Birth Announcement Etiquette - A Simple Guide

Birth announcement etiquette is literally the easiest thing EVER to adhere to but blimey, it causes so much unnecessary aggro for new parents!

Got a friend or relative about to pop? Exciting, isn’t it!?

No doubt you’ll be brimming with joy and excitement at the impending arrival, and then when the wee one is actually born, these feelings will be amplified tenfold so it’s understandable that sometimes, people can get a tad overexcited and loose-lipped, so to speak…

Birth announcement etiquette has one very simple rule.

KEEP YA LIPS ZIPPED UNTIL THE PARENTS HAVE PUBLICLY ANNOUNCED!

I cannot emphasise this any more strongly! Keep your fingers away from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, texts, phone calls. Keep your mouth shut in public if mutual friends who may not have been privileged enough to be on the ‘first to know baby is here’ list approach you.

…unless you get prior permission before the big event, of course.

Fundamentally – and this is something that lots of people don’t seem to understand – the birth of a baby is something so personal, something so amazing and phenomenal, that to take away the first announcement from the proud parents is stealing their thunder and taking away some of the ‘wow factor’… it’s a novelty, too, to be able to tell the world you’ve just had a baby, but someone else announcing it without permission is stealing your spotlight and making your own announcement somewhat anticlimactic as mutual friends and mutual family will already know. It is also private news – it’s not fair to breach this privacy, some parents want a day or two where only themselves and their inner circle know about the baby.

For me, my thunder being stolen was one of my concerns when I had my son. The day before I was induced (on my 24th birthday they told me I was being induced at 37 weeks the next morning) I set my profile picture to a cute paragraph asking people to respect our privacy and not announce anything.

When I was in labour, we announced it ourselves to take away the opportunity for anyone to let the cat out of the bag with not-so-subtle statuses like ‘Go on Kate! You can do it’ etc. We took the power.

I also made it clear to family that it was to be me and my partner who would announce the birth and that they’d face my wrath if anyone disrespected our wishes. I was told I’d never be able to have babies, so my birth announcement was honestly something I never thought I’d have the opportunity to make and it was something I wrote and rewrote throughout my pregnancy as I was SO EXCITED for the day that I could tell the world that we’d become parents against all odds!

It was well worth the wait, let’s put it that way!

Our first family photo!

What do YOU think of birth announcement etiquette? Do you disagree and think it’s not important, or do you agree with me and think that it’s something everyone should be mindful of? Tell us what you think, and about your own experiences of birth announcement etiquette, in the comments!

Love from Katie. Xx