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Original poster

Who put your baby to bed at your wedding?

55 replies

StrongInside · 18/09/2019 22:08

Hi,

While trying to work out the logistics of our wedding day and picking the venue, I have stumbled upon a dilemma. Who will look after our 18-month-old in the evening, especially if the venue happens to not be where we stay overnight (so no baby monitor in the room while we are in the next room option)? What did you do with your young kids on your wedding day?

At the moment, sleeps in the buggy rarely happen and don’t last long, only in the dark room with one of those noise machines on. I know that some couples leave their LOs in prams and carry on dancing but that can’t be comfy or restful for the child and I won’t have our LO sleep in the buggy the whole night, so would then risk a middle of the night transfer to bed.

I thought either my or my H2B’s parents could put our LO to b

OP posts:
Procrastination4 · 19/09/2019 06:41

No one-we did it the old-fashioned way and got married before having the baby!

I don’t think it’s fair to ask grandparents to put your baby to bed on the night if your wedding. When my son got married last year, I spent the whole night on the dance floor as it was a great night. I’d have hated to have had to leave to put a baby to bed (son and daughter-in-law don’t have children yet so it was not an issue).

You really should look at hiring a nanny for the night, rather than imposing on either set of grandparents. It would be very difficult for them to refuse, I think, so it’s not fair to put them in that position in the first place.

Procrastination4 · 19/09/2019 06:48

Oops! Apologies-you don’t plan on asking either set of parents! PPs’ suggestion of enquiring at your baby’s nursery is a good idea (if your child goes to nursery, that is.)

Yorkshiredolls · 19/09/2019 06:55

Asked our childminder. She kindly picked DD up from the reception at about 6:30 and she had a sleepover at the childminders, we offered to pay her about £100 for the night I think. It was money well spent so everybody could let their hair down once no one was on toddler duty (DD was 18months and full of it!)

friedeggsandbeans · 19/09/2019 07:10

We hired a nanny, she looked after baby through the day and then took her home as the evening reception started. My SIL then stayed the night at our house and looked after her in the morning.

Electrocute1980 · 19/09/2019 07:54

Our dd was 18 months at our wedding. My parents put her to bed in a travel cot in our room early evening and then my parents and cousins and dh's siblings all did shifts sitting with her in our room :) At the end my parents took her home to theirs and we picked her up next day.

Original poster
StrongInside · 19/09/2019 09:02

Thanks everyone. Our little one won’t be in nursery for the foreseeable future as our parents will help with childcare. I guess we will need to wait and see closer to the time, maybe our guests with toddlers know good babysitters or we could use a buggy until 11ish pm, then have our parents take LO home. I get what some of you are saying about this being an important day for them too, but it’s still our big day and our parents would most likely not be dancing the night away anyway.
I think people taking shifts to go into the room where LO is sleeping wouldn’t work for us, too much noise. But then in a year’s time, distractions might not be as much of a problem as they are now.

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Sooverthemill · 19/09/2019 09:28

Does the venue have a separate room you could use for the baby to sleep in? And have a babysitter or nanny come? I would do that. I used to have a babysitting business and was often asked to provide a small team of people for weddings so that guests could have babies/ toddlers there but have them looked after when they needed rests or at bedtime. We used to have a room separate from the party for play/ games and then naps/ sleeping. Worked well but needs to be budgeted for.

QforCucumber · 19/09/2019 09:35

MIL took DS at about 9:45pm, up until then he was having a wonderful time on the dancefloor with everyone. She said she was getting tired and was ready to leave, she isn't much of a drinker anyway, and offered to take him with her so we didn't have to worry (we had a little suitcase with us of his overnight things)

Original poster
StrongInside · 19/09/2019 09:56

The only thing I am worried about is, what if our venue isn’t near where we all live? We would then be hiring accommodation a short drive away from the venue and it wouldn’t be possible for anyone to babysit in our home. Has anyone here done a wedding away from home with a toddler?

OP posts:
Original poster
StrongInside · 19/09/2019 10:02

The venue I have been looking at is a private dining area without a separate room that we could use for children, otherwise that would have been a great idea. I don’t like the thought of an overtired toddler passing out on the chairs or in the pram for the sake of adults having a good time, so would definitely like a quiet area. The other option is hiring a self catering place where there would be plenty of room for the kids to rest, but then it’s a loooot of DIYing to do, and a garden marquee on the lawn would probably be ok for the day meal but too cold in the evening. Not sure how to go around that.

OP posts:
Shakennotshook · 19/09/2019 10:03

The only thing I am worried about is, what if our venue isn’t near where we all live?

It sounds like you dont have a venue yet. Surely this means you just take all this into account when looking? So dont pick a venue which has no accommodation or is miles from home? Seems pretty simple to me.

Original poster
StrongInside · 19/09/2019 10:40

Not as simple, unfortunately. Just because we have a child doesn’t mean we don’t want a special and affordable venue. It would be easy to go to our local registrar’s office then have a meal in any restaurant and off home we go. People have weddings abroad with children attending, so surely travelling a bit further afield in the UK is manageable. I have found a beautiful (and reasonably priced!) place to have the ceremony and reception but accommodation would have to be found separately.

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HereWeGoAgain16 · 19/09/2019 10:52

Our LO was 6 months old, but my Dad died the same week so we had a lot more people there than we originally thought. She slept in buggy, or was held by anyone she knew til later then we we just took her to bed later in a travel cot we'd brought with us. We got married in the morning, had reception in the afternoon then a family meal in the evening next to the hotel we were staying in so it worked well.

Sooverthemill · 19/09/2019 10:58

@StrongInside when is your wedding? FWIW I would look in the area you live (20 miles radius perhaps) for a venue that does have the ability to have a separate room as well as all the other things you want. If you want a venue with overnight accommodation as well then include that in your list. If you are happy with the place you've found then find a nearby hotel.

QforCucumber · 19/09/2019 11:01

We didn't have accommodation at our venue, it was about a 20 min taxi ride form home. As above, Mil took him in a taxi when she was ready to leave, we hadn't really made any set in stone plans for him tbh - Had SIL, MIL or my DM all offer to take him prior to the evening, and he just went with MIL as she was leaving first and happy to take him with her.

Shakennotshook · 19/09/2019 11:07

Just because we have a child doesn’t mean we don’t want a special and affordable venue

No, but you need to factor said child into your arrangements one way or another.

Schoolchoicesucks · 19/09/2019 11:17

We chose to have our wedding at a hotel for exactly this reason.
There were several young dc there and all the families booked rooms next to each other.
We hired a couple of staff from dd's nursery to come to the evening do and when the dc got tired, their parents took them up to settle in their rooms while the nursery staff were in an adjoining room with monitors and keys to the other rooms.
It worked really well and my dsis had dd in her room overnight.

We had considered another venue that didn't have bedrooms, though it did have other rooms that could have been used to put up a few travel cots for a sleeping baby nursery. Untimately we thought the hotel option would work better as the children would be less likely to disturb each other, would be more comfortable for the babysitters and quieter than a room next to the wedding disco.

Some venues have a couple of bedrooms or even just one bedroom - could you look into a similar set up?

Ultimately, choosing to get married once you (and likely many of your guests) have DC, like we did, mean you have to take this into account in the venue choice.

Original poster
StrongInside · 19/09/2019 11:39

HereWeGoAgain16, so sorry to hear about your Dad.. That must have made your big day so difficult without him there.

QforCucumber, the nearest accommodation to this venue is around 10 minutes in a taxi, and I would make sure it is a two-bedroom cottage, a lodge with multiple rooms for the whole family to stay at or an apartment of some sort so that our baby’s sleep isn’t disturbed by anyone being in the same room (noise-sensitive sleeping habits may well change by then).

Shakennotshook, clearly this is what I’m trying to do by starting this thread. Planning a year ahead instead of winging it on the day.

Schoolchoicesucks, that’s really helpful to have as an idea, thanks! I wouldn’t want kids of different ages sleeping in the same room- far too easy to wake each other up, different bedtimes etc.
I haven’t found any affordable hotels and most of them are old-fashioned inside (or traditional, same thing to me).

I will have a look for hotels with bar lounges maybe, near our venue where we could maybe move to after the reception meal at the pretty venue? That way those of us with kids don’t have to go far and can re-join the party after putting DC to bed while either relatives or hired staff look after the monitors next door. Or is that too complicated? I just want to spend most of our wedding day in a beautiful venue and then I wouldn’t care so much if we spent a few hours dancing and drinking somewhere less special. Our preferred venue wants to charge a heap more for staying open late when they normally wouldn’t, so I wouldn’t mind saving by going somewhere else (which they mentioned some couples do).

OP posts:
HereWeGoAgain16 · 19/09/2019 12:52

We knew he was dying & brought our wedding forward by 6 months already for him but he just wasn't strong enough to hold on 4 more days. We changed from a fancy venue, date, everything to accommodate his needs. It was the hardest thing I've ever done & over 2 years later we've still not taken a honeymoon.

Please believe me when I say the important thing is getting married surrounded by people you care about, I have absolutely no regrets changing my venue choices even if my dad wasn't able to be there. The venue we originally chose was much more lavish but given we actually changed it all then got married 8 weeks later the love I felt in that room was indescribable.

PeonyTruffle · 19/09/2019 12:57

Our 2yr old stayed all night. He was having the time of his life. My mum took him home to our house after and my DH and I went to a hotel.

Didn't even occur to me to put him to bed Grin

RubbishRobotFromTheDawnOfTime · 19/09/2019 13:08

Surely you need to choose a venue that meets all your needs. It's within your control.

RubbishRobotFromTheDawnOfTime · 19/09/2019 13:10

When we went to my brother's wedding, we had the children with us until their bedtime (a bit later than usual), popped up to the room to get them to bed then had a babysitter sit in the room with them till we came up to bed.

Emmapeeler · 19/09/2019 13:19

We hired my childminder from 6pm. No grandparent was particularly interested in looking after her on the day. DH’s mum was supposed to be looking after her and handed her to me about an hour into the reception. it was really stressful as DD didn’t know what was going on and got quite fraught.

OddBoots · 19/09/2019 13:25

It sounds like you really need a venue where you can stay the night or to accept either keeping baby with you until you leave either with them sleeping or awake and/or hiring help.

Asking family isn't a great plan, as you have said yourselves it means they cant have a drink and enjoy the evening and they will feel even before they take baby wherever that they are expected to care for the LO at the reception and that isn't fair either.

notso · 19/09/2019 13:38

We had sole use of a hotel with around 10 rooms. My sister and her partner had a family room and once dc were tired we put them to bed there and either me, my sister, in-laws, my parents or other family members checked on them every half an hour.