The Vine: December 28, 2011
Backstory: childhood best friend and I have been good friends for about 23 years now. We were in preschool together, most of the same classes until we graduated high school, sleepovers, the whole “golden childhood memories with P” deal. We drifted apart a bit when I moved across the country for college, mainly staying in touch through e-mail and AIM when we had time, but it wasn’t uncommon to go a month or two in between talking. She came out to my city to be a bridesmaid in my wedding 5 years ago.
She’s now getting married in about a year, and has always been very adamant about not wanting kids at her wedding — even before there was a guy to marry, she knew she didn’t want kids there, didn’t want their noise and running around and general unpredictability. Which I totally understood, because one of the babies who was at my wedding cried the whole damn ceremony. I work with kids, I know they cry sometimes for myriad reasons (and sometimes no reason) but I get her not wanting that to happen at hers.
My husband and I planned to start trying to have a baby in January, knowing it could take a few months to happen; friend announced her wedding date, and I figured okay, I’ll just be really pregnant at the wedding. Of course, since we had it all planned out, it went to hell. I’m now pregnant quite a few months before expected, and the baby will be a few months old by the time P’s wedding rolls around. When I told her, she didn’t respond for a while, then kind of reiterated the fact that she doesn’t want kids at her wedding. So, here are my options as I see them: don’t go to the wedding, even though that would hurt her and I really want to be there for her when she gets married; go to the wedding but leave husband and very small infant at the hotel, run back after the ceremony to nurse, go to the reception for a bit, then go back to the hotel for the night to nurse again; go to the wedding with baby and husband and have husband keep baby out of the sanctuary during the ceremony and skip the reception entirely.
None of those options are particularly enticing to me — my dream scenario involves being at the ceremony and popping out the door if the baby fusses, and having the baby at the reception. At that age, nursing and then sleeping through it is entirely possible, and since it’ll be a party-type reception, even if the baby did cry I could just pop out for a minute and it wouldn’t be obtrusive.
Is it horrible of me to think that, for a child that young, who wouldn’t be eating or running around or even be old enough to want to get down and crawl, she should let it go? I really don’t want to miss her wedding, but a 2-month-old is just too young to leave home with dad for the 3 days or so I’d need, since she still lives in our hometown (and none of my family is still there to babysit). Not to mention the fact that I plan on nursing, so leaving the baby 10 hours away from me just won’t work.
Sincerely,
I REALLY didn’t want to end up as a “make an exception for my special snowflake” mother
Dear Snowflake,
No, it isn’t horrible of you. That said, here’s what probably happened when she got your email. She read it; she initially thought to herself, well, it’s a 2-month-old, who cares; she thought about it some more and realized that if she makes an exception for one person, other people — people with toddlers; people who wouldn’t be conscientious; both — might expect exceptions to be made for them as well; she felt bad about it, and like it maybe makes her look like an asshole not to let you slide on it, but she just doesn’t want children at her wedding, so she put the ball back in your court with a “this is my longstanding policy on the kids-at-the-wedding issue, so,” and hoped you would be able to make other arrangements that take her off the hook.
In other words, she probably does want to let it go, but if she lets it go for you, etc. and so on. I’m neither excusing nor condemning it, but I suspect that it’s a slippery-slope issue for her. She probably should have just laid it out for you all, “Look, I’m not trying to be a dick here, I know the baby will be teeny. I’m just afraid Cousin Jerkstore is going to get wind of it and unleash the triplets on us, so…we didn’t have this conversation, you dig?”
But…she didn’t, so the question, really, isn’t so much “shouldn’t she let it go,” but “she isn’t going to let it go, so now what.” Well, you tell her regretfully that it’s just not feasible for you to travel that distance with a nursing infant if you can’t have the baby with you most of the weekend. No need to press the point, or say that you think she should be more flexible; just state gently but firmly that, if the baby isn’t allowed, you’ll have to decline. This may prompt her to give you a pass, and it may not, but parents of small children have these kinds of limitations, everyone knows it, and if she doesn’t want to deal with it, she’s not going to have those parents celebrating with her. Make your choice, feel good about it, and if she changes her mind, great — but this is her choice.
I will say that, if you’re a bridesmaid, you should get a dispensation on it that “regular” guests might not, but that’s just my opinion.
Tags: etiquette friendships kids
When people say no kids at the wedding, I would think they mean no kids in the ceremony (and reception) itself. So perhaps your husband could have the baby in the same building as the wedding during the ceremony? If it’s a church, maybe there’s a nursery where he could stay with the little one? I understand not wanting a two-month-old in the ceremony (and having had a baby this year, my two-month-old wouldn’t have been quiet, though some babies are).
If your husband could have the baby in the same building for the ceremony, you could hopefully pop out after the ceremony and nurse. Then, even if he had to take the baby back to the hotel for the reception, you could just find a place to pump and it wouldn’t be as long as you might think.
Assuming that nursing works out for you, I have found that it is both easier and more complicated than I thought it would be, because you do have to stop at certain times and either pump or nurse. But I was able to be away from my baby at that point for long periods of time. I just had to stop and pump. Maybe if you presented some kind of plan to your friend that included the baby being close but not in the middle of everything, she would see that you want to be there and also want to be respectful of her wishes. If your friend doesn’t seem to want to go for that, then I would say, yeah, do what Sars said and decline. I do think that if you are a bridesmaid, surely there is some way to make it work.
I went to a wedding ( as a guest) when my son was 6 weeks old. I just nursed him before I left for the ceremony, stopped back to nurse between the ceremony and reception, and left a couple bottles of pumped milk for the time I was at the reception. if this girl is really your best, best friend, I would try to make it work. Having said that, you may decide that being a bridesmaid is more responsibility than you can take on with a nursing infant, and opt to just go as a guest. But I think you’d regret not going at all, even if in means leaving the hubs and the baby in the hotel room and attending by yourself.
I really don’t see why it’s such a big deal to leave the infant at the hotel with your husband. Even the longest wedding ceremonies are so ridiculously long that your baby will starve, or so long that your husband will use all the milk you’ve pumped and saved. You can go to the wedding, go back to the hotel for a few minutes to change into comfortable shoes and nurse the baby, and go to the reception. That’s what everyone else with kids is going to be doing.
It seems a little like you are upset that you didn’t get an automatic exception to the rules even though you’ve been friends with this woman since preschool. Now that you’ve gotten your feelings hurt about not being the friend whose known her the longest and who therefore is allowed to run back and forth into and out of the sanctuary with a nipple hanging out and a baby screaming it’s little head off, you kinda don’t want to go to the party at all.
Don’t flounce around all in a pique and miss your friend’s wedding because you honestly believe that your kid would cause less trouble than any other kid. No kids at the wedding means no kids at the wedding, not even yours.Let your husband have some special dad-and-baby time at the hotel during the wedding, bring him back something good to eat from the reception, and enjoy your friend’s wedding.
Hey Snowflake. I understand that you want to nurse, which is great; but have you thought about a breastpump? You’re right that it’s tough for one parent to have to deal with a two-month old, but you could either go to the wedding alone, having pumped out and frozen a bunch of nutrition for the infant (and maybe enlisting a family member or friend to help Dad with the not-sleeping-through-the-night yet); or take Dad and Baby along, get a hotel room with a fridge, pump out the milk, and go to the wedding alone with Dad and Baby at the hotel. I know breastpumps are expensive, but for me, it was the best money I ever spent. (Especially when it turned out that my son couldn’t nurse, because he learned on a bottle, because he was born two months premature, before he could develop the suck reflex. You never really know what will happen. And, oh shit, I might have just scared you; I’m sorry. He is a strapping eight-year-old now, and very smart.)
Also, it occurs to me that no matter how very, very much you love your baby, you might find yourself really looking forward to a fun night off, which the wedding would be, and a breastpump would free you up for that kind of thing.
Question: as much of a hassle as it would be for you (and I’m only a nanny, not a parent, so I don’t have any personal experience of actual breast-pumping), but what are the odds your husband and baby could actually stay at the hotel, you could pump enough milk (theoretically) for the little one, go to the wedding, check in after, and then go to the reception for a set amount of time and then head back in time for a late feeding?
Ordinarily I’d suggest hiring a local sitter (after getting EXCELLENT references), but in this case I would imagine the baby would really be too young for you to be comfortable with that.
The other suggestion I would have is, could you hire a local sitter/someone you trust/someone your friend could recommend to actually sit outside the ceremony with the baby (in the sanctuary, I think you mentioned), where she could text you if any issues occurred?
That might sound tacky, but it’s something I wouldn’t mind doing if someone hired me for the purpose (kind of a “mommy’s helper” thing).
Whatever happens, congratulations, and hope it works out!
I recently got married and was very much of the “no kids at my wedding” mindset. But that slipped down the slope real fast, since I had two young nieces who really were just born to be flower girls, and my husband has two wonderful — though teen — nephews. My matron of honor has a 2 year old, his best man has a 3 year old.
So at some point, you just have to decide — as the bride — what is more important: Having the people you love around you, come what may, or a respectful quiet ceremony that’s all the more empty because possibly some of them can’t be there.
We were restricted on how many people we could have because of the size of the ceremonial venue (i.e., not a religious building). We ended up letting bridal party and immediate family bring children, but everyone else just had to suck it up — and the invites specifically said “Mr. and Mrs.” (or suchlike) not: … and Family.
Everyone behaved, including my cousin’s 2-year-old. But even if he hadn’t, I know my cousin’s wife would have walked him out of there until he calmed down — that’s what parents should do.
I hope you and your friend can come to an accommodation!
Just some cents in the jar.
You could also try laying out the posiblities you are willing to do in an email to her, just like you did above. You can say, “I’d really like to be there for you, and here are the ways I could swing it. If those don’t work for you, I’ll stay home and send you love from afar!” Be upbeat about it and make it clear it is her choice and you will be happy with however she wants to do it and not take it personally.
Is in unreasonable to look into other on-site child care options? Is there no nanny in the nabe that can hang nearby and text you (or something) when it’s feeding time? Do other ‘maids or attendees have kids they’ll be needing to wrangle and mightn’t there be a group solution?
I just get a this-way-or-that-way-no-other-way vibe that bugs. I recommend broadening your solutions horizon. You’re certainly not the only new mom who’s ever gone to a wedding where babes are banned; there have to be more options than the ones you’ve considered and found wanting.
I really have no suggestions for you, but you may want to warn your friend that even though she is laying down the law on kids, there may be one or two people who think The Law does not apply to them, and they won’t necessarily double check to see if that’s true. I didn’t go so far as to put “No Children Allowed” on my invites, but my wedding ceremony started at 7 PM and the reception was a cocktail party – no dinner, just finger foods and desserts. I foolishly assumed that most parents would take all that information together and read “this is not a party for kids”. However, I had at least 15 underage people (including three babies) running around the reception. Two of my husband’s underage cousins were actually THROWN OUT by the staff because they would not stop trying to get drinks from the open bar. Luckily, the whole shebang took place in a hotel, so getting thrown out really meant being banished to their rooms. And my husband and I didn’t know anything about it until the next day, because the staff dealt with it and tried their best not to bother us at all.
Warn your friend that if this is truly her Line In The Sand, then she is going to have to be ready to strictly enforce it come ceremony/reception time…but it really would be better for her to get comfortable with the possibility of a couple of tiny gatecrashers rather than forcibly remove some guests from the event.
@lemonf, the pique here seems to be yours. Drop the bitchy down a few gears.
Keep in mind too that the baby isn’t here yet, so Snowflake can’t predict a lot of things. Will she feel comfortable leaving the baby at that time for a few hours? For some parents it seems too soon. Will the baby sleep through anything? My nephew would have; others don’t. Snowflake has no firsthand experience with what this baby will do, or be like, and she’s maybe overanalyzing, but: who doesn’t, in her place.
I do a lot of babysitting, and one of my regular families hired me to go to a wedding (2 hours away) to care for the baby during the rehearsal dinner, ceremony, pictures, and part of the reception. They put me up in a B&B, I had most of Saturday off to explore the little mountain town, and they paid me more than enough for my time. I would do it again in a heartbeat. :)
You probably won’t have a babysitter by that time, so if you have a friend or family member who would be willing to set aside the day and bring the baby to you for nursing appointments, it could be an ideal solution.
This is a little out of left field, but…could your mom maybe fly in to be the sitter in the hotel and get some baby time on her own? You’ve been friends with this girl since you were tiny…presumably your mom/parents love her too. My mom did this for us at my BFs wedding, although my baby was a toddler by then. It worked out really well. The bride’s mom even sent up a dinner from the reception for my mom!
If the wedding is in a church, the pastor may be able to help find someone to hire to stay in the nursery with the baby during the ceremony and then babysit in the hotel afterward.
Having had two babies with very different temperaments, I can tell you there is absolutely no way to predict if you’ll be nursing or if the baby will tolerate a bottle or if he/she will be quiet enough to sit through the ceremony. Make plans based on what you’re hoping for, and then be prepared to change those plans as necessary. (That’s actually pretty good advice for childbirth and parenthood in general!)
I went to a no-kids wedding when my daughter was 6 weeks old. We brought our teenage neighbor kid along as a babysitter, and she and the kiddo stayed at the hotel while we were at the wedding, I popped up between the wedding and the reception and nursed her, left a couple of bottles of expressed milk with her and baby, and went to the reception. She had our cell numbers, the reception was in the hotel we were staying at, and we didn’t stay late at the reception. It’s doable, but it does require some effort and extra expense (2 BR suite instead of a room, meals for an additional person, etc.).
I don’t know about other people, but when my kid was 2 months old, I couldn’t be away from her for more than maybe 3 hours because of the boobs. MY GOD, THE BOOBS. They could be seen from space. Pumping wasn’t an option because my stubborn jackass kid refused a bottle (to the point of punching herself in the face to get her point across), blah blah blah nursingcakes. So I totally understand not wanting to be Snowflake Mom yet finding oneself in that position anyway. However, my cousin’s wedding (when the kid was 2 months) was hilarious because all the women in my family were clustered around us giving me breastfeeding tips and advice and um, positioning help. Yeah. Handsy, we are.
Anyway, I agree with the peeps who have suggested that you just talk to friend, all ‘dude. Teeny kid, will be completely unobtrusive/in the nursery with Daddy/giant painful engorged boobs visible from Mars/etc’ and hear her Final Answer. Then make your plans. It’s not a huge deal to have the kid nearby yet not at the actual fiesta, and if that option works for you, that’s my suggestion.
On the flip side, Friend presumably has never been married before and probably doesn’t quite realize just how little attention she will be paying to anything, so you might even be able to squeeze Baby Snowflake into the reception after all. :) Good luck!!
I too went to a wedding when my little guy was 5 weeks old. The reception was at a hotel, which made things a little easier. We hired the health room nurse at my mom’s elementary school and she stayed with him in the hotel room. I had plenty of expressed milk, so that wasn’t an issue. My 3 year old was in the wedding, but we wanted to have fun at the reception without her, so she went up to the hotel room after the introductions.
I don’t think my husband would have gone for staying in the hotel room by himself with the baby and missing out on the fun of the reception. He would have much more receptive to simply staying at home with the baby. I know you said you don’t have family there, but maybe you can ask your friend for advice on a responsible adult she knows who can babysit in the hotel. If the reception is in the hotel it makes it even easier. You can dart upstairs to nurse or check in whenever you want.
I went back to work at 6 and 8 weeks with my kids, so I was a little more comfortable leaving them with strangers than most. You may not feel comfortable doing this. If this is the case, I would leave my husband at home with the baby and go to the wedding yourself. You can pump while you are there so you are not uncomfortable and hopefully you will have enough saved milk to last the weekend for your husband at home.
Two months won’t give you a ton of time, but whatever you decide on, start practicing early. When my girls were babies, pumping was a lot harder than I anticipated. After a few sessions of aggravation with very little return, I gave up. (But I also worked from home, so I didn’t have to push it.) The few times I pumped successfully, the baby knocked the bottle away, like, are you kidding me? What’s with this plastic thing you’re shoving in my face? Going from nursing to pumping/giving bottles isn’t something you want to try for the first time on the weekend of the wedding.
You also might want to practice leaving the babe with someone to test your own emotional waters. The first time I was away from Kid 1 for more than a quick trip to the store, I was pretty anxious about how she was doing, if Daddy knew the trick to get her to nap, if he would know the difference between hungry/tired/poopy fussing,etc. Again, this is not what you want to be worried about at the wedding. And if you can find someone you trust, leave the baby with someone besides Daddy. Presumably, you married him because he’s a swell guy, and getting to go on a real, grown up date with him makes you a better couple, which makes you better parents.
My parents went to my aunt and uncle’s wedding when I was eight days old. (They didn’t think they were going to make the wedding, which was the day after my mom’s due date, but then I came a week early.) An aunt and uncle on the other side of the family came to baby-sit me, and I assume my mom just pumped so that they could give me bottles. So, yes, a breast pump could help you out a lot here.
I think there are ways to work around this. It will be a pain, yeah, but I think it will just be a small annoyance if you really want to see the wedding of a friend who is so important to you.
Any chance that this could all wait until the baby’s actually at least conceived? This just seems like a big attempt to manage a situation without knowing anything about one of the key players-like whether s/he’ll be born by then. It strikes me as one of the classic “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans” situations.
I’d at least suggest waiting until there’s an actual baby with an actual (if unreliable) due date until you take this issue back to the bride. It’s creating a certain amount of tsouris on both sides; I don’t see the advantage of doing in advance of demonstrated need.
There really isn’t an ideal solution here, alas. The timing is what it is, and you just have to decide how you’re going to handle it. Even what you proposed as the ideal solution with you just being able to ‘pop out’ if baby cries is really not going to be very ideal from her point of view. I mean, maybe your kid will wake, fidget, and fuss in such a way that you can slip out the back (which, depending on the venue, may be impossible to do without drawing attention), or your kid may turn out to be one of those who goes from silence to ‘Klingons to Starboard’ klaxon without warning.
Also, traveling a 10-hour distance (by car or air) is likely to be rough with a kid that age. Assuming you’ve even healed and are ready to travel yourself by then.
I absolutely understand that it sucks possibly not being able to be part of her big day. But unless you’re part of the wedding party (I don’t get that impression from the letter), maybe consider whether this is really worth it for everyone involved. Maybe go visit her *now*, spend a little time with her, tell her how much you wish you could be there, how you can’t wait to see the pictures, videos, etc, and accept that it just isn’t worth the hassle. I mean, I am sure you’ve already considered this, but maybe you will have a 10-week-old by then, or maybe you’ll have a six-week-old. Maybe you’ll be be feeling up to a ten-hour trip, an emotional event, and a lot of out-of-routine activity – or maybe you’ll still be physically healing, running on two hour naps at best.
I can see where @lemonf is coming from, to a point. Snowflake sounds reasonable and has laid out some options that she might take (and the commenters have helpfully provided some more). The part that gets me, though, is that the letter reads to me like Snowflake thinks she’s *entitled* to her “dream scenario” or at least options that are “particularly enticing to [her].” She isn’t. She certainly doesn’t have to do anything she’s uncomfortable with, like leave her newborn home or even in a hotel with her husband, but that still leaves the option of not going.
Also, her last question is framed on a bias: it isn’t “horrible” of her to think they way she does, but the real question is whether it’s “horrible” for her friend to stick by a rule for her own wedding that she’s applying to everyone equally and that anyone who knows her knew she would instate for many years in advance. And of course, it isn’t.
I think it might help Snowflake to read some reasons why a person might want a child-free wedding, but I can’t find a link to the Vine letter where that guy was accusing the bride of “baby discrimination.” (Of course, he was a heck of a lot more out of line in his thinking than Snowflake.) Those comments have a bunch.
@Jane: “I’m now pregnant quite a few months before expected, and the baby will be a few months old by the time P’s wedding rolls around.”
Thus the specificity of the baby’s age, etc. etc. Always enjoy the use of “tsuris,” though!
Depending on the venue for the reception, there also may be somewhere on site for a babysitter to stay and hang out with your baby, and also it may be something that other parents might be interested in setting up. For example, I work in an art museum that is used for wedding receptions, and we have a kid’s area that I offer to couples for use for the kids that might be attending. Usually it is just the flower girls / ring bearers that take advantage of it, but if there is ever a group that wants to get a couple of baby sitters to watch a group of kids down there while the adults party, it is available to them. And it is a totally separate area so I can set up kids food, etc if I need to.
Yeah, I hear you. I’m not getting the sense of entitlement some of you guys have pointed out, but that’s not to say it isn’t there, although I’d say it’s probably stemming from first-time-parent jittering than anything else. Again, the word “scenario” IS key here, because she just doesn’t know how any of it is going to go. She’s freaking out about a bunch of stuff, I’m guessing, and she’s trying to put it in context.
I mean, whatever, I’m not her lawyer. But I’m pretty attuned to when parents try to big-foot a child-free situation, and I didn’t get that from the letter.
The OTHER letter, I don’t have a link to offhand, but the baby’s name was Frank; try searching that. Real charmer, that guy.
I’d also like to add that, although it doesn’t feel like it right now, if it just seems easier all around to skip the wedding? It’s….really not that big a deal. I mean, if you and she don’t let it be a big deal and wreck your friendship, you’ve got your whole lives to continue to share special events.
You have no idea yet what your baby will be like – maybe you’ll be at a stage where travelling with baby, and taking him places is the last thing you want to do. Or, maybe she will be the quietest, sleepiest, most manageable baby on earth. It might be wise not to press the point too much, until you know more about these things.
Snowflake, if the eventual result is that you attend the wedding and your baby is not going to be in your immediate presence, please choose in advance to not cry or mope. One of the most horrific weddings I ever attended, the maid of honor had never been apart — even for a minute since birth — from her young child, and she sobbed. She sobbed from the moment she handed her child to her sister (who lived two blocks away and has lovely children, so not an unknown quantity), she sobbed in the car on the way to the wedding, she sobbed throughout the ceremony, she sobbed during the photos afterwards, and when she arrived at the reception, still sobbing, her husband finally took her home. It was horrible for everyone involved. Just think it through and make sure that your needs can coordinate, not clash, with the needs of the bride.
Aw, almost exactly a year ago, Baby Frank made his TN debut. (Second letter, not the sad first letter.)
The one predictable thing about newborns is that they are unpredictable. And I can understand that the bride may not want to deal with the unpredictableness at the ceremony or reception. Even if bride gives a free pass to the baby, there’s no guarantee that mom and dad will be able to fully participate in the wedding activities depending on what’s going on with the wee one There’s a lot of great suggestions in these comments for babysitters, grandparents, etc. Mom can lay out a game plan for the evening, but if the unexpected arises, she will have to gracefully bow out. Welcome to parenthood.
I have to say, I don’t think your first approach should be to say that if the baby isn’t allowed, you’ll have to decline. No matter how nicely you say that, it could sound like an ultimatum (and it kind of is). When you’re planning a wedding, *everyone* has their own personal demands and I don’t think your friend would take that well.
My suggestion would be to say something like, “Look, I really, REALLY want to be able to be a part of your wedding–so much that I actually tried to plan this pregnancy around it, but obviously that didn’t work, ha ha. Thing is, I don’t know what this baby is going to be like–maybe s/he’ll take to the bottle like a champ and pumping will be super-easy and all of this will be moot, but I don’t really know. And I know you don’t want to allow kids, and it’s hard to make an exception because then that idiot cousin of yours will unleash the triplets, but I was wondering if this would be OK: Husband will be on primary baby duty, and he’ll stay in the sanctuary/nursery/child care area with Baby during the ceremony so I can nurse her before and after if need be, but so she won’t disturb the wedding. And then during the reception…” Blah blah blah, you see my point. Come up with a possible alternative and make it clear that you get where she’s coming from and that you’ll really make sure that the baby isn’t a disturbance.
Snowflake, the suggestions here are magnificent (and if you get confused, just remember, “opposite of Frank’s Dad is the way to go”), but don’t forget what you and your husband will be going through.
Two months after a birth you will be riding the full, Sars-genius-dubbed EstroCyclone, and your husband will be just as sleep deprived as you are. Babies, even the ones that come from the womb toilet-trained and sleeping through the night, tend to blow through your life like a tornado filled with dueling rappers and drunk elephants on ice skates. Everything you know about yourself, sleepwise, stresswise, emotionswise, will be altering dramatically.
Obviously you want to be there for your freind. But if you can’t, THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU A BAD FREIND. It makes you someone who tried your best and couldn’t work her life around one event. A big event, but still, as has been said so many times, the wedding is not the marriage. If you truly can’t make it work, accept it graciously and be there for her in any other way you can.
Rule of thumb: Think of various scenarios.Picture yourself looking back ten years from now. If you smile (even wistfully)instead of wince, you’re on the right track.
And the heartiest of congratulations to your freind on her wedding, and you on your baby!
I hope I don’t sound all anti-baby or whatever but what’s getting to me is that the letter writer keeps mentioning her “dream scenario” when the bride has already clarified (since forever) that she doesn’t want this particular scenario at all, dream or otherwise. I feel like even trying to come up with how-to scenarios other than “keep the baby away” is kind of disrespectful to the friend, who also happens to be the bride, and who has made her point clearly already — and now she’s put in the position of being the bad guy. If she wants to make an exception for this letter writer, she will. But until she does, the baby should be kept out of the wedding/reception/whatever, IMO.
Sars–Thanks. Wow, apparently I’m not reading entire paragraphs until 2012. My apologies, Snowflake.
I’m recently engaged, and although I’m not having a child-free wedding, if I were, I’d make an exception for a newborn whose parents have to travel that far. Not all brides will make an exception, but maybe Snowflake’s friend will be willing to at least help her come up with a solution that works for everyone. I don’t get a sense of entitlement from this letter at all. Even the phrase “dream scenario” doesn’t really bug me. Of course a soon-to-be-mom has a fantasy in which she can talk her friend into letting her have the baby there.
Everyone else has already suggested the things that I would — asking the bride if she knows a babysitter you can hire, bringing a teenage relative with you to hang out in the hotel, etc.
If Snowflake is IN the wedding party, there might be more reason for the bride to try to make some sort of arrangement, whether it’s helping her find a babysitter or allowing the baby at the reception (where it’s not so important if the little guy starts to scream). Just explain to her calmly that you’re worried about what things will be like with a two month old and that you can’t leave baby and maybe she’ll have some suggestions.
It’s not the first time (… today) that I’ll be called bitchy, but I’m on @lemonf’s side, too.
even before there was a guy to marry, she knew she didn’t want kids there, didn’t want their noise and running around and general unpredictability.
This seems pretty clear. She doesn’t want kids at her wedding. (Even your kid? Yes. Even your kid.) Either make other arrangements for the kid, or skip the wedding.
You chose to have a baby. That means you won’t always get to do everything you could do before. If you’re old enough to have a kid, you’re old enough to accept the consequences.
Well, the person throwing the event gets to decide whom to invite, and the bride is not inviting kids. To me it seems like hinting around that you really, *really* want the bride to make an exception for your kid is very much like trolling for invites to stay for free at someone else’s vacation home – even if you guilt them into it, they’re not going to be happy about it, and it’s not good for the relationship.
Personally, I think kid-free weddings are a terrible idea precisely because of scenarios like this. Always, ALWAYS, there will be drama about someone who can’t come because of babysitting issues, or someone who brings their kid anyway, or someone who is having to dash out every 20 minutes to phone home or pump breast milk, or whatever. Weddings bring the dramz no matter what, and insisting that your wedding be a child-free zone is just an invitation to unnecessary drama that can be avoided by accepting the fact that your wedding is not going to be all stage-managed perfection anyway.
All that said, though, the bride has made her decision clear, and she’s been very clear about it for a long time. Trying to do an end-run around the hostess’s express wishes is not cool. If it were me, I would say something like, “I’ve thought about it a lot, and it just won’t be practical for me to be away from my infant for more than short periods of time so early on, not to mention that travel will be a nightmare, so – as much as I want to be there to celebrate your wedding with you – I won’t be able to attend. I’m so sorry to have to miss it, and I love you and hope your wedding is as wonderful and perfect as possible.” At that point, the kind and polite thing for her to do is to graciously accept your regrets or to offer you some kind of accommodation. If she tries to make you feel guilty for declining, that’s just as offensive as it would be for you to gatecrash with your uninvited offspring. You do not owe her an apology if you are unable to attend.
One last thing, and it’s kind of a downer: unless you’re in your last trimester already, I would avoid generating a big fuss about decisions based on your expectation of having a healthy infant at a specific future point in time. Sadly, I know too many people who have had miscarriages after the first trimester, to say nothing of severely ill premature babies and stillbirths. Hopefully your pregnancy will be smooth as silk and you’ll have a beautiful, healthy baby by the time your friend’s wedding rolls around. That in itself is huge. Good luck!
I went to a wedding when my daughter, whom I was nursing, was 6 weeks old . My husband and I left her for approximately 5 hours with my mom while we drove 2 hours to the wedding site, stayed 1 hour for the ceremony and a brief conversation with the bride and groom, and drove 2 hours back. Was it hard to leave her for that amount of time? Of course. But I thought it important to make an appearance, and while there were a couple of other kids at the wedding (all family members) I didn’t think it was appropriate to ask if I could bring my daughter nor did I want to bring her. I left pumped milk, it worked out fine, she was fine. A couple of weeks later I went back to work. There are plenty of mothers who nurse that make it work for all sorts of situations, not just weddings.
All that to say – just get the hotel room, set up hubby with the baby for a few hours while you perform your bridesmaid duties (maybe check in with hubby and baby between hair/makeup/primping and the ceremony itself) and then decide whether you have the energy to attend the reception. Hubby and baby will survive without you. And if your friend is really your best, best friend, she’ll understand and be happy that you are making the effort to be there for her. And if you are really her best, best friend, you’ll make this work out without having to decline the invitation altogether.
I don’t know what you should do, but since you are a new mom, some info to maybe help you decide…
At 8-ish weeks, your body with still be adjusting production. You will need to pump or you will start getting uncomfortable and risk getting mastitis, not to mention the very sexy leakage factor. To give you an idea of how time consuming that will be: Most newborns nurse every 2-3 hours, but some will nurse as often as every hour. A very good quality electric pump will take about 20-30 minutes to fully drain you. (Sidenote, make sure the breastshields are the right size otherwise pumping will be a million times harder than it needs to be.)
Also keep in mind, breastfeeding is hard and the most unnatural natural process you will every go through. Many mothers intend to breastfeed but cannot for many reasons (I nearly failed at it with my son and got through it only because I am even more stubborn than he is), so that may not end up being an issue at all. But,hopefully it is =)
And at two months, even though it will be hard to leave your infant, you will be ready for a little date night with hubby, even if it is just a few hours, so I second the recommedation to go, get a babysitter, and make it a date.
“I’m not getting the sense of entitlement some of you guys have pointed out, but that’s not to say it isn’t there, although I’d say it’s probably stemming from first-time-parent jittering than anything else. Again, the word “scenario” IS key here, because she just doesn’t know how any of it is going to go. She’s freaking out about a bunch of stuff, I’m guessing, and she’s trying to put it in context.”
and
“And at two months, even though it will be hard to leave your infant, you will be ready for a little date night with hubby, even if it is just a few hours, so I second the recommedation to go, get a babysitter, and make it a date.”
Just wanted to agree with these! I, too, had to fly across the country with a 2-month-old for a wedding, and yeah, as a pregnant new mom I was totally freaking and overthinking the details. I was fortunate enough to be able to bring the baby to the wedding, but I still didn’t want to be That Guy and was strategizing and seeking advice and generally feeling stressed about how I would deal with A Baby On A Plane and other such fearful scenarios. In reality? I strapped my daughter in a sling and she slept through 99% of everything–the plane rides, the wedding, everything. The other 1%, people passed her around and cooed over her. It was…completely fine. Now, yes, I know I was lucky in this scenario, but really–by 2 months, you WON’T mind a little break, and pumps and/or leaving every couple of hours to nurse CAN make it work. If your husband doesn’t mind staying nearby to accommodate that, great. If you can find some in-town childcare that you feel comfortable with for a couple of hours so you can both get a little dancing in, even better. But–it’s doable. I promise.
Chiming in with Cora and The Other Katherine to suggest not getting too wedded to one scenario (and definitely not paying a huge amount on nonrefundable money for flights etc.) until you have your baby and see how thing are going. My son had various health issues throughout his first year–thankfully now gone, ditto to Cora’s “strapping and smart” except he’s seventeen–and on top of that I was never able to pump more than about half an ounce. In 45 minutes. With an expensive rented electric machine. Conversely, your baby may be a breastfeeding champ and able to go for stretches which would make any of the scenarios easily workable.
Snowflake, you have a lot of good advice and good suggestions. I agree with the people who suggest leaving the baby with your husband or a trusted sitter in the hotel room while you go back and forth, if necessary.
One thing that a couple of people have said but I would really like to emphasize is that you really don’t know what combination of breastfeeding/pumping/formula you will be using to feed your baby. There are no guarantees when it comes to being able to breastfeed and as some up above said, it is the hardest natural thing you will ever do – or not, you could be Earth Mother Incarnate and be able to breastfeed from minute one. Your desire to breastfeed is only one factor of many in being successful at it. I’m sorry if this is a downer but it is realistic.
Babies are unpredictable and planning what is going to happen before they are even born is really not possible. I’ve been a mom for less than a year but I have found the easiest days are the ones where I am realistic about what can and can not be done on a particular day.
Good luck and congratulations.
I don’t have a baby, and I’ve never had a wedding, but what bothers me about Snowflake’s perfect scenario is her “popping in and out.” Doing that is much more obtrusive than I think she is imagining. Especially if she’s a bridesmaid and standing at the altar with the couple. I know not all couples have the attendants stand, but every time I’ve been a bridesmaid I did.
From my completely unexpert perspective, stashing husband and baby in the hotel seems like a perfect solution. But I’m also on the side of the commenting moms who are saying Snowflake won’t even know what’s doable until the baby’s here. “Wait and see” seems like a good solution for now.
@Erin W–I don’t think she meant popping in and out during the actual ceremony. The longest ceremony I’ve ever been to was an hour long, which means that she could feed the baby before the ceremony and the kiddo would be fine until afterwards.
I had a no kids wedding and most of the parents I know were more than happy to leave the munchkins with a sitter for a few hours for a night out. That said, there were no parents in the bridal party (well, parents of anyone under the age of 14 anyway) and very few infants. I get the slippery slope thing, since opening up the guestlist to the 20-and-under crowd for us would have added about 50 people. Given this situation, I would probably have opted to make an exception for the bridal party and made it clear that’s what the exception was for, but I’m sure that I’m much more open-minded in the abstract.
@KTB – She actually specifically mentions slipping out of the ceremony: “my dream scenario involves being at the ceremony and popping out the door if the baby fusses”. Granted, maybe she doesn’t mean she would try to slip back in after calming the baby.
I don’t get any sense of the anticipated length of the ceremony from the letter. My own ceremony was maybe 20-30 minutes. I’ve also been to weddings where the ceremony lasted a few hours.
OP here-thanks for all the advice! I appreciate y’alls input. As for the popping in and out-she’s not having bridesmaids, just her sister as maid of honor. I’d be in an aisle seat to the rear :-)
Have to nth the suggestion to wait and see. I was in my brother’s wedding party with a seven month old. She went for a walk in her stroller (crying pretty much the whole time) with my father-in-law during the ceremony. I ended up missing a good chunk of the reception while I found a quiet room to physically undress so I could nurse her (the dress was not exactly nursing friendly). By that point she was rather hysterical.
I can’t imagine a scenario whereby not having child in the same building would have worked well for us and that’s with a considerably older kid. Prior to having child I was all “of course a couple of hours won’t kill child”, but honestly – there’s a lot to be said for experience and your particular circumstances which are impossible to plan for in advance. And besides, as soon as you get them figured out, child starts teething or something and their whole routine changes.
For what it’s worth, I tried really hard to come up with a scenario whereby my kid would be okay with hanging out with Daddy for a few hours so that I could go sailing when she was even littler. It was just not worth it as she screamed the whole time and then was exhausted and cranky for two days afterwards. Heck, daughter wouldn’t even hang out with her grandparents that she saw for hours and hours every week while I tied my shoes without screaming. Even though I never left her sight. Until she was maybe eighteen months old. Now of course she takes off without a backwards look but when she was little it was really embarrassing and awkward for her to treat everyone as a terrifying stranger except Mommy and maybe Daddy unless it was nursing time.
My nephew on the other hand? No problem! Takes a bottle no problem and doesn’t mind being passed around like a parcel. Once you are a parent you’ll find things are much smoother if you remember that every kid is different. While you simply can’t always do the things you really really want to and still adequately meet the kid’s needs every time, it is only for a season.
It’s a clash of the dream scenarios, the bride for her wedding and the friend for being able to go about her business as a new mom.
Not everybody gets the easy baby, the easy nursing, and the easy postpartum recovery. These can be travel dealbreakers, and at that point in life, the baby comes first above even the best friend’s wedding. Now if it was the dad who wanted to go to a friend’s wedding, it would be a piece of cake. Since it’s the new mother, this wedding looks like toast to me. You can still wish her her well even if you don’t attend, Snowflake, but until you deliver and you know what you’ve gotten yourself into…I think you have to let her know you will try, but it might not work out. Babies are tough on relationships; they’re darling little interlopers. It can all work out in the end, but it takes effort.
Mary @ Parenthood: Very good points, all, and I do agree wholeheartedly with the “you have to wait and see what kind of baby you get”…but I just wanted to make the point re your comment “and that’s with a considerably older kid.” that a 7 month old can actually be much harder to manage than a 2 month old. At 2 months, a lot of babies sleep most of the time anyway, and they certainly don’t move around or need a lot of entertaining. By 7, they know what’s going on, and have a lot more of an opinion about it!
I also wanted to back up your mention of the bad-for-nursing formal dress…omg I am SO, SO thankful that someone mentioned a similar scenario to me before my own wedding attendance. I did go specially shopping for a dress that would be easy to nurse in discreetly (read: blanket over the shoulder in a quiet corner vs. having to hide in a bathroom stall because your whole top or bottom is exposed) and it was WORTH IT.
I am a new mom, and my daughter was generally really great at 2 months old, but I (politely) asked my lovely friends who wanted to throw me an “after-baby” shower not to do so, because I couldn’t fathom figuring out how to enjoy a party in my honor when all I really wanted to do was keep to our routine so I could get a little bit of sleep between feedings (I breastfed). (Did I mention the party was going to be next door so we didn’t even have to drive anywhere?)
Just don’t go. It’s okay. A true friend shouldn’t get bent out of shape about you not being able to attend her wedding, considering it is her rule about no kids that makes it tough for you to attend. No one should expect a mom with a 2 month old to travel and go to a party without said child. If the mom can and wants to do so, awesomesauce. If she can’t or doesn’t want to do so, this should also be fine. (I realize there is a difference between “is” and “should be,” but still.)
Also, all those above who suggest waiting are also on the money — no new parent knows what life REALLY is going to be like after the baby. Trust me.
I appreciate the snowballing for solutions, but I really hope Snowflake keeps in mind that if you’re asking “How can I get my baby invited to the wedding?” the answer is you can’t. The bride made her preference clear long ago.
And to back Dorine up, my own best friend didn’t make it to my own wedding, and we are still the best of friends.
At last count, there are 43 kids–12 born in late 2010 and 2011–invited to my April wedding. There’s one due two weeks later, so we may be adding another. We are building a toddler corral for the itty bitties, and hiring a few sitters for the others. (The danger of getting married in your late 30s is that a good hunk of your friends have procreated.)
I decided to go ahead and let them all come, because picking and choosing kids was going to be too much of an ordeal AND in the “no kids” weddings I’ve been to, there are always flower girl/ring bearer exceptions, and those kids end up bored as hell because there’s no one to play with. In my experience, infants are generally better behaved than most adults, but people without kid experience may not realize that.
A friend of mine gave birth five weeks before attending a “no kids” wedding (complete with bored flower girls) for a friend of ours. She brought the baby, who was too tiny to make much noise even if she did cry, to the ceremony, and they sat in the very, very back row in order to slip out if necessary. At the reception, the bride hired a sitter for the baby, and the baby and sitter hung out in the bridal changing area. Mom spent the majority of her time with the baby too.