What are we doing for the holidays?
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We are staying home this year (our family is 12 hours away). This will be the first Christmas to not travel there but I don’t want to risk it and know it would be hard!
Options: 1. You can celebrate early as a family and then encourage him to go with the 6yr old to his family and celebrate. I can see why it's important if that's like the one tome a year his whole family is under the same roof. But you'd have to be willing to miss xmas with your family the following mth because it would feel like a double standard. 2. You can go but babywear and let everyone know beforehand that you're not passing your newborn around. Make sure you have that conversation with your husband so you're both on the same page. Holidays are big for us. Little one is due on October 27th, so I'll be wearing them for Remembrance Day, and everyone will know they're coming and to stay home if they're sick. If we arrive and someone is coughing and stuff, then we live right down the road, and I'll just head home with newborn, no biggie.
We’re personally going to stay in for the holidays with our baby 👶🏽🎄 we want to prioritize bonding, healing, and a routine. Traveling to out of state family feels like doing too much when I don’t even know how me and baby will feel and acclimate the first couple months. We’re trying to keep the perspective of quality time as a love language while we hermit away for the holidays. It’s a lot of firsts for us and we want to enjoy them!
Personally we are staying home for the holidays. We visit at least once a year but missing this time isn’t going to be the end of the world. If family wants to come visit us this year I’m completely okay with that but I just don’t want to be traveling newly postpartum. I’ve always waited until mu babies were at least 4 months old before making bigger trips.
We're actually in the same city as you, but my family normally makes the drive to Florida for things on my mother's side, so NY is the easier drive for us. For the holidays, enough of our family is rooted in DC and MD, that any of my husband's family in NY, or anywhere else for that matter, normally comes to MD; my father's side {they've been in DC for well over a century after escaping VA} have a policy against traveling on the holidays anyway because tragic accidents seem to happen every time that someone does, so I'm extremely comfortable staying home or local for all holidays. All that being said, I haven't decided if I want our newborn exposed to so much, even staying locally, so soon either. It's been a long journey for us to make it to term despite being able to conceive thriving healthy babies, and I don't if I'm prepared to blatantly ignore microbiology like that. We may just do a smaller gathering with our immunocompromised family because everyone will have strict standards.
This input is all so helpful. I’m leaning toward letting my 6 year old go with my husband to surprise for thanksgiving and then playing Christmas by ear. My big fear on top of germs is my recovery - my first was c section so this one will be too, and I can’t remember entirely how awful it was in the first month but I’m sure it wasn’t a great time to be super mobile. Also, sleep schedules will be ruined and I thrive in a scheduled environment because of my demanding job so if this baby got thrown off it will probably derail me. Guess I’ll be on maternity leave but it won’t make it easier for me to get into a routine. You’re all the best thank you! Congrats to everyone.
So when my baby was a month old we traveled to florida, husbands in military and we're based in VA. But I wasn't gonna miss my twin sister giving birth. Like a week after they are born you get the option to give your baby rsv shot and another one and I opted to do that since it was still cold season. I wasn't all that worried with germs just make sure everyone knows you are bringing a newborn and if anyones sick to stay away. And bring sanitizer if your that worried. But honestly though, don't get to paranoid with the germs and whatnot. That's gonna give you more anxiety than what you need. If the holidays are big thing to you guys I wouldn't miss it bc of newborn. You can do alot to make sure baby isn't too exposed, like covering them up in their carrier, don't let too many people hold them etc. I wouldn't walk on egg shells just bc they are newborn and miss out on family traditions.