What no
one tells you-but everyone needs to know!
There's
something about a new baby that seems to cause normally polite
people to toss their good manners out the window. Maybe that's
why my husband and I had 30 guests camped out at our apartment
the first day we brought our daughter, Emma, home from the hospital.
While I'm thankful
for our wonderfully supportive family and friends, I wouldn't
have minded seeing a little less of them those first few days.
We just couldn't seem to turn anyone away. So I had to grin, bear
it, and grind my teeth while serving drinks and watching visitors
pass my 3-day-old around like a football. As I was wearing down
the enamel on my back molars, I wondered what social protocol
applies to the birth of a baby.
To my relief, etiquette
experts agree that the mother's and baby's well-being should be
a family's top priority, especially since women are routinely
discharged from the hospital within 48 hours of giving birth,
before they have a chance to recover. "Friends and relatives
must be aware of a new mother's need to rest, to be cared for,
and to bond with her baby," says P.M. Forni, Ph.D., co-founder
of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project in Baltimore, an academic
consortium that assesses politeness in our culture.
A little planning can
go a long way toward establishing peace, according to Charlotte
Ford, author of 21st-Century Etiquette. "Make it clear exactly
how long guests are expected to stay," she says. To avoid
a battle royale on your living room carpet, work out a visiting
schedule in advance of the birth that will ensure equal visiting
time for both sides of your family. If your mother-in-law is ready
to square off against your mother over who gets to visit the baby
first, feel free to quote the etiquette experts, who say the maternal
grandmother has the advantage, fair or not. And most protocol
pros advise against allowing both sets of grandparents to stay
overnight at the same time, anyway, no matter how well everyone
gets along. The best thing to tell your dejected mother-in-law
is that it's just too much to have the whole gang over at once
and that you'd love to have her come a day or two after your own
mother leaves.
Beyond the immediate
family, it's not impolite to ask other well-wishers to wait a
few days or weeks before visiting. Leave specifics on your answering-machine
message, says Shawna
Schuh, an etiquette consultant in Gaston, OR: "Mom and baby
are doing fine. They'll be ready to greet the world starting Tuesday
at noon." If you've created a Web site for your new arrival,
post visiting hours and other guidelines alongside those precious
newborn photos.
If you're worried about
offending anyone, present the rules in a humorous way, suggests
Sue Fox, author of Etiquette for Dummies. Some people write captions
for baby pictures to accomplish this: "I know I'm cute, but
I still need my beauty sleep. Please stop by before 7 p.m."
Although visitors should
never just drop by your house unannounced, some will. My 80-year-old
neighbor Sophie, all 90 pounds of her, managed to push past the
baby nurse standing
guard at our front door and make a beeline for our bedroom. There
I was, wearing nothing but my super-sized maternity underwear.
Sophie was unfazed. She peered down at Emma in her bassinet, cooing
at her for a good three minutes and trying to converse with me.
Another good trick
for reminding guests to keep their visits short -- without saying
a word -- is to wear your pajamas (a clean, attractive pair, of
course). This way, people will be more likely to realize that
you need your rest. But if you haven't had a chance to hit Victoria's
Secret for a suitable ensemble, simply tell your guests it's time
for you to feed the baby -- an activity that's associated with
privacy.
Or take a tip from
Schuh and try the husband-wife tag-team method, in which one spouse
discreetly signals the other one with a predetermined code word
or gesture that indicates it's time to initiate a formal good-bye
to visitors ("If I yawn, you have to get rid of them!").
With our onslaught
of guests that first day, I felt as though I was running a bed-and-breakfast
with an all-day buffet (albeit a pretty anemic one: Not having
had the foresight to stock up on snacks, all I had to offer my
guests was a bag of stale pretzels). Entertaining can be a huge
burden for new parents, so most of the etiquette experts give
them a break. "This is not a dinner party," Dr. Forni
says. "Visitors should never expect to be fed. The only obligation
you have is to offer them something to drink." If I could
do it over again, I would have had some cookies and a few bottles
of sparkling water in the cabinet that my husband could have easily
pulled out when visitors arrived -- no fuss, no stress. What's
even better is when guests show up bearing edibles: One new mom
practically wept with joy when a friend of hers brought over a
fruit tart.
Most people would agree
that a new baby is irresistible. Everyone wants a piece of her:
a chance to clutch her tiny hands, cuddle her, hold her. Our little
Emma was a pretty good sport when it came to these hand-offs.
But even she had her limits, as did I. Whenever I didn't want
her passed around, my fallback line was, "The pediatrician
said it's not good for too many people to hold her when she's
so young."
Actually, Palmo Pasquariello,
M.D., my pediatrician in New York City, doesn't mind being used
as a scapegoat. "That way people are not angry at you,"
he jokes. More seriously, he reminded me to trust my maternal
instincts. "If you don't want someone holding the baby, don't
feel bad about saying no," he says. When you do allow guests
their chance to snuggle, it's okay to ask them to wash their hands
first; in fact, they really should. Although mothers pass germ-deflecting
antibodies to their newborns, caution may be warranted when you're
dealing with a house full of guests, according to Dr. Pasquariello.
"It's like going on an airplane," he says. "The
more people there are within a concentrated area, the more likely
it is someone will have a virus."
Birth announcements
are the decorative cards that announce a baby's birth and list
her vital statistics such as time of birth, weight, and length.
I always thought these were a solicitation for gifts, but I was
wrong. Baldrige says they're just what their name implies: announcements.
"It's a way to say, 'I thought you would want to know about
this delicious creature who's come into our lives and share in
our happiness,'" she says. Baldrige advises new parents to
send birth announcements to "everyone," including long-lost
college friends, colleagues, and bosses.
Fox qualifies that
sending an informal birth announcement via e-mail is okay, but
only if it's followed by formal printed or handwritten cards that
you send out through the regular mail. Ideally, these announcements
should be sent before the baby is 3 months old, she says. I'll
have to keep that in mind for my next child. The recipients of
baby announcements should respond with a handwritten note, Fox
says, or at the very least a phone call congratulating the new
parents.
Though sending a gift
after the baby is born isn't mandatory, especially if someone
has already given a shower present, it's always a nice gesture,
the experts say. "It doesn't have to be
anything that's going to put a dent in your wallet," Ford
says. As with any gift, it's the thought that counts.
We had the good fortune
of being showered with presents - Emma received enough outfits
to clothe a small battalion of babies. Knowing that thank-you
notes are de rigueur, I envisioned myself addressing envelopes
during Emma's 4 a.m. feedings in order to get them in the mail
promptly. It's a good thing the experts allow some leeway in this
regard, because I certainly needed it. Fox says that although
parents should try to get the notes out within a week of receiving
the gift, it's acceptable to take up to three months. "Just
make sure you do it," says Fox. "That's what's really
important." My biggest pet peeve is when the note is "from"
the baby. We all know that babies cannot write. While some protocol
experts say it is more proper for the parents to do the thanking,
what counts is getting the notes done. "If they want to be
cutesy, let them be cutesy," says Baldrige.
When her own grandchildren
were born, Ford took a hands-on approach and ghostwrote some notes
for her daughter. "I don't think it matters who writes them
as long as the person is thanked,"she says.
I'm embarrassed to
admit I still have a handful of thank-you notes that need to be
written. However, since my husband has claimed a sudden and mysterious
case of carpal tunnel syndrome, I too may have to recruit some
help from my mother.
Copyright © 2003.
Reprinted with permission from the February 2003 issue of Child
Magazine.
