1month after baby due

[PerfectPinecone]

I have just found out I am due my first baby in June next year. My husbands cousin is due to get married in July next year. It was postponed from this year. Obviously there is a chance it may not go ahead or may be smaller and possibly we wouldn't be invited anyway. But I am not sure whether we need to decline the invitation or just my husband go. It is a 2 and a half hour drive away with likely a 4 week old baby. I would love to go but worry I wouldn't be up for it and worry that it's too soon to be around that many people at once who will want to hold the baby. Please advise 🙂

I did exactly this with what turned out to be a two week old baby. It wasn’t ideal but wasn’t awful. We planned stops. We didn’t really pass DD round, just to my DM. In hindsight I’m not sure I’d do it again though.

We took 4 week old DD to my brother's wedding about 3.5-4 hours drive away. Awesome day and would definitely do it again. Wouldn't have missed it unless actually in hospital!!

I was in a similar situation and only my husband went to the wedding. At that stage the number of stops needed for such a long journey (they can only spend so long in a car seat), the fact our baby hadn't had his immunisations yet, and wasn't sleeping well at night at all and my own physical health post birth meant that all of us attending wasn't the best option.

It depends entirely on you, you won’t know how you feel until baby is born.

I took 3 week old Dd for a 2 hour train journey to visit my sister for a weekend on my own and it was fine.

If you breastfeed you can knock newborns out pretty quickly with a feed!

We did this, baby was 4 weeks old, it was fine! He slept in the car and through most of the event. The trickiest bit was finding a breastfeeding friendly wedding event!

There are too many variables here. On balance if it was me I'd say just for your DH to go. You and/or baby may not be up to travelling, you would need lots of stops because newborns can't be in cars for more than 30 mins to begin with. Plus COVID- it will be too tempting for people not to want to hold your baby. Given all that I'd say no but that's just me.

You have no idea at this point how you'll feel. You could be great or you could still be bleeding, look pregnant, struggling with feeding, have a baby who cries loads or pukes every few mins.

Best thing to do is not worry about it until the invite actually arrives and then find out when the bride needs final numbers. She should understand that you cannot commit at the moment.

Don't stress until you have to

Newborns shouldn't be in a car seat for longer than 30 minutes. So on that basis I'd probably decline, unless you can get there by train instead?

I took my newborn to stay with my family 2.5 hours away but I went on the train with her while DH and DS took the car, with all the bags etc. It actually worked very well because I could feed her and walk around with her in the sling so she was quite happy on the journey.

I wouldn't go I don't think. But my baby is 12 weeks old and we had issues with tongue tie which meant breastfeeding took ages to get established. I also found visitors massively impacted our days, at that age all DD wanted to do was feed and snooze and I wasn't comfortable whipping a boob out randomly to attempt feeding given the difficulties we had had. All fine now. But no way I could be arsed to go to a wedding unless it was an immediate family member or best friend.

Lots of stops and don't expect to stay late - but an excellent opportunity to introduce baby to wider family. Worth mentioning to the bride in case they baulk at a baby being there which will make up your mind. I had three newborns at my wedding! Babies are very portable, especially breastfed, but if the reception is at a hotel and you can afford to stay there I would recommend so you have privacy for feeding

You'll never know how you feel until the time comes. I was due to be a bridesmaid for my sister in law 4 weeks after giving birth. It turned out to be 6 weeks after as I had to be induced.
4 weeks post would have been ok as well. We had a lovely day, I fed her before the service, carried her down the aisle with me and she slept throughout. It would have been much harder to take her the age she is at, at 14 months.

I would just see how you feel as everyone feels different and every baby is different x

I would decline the invitation. You could be two weeks overdue, or be recovering from a c section. You might still be trying to get the hang of breastfeeding. It’s also not advised for small baby to be in a car seat for anything more than short periods.