go to someone's elses house and let them do the cooking whilst you do the breastfeeding and drinking of gin (and mulled wine!)

Oh yes, good tip Caz.

If that's not possible, invite noone round, and sit in your drewssing ghown with the curtains drwan eating turkey and oven chips (or anuything else that involves no perparation!!!!!)

Don't come home from hospital until its over. Thats the plan for this year, anyway...

SQ, I was pregnant when I got married, so its not as extreme as it sounds ! And I looked hideous, I remember crying that night.

Oldie, but no worse for it:

ASSEMBLE ALL TOYS THE NIGHT BEFORE

Unless of course it is part of your strategy to neutralise every male in the household over thirteen on Christmas morning while you cook, and they sit in the spare room fiddling with allen keys and surrounded by unidentied 'bits'.

fill your freezer with party food now and live off it until February. Well that's what I did when my first was born 23rd december... Wecouldn't be bothered to cook and I was so tired....Mind you, I can't look at vol au vents now without being transported back to colicky nights....

If you are breastfeeding, DO NOT drink champagne on christmas morning. It is a bugger for making colic worse and you will have a misrrable day with a screaming baby.

what caz said.

Use the internet for all your shopping (pressies, food and wine). Get some batteries in. Wrap your pressies as soon as they arrive. Do a menu planner. Find out what's going on in the area so you've got a few suggestions for when you're desperate to get out and plan activities for those times when they need entertaining. Plan your recycling strategy in advance. Declutter as much as possible beforehand so you don't drown in "stuff".
OR go to your PIL so that most of the above isn't your problem !

Order takeaway for Xmas dinner - I did that at Xmas when dd1 was 6 weeks old. Got Chinese, lovely Crispy Duck....scoffed it all and then hardly any washing up. xx

here's my tip - if you're BF, ignore (some of) Vicki Scott's advice and get on the BF page for the real world story, not from someone who's peddling incorrect advice in order to sell more products. In particular, don't pump and dump if you have a drink or two; instead time your drinks/feeding carefully and use a rational rule of thumb like, if you're too drunk to drive you're too drunk to feed...

Dare you not to mod me MN...

Yes indeedy.
My top tip is to ignore all that our Vick has to say and stick to asking advice from the folk that will give it to you for nowt.
That will be the thousands and thousands of MNers then....

If you are too drunk to drive - well hell at least your baby will sleep well!

(CB notes to self she is bad alcholic mother who will have a new born at Christmsa who will be suffering the effects of wine...oh yes)

Start the day with a cocktail, it will go more smoothly.

If you have a tiny baby, DO buy your partner a fabulously appreciative Christmas gift, particularly if your partner is a woman who has just given birth to your firstborn. Note: an Eddie Izzard DVD and nothing else will scar her for life and be brought up at every argument you have forevermore, and quite rightly too. (Is that too personal?)

If in laws are involved, let them do the work--don't feel guilty. And gets lots and lots of sleep!

Oh not the old, old thing about pumping and dumping when you have had a drink! This is just incorrect - it makes no difference to the rate at which alcohol leaves the system and only serves to worry mothers about having a drink....the amount of alcohol that gets into the milk is not worth worrying about unless you really, really, drink a massive amount, and if people are worried, they can time their intake.

Xmas uses for your avent bottles: I find them excellent for measuring small amounts of liquids in cooking, or indeed cocktails. Plus the bigger sizes make good cocktail shakers.

Probably best to wash out the gin before you donate them to surestart in the new year.

Oh, and my top tip for easy Xmas first-baby presents, I had a spring baby and we did a calendar of his first year of photos, one for every month. We made sure to include all the grandparents and great-grandparents and gave one to each. It went down a storm and was easy as pie.