The First One Is Quieter Than You Expect

Somebody will ask what you are doing for Christmas before the baby is two weeks old. They will ask kindly, and they will ask in a way that already contains the answer they are hoping for.

You will hear yourself say “we’ll see how we’re feeling”, which everyone understands to mean yes.

Decline early, not politely late

The kindest thing you can do for everyone, including yourself, is to make the decision in November and communicate it once.

“We’re staying home this year. Come to us on the twenty seventh if you’d like, for an hour.” Said in November, that is information. Said on the twenty second, after your mother has bought a turkey the size of a spaniel, it is a rejection, and it will be remembered as one.

If you genuinely do not know yet, say that instead, with a date attached. “We’ll decide by the first of December and I’ll tell you straight away.” People can plan around a date. They cannot plan around we’ll see.

One house, if any

If you are travelling, go to one place. Not three houses in two days, not a lunch and then a supper.

Drive at a time that suits the feeds rather than the hosts, and arrange it so you can leave without a conversation. That last part matters more than the rest combined. The thing that makes a visit unbearable with a newborn is not the visit, it is the twenty five minutes of standing in a hallway explaining why you are going.

Book a decision point in advance. “We’ll be there from two until about half four.” Then leave at half four, even if it is going well, because leaving while it is going well is how it stays a good memory.

Visitors, in the worst month for it

Say it once at the door, warmly, in the same tone you would use to point out where the bathroom is. Most people comply immediately. The one person who does not is the person you would have had trouble with anyway. And a line you set in the hallway is easier to hold than one you improvise on the sofa.

Protect the older child, not the baby

If there is a three year old in the house, they are the one whose Christmas is at risk.

The newborn needs a normal day. The three year old needs the morning to happen roughly on time, with a parent who is actually present for it rather than half turned away.

So split the shift deliberately and name the time. One of you is on the baby from seven until eleven, the other is entirely on Christmas, and then you swap. Written down, agreed the night before. Vague good intentions collapse at about half past eight, and the person who ends up holding the baby through the whole morning is going to be quietly furious by lunch.

Worth knowing too that an older sibling often gets harder rather than sadder at this point, and that it is not about the presents. There is more on why in what is going on when the toddler starts hitting the new baby.

The two things actually worth having

Not much is needed here and most of what gets recommended is for the parents’ anxiety rather than the baby.

The first is anything that makes the night feeds in an unfamiliar room feel like the night feeds at home. A consistent light and sound setup travels, and a baby who gets the same cue in your mother in law’s spare room settles better than one who does not.

Our pick

Hatch Baby Sleep Bundle (Greige)

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The second is a carrier, and specifically for the visiting. A baby worn on you is a baby who is not being handed round nine people, and it ends the negotiation before it starts. Nobody argues with a sleeping baby strapped to a chest.

Our pick

Infantino Swift Classic Carrier with Pocket

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If you are still choosing between the wrap and the structured kind, the differences that actually matter are set out in the wrap versus carrier comparison.

Traditions are for you this year

The baby will not remember any of it. That is not a sad fact, it is a permission slip.

Do the ones you enjoy and drop the rest. A photograph, a stocking they cannot use, a decoration with the year on it. Fifteen minutes of effort total. The elaborate first Christmas is staged for an audience who are mostly on a phone screen. That is work you are doing for other people, at the point in your life when you have the least to give.

If you feel flat

A lot of people do, and almost nobody says so, because saying it out loud in December sounds like ingratitude.

You are sleep deprived, still healing, and being watched by people who very much want you to be delighted. Flat is a reasonable response to that. It usually lifts.

What is worth acting on is flatness that keeps going past a few days, or arrives with a sense of detachment, dread, or thoughts that frighten you. Tell your doctor or midwife plainly, in those words. Postnatal depression is treatable and December is an easy month for it to hide in, because everyone assumes tiredness explains everything. If you are carrying it mostly alone, the piece on being the only one on shift is worth reading in the quiet part of the evening.

Our first one was three of us, a chicken, and a baby asleep in a carrier for most of the afternoon. I remember it as one of the better ones, and it took me about four years to stop apologising for it.