After nine long months of waiting, all of your friends and family are no doubt on the edge of their seats waiting for the big announcement. As your due date approaches, you may feel bombarded by calls and texts from well wishers hoping for some news. It can be quite frustrating to have to keep sending out texts confirming that yes, you are still pregnant and no, baby doesn’t seem ready to make an appearance yet. To avoid this unwanted frustration, tell your friends and family to stop asking, and assure them that they’ll hear the good news as soon as it happens.

There are a few options when it comes to ways to announce your baby’s birth, including:

1. Text or email – pushing out a quick announcement after the birth, simply featuring the important details, will let everyone know the baby has arrived. The downside is that if you choose to text people, you may end up inundated with texts and calls from well wishers wanting to find out more about the birth. If you choose to text, you may want to switch your phone off for a few hours afterwards, and reply at a later date when you have more time.
2. Snail mail – in days gone by, births were announced by post. A simple telegram sent to friends and family alerting them of the good news. Of course, these days it doesn’t need to be quite a simple. Why not send your friends and family a beautiful photo of your perfect newborn, and include all the important information including full name, the time of birth and the birth weight. You could even have unique photo cards printed to share the news, there are loads of free templates and designs available.
3. Facebook – less romantic than the old fashioned telegram, but perhaps more practical in the modern age, is the tried and tested Facebook announcement. Uploading a photo of your new baby, along with all the birth stats, is a great way to let all of your friends and family know that the baby has arrived. This is an easy way to announce the birth, and will free up your time to allow you to bond with your newborn baby. Just make sure you’ve told the new grandmas first, or they might be a bit annoyed to find out via social media!
4. An invitation – without doubt, the best way to hear about a new baby is to be invited round for cuddles. Your nearest and dearest will be thrilled to be invited round to meet the newest member of your family. Be careful not to overload yourself with visitors though, the first few weeks are exhausting and you’ll need plenty of time to rest.
5. Blog it – you could set up a blog with photos and information about your baby on, and send a link to your friends and family. This is a great way to give people all the information they want in one go, but it is time consuming so you may struggle to update it regularly. It is a great way to keep long distance family in the loop though.

How are you planning to announce the birth of your baby?

Written by Fiona (@Fiona_Peacock), mother, writer and lover of all things baby related.

This information is not intended to replace the advice of a trained medical doctor. Health & Parenting Ltd disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information, which is provided to you on a general information basis only and not as a substitute for personalized medical advice. All contents copyright © Health & Parenting Ltd 2017. All rights reserved.

These days, most birth announcements take the form of a rather excited Facebook post accompanied by a photo of your beautiful new baby. Most new parents can’t wait to show their new baby off to the world. After all, you have singlehandedly created the most beautiful and amazing person on the planet. It wouldn’t be fair to keep that to yourself now, would it?

Some parents choose to keep their kids out of the social media spotlight, preferring instead to share photographs with only close friends and family. Whether to share images of your child online is just one of the millions of decisions you need to make now you’re a parent. You may find your decision is influenced by how you use social media. If you’re a social media addict, uploading photos is probably second nature. If you’re more reserved online, you may not feel quite as comfortable uploading pics of your newborn.

Keeping Your Photos Safe Online

This is a personal decision and one that can only be made by you and your partner. Sit down and discuss your thoughts on the issue, and remember, there are some steps you can take to keep your photographs safe online:

• Privacy settings – double check the privacy settings of all of your social media accounts. Make sure that you have it set so that only approved friends can see the images you share. This will make sure you have control over who gets to see the photographs of your new baby.

• Time for a cull – before sharing photographs of your new baby online, it’s worth taking a few minutes to take a long, hard look at your friends list. Get rid of the people you don’t know or trust. Your friends list should be made up entirely of people you are happy to share the new baby photos with.

• Team effort – ask your friends and family to support you by applying the same level of scrutiny to their own social media accounts before sharing images of your baby. Or ask them not to share images of your child online altogether.

Alternatives to Social Media

If you and your partner decide that sharing photographs on social media isn’t for you, there are other ways you can share images of your newborn with friends and family. Many online photo storage sites will allow you to create albums that can be shared with friends and family members. All you need to do is email them the link to the album so they can have a gander at your beautiful newborn baby. You can also create and share eCards using our Baby App, or share your Baby Diary with friends and family via email. You could also use a free smartphone messaging service to send photos to friends and family. For those without access to smartphones or internet access, a good old fashioned set of prints delivered straight to the door will be much appreciated.

Will you be sharing photographs of your new baby online? And if so, will you be taking any steps to protect your images?

Written by Fiona (@Fiona_Peacock), mother, writer and lover of all things baby related.

This information is not intended to replace the advice of a trained medical doctor. Health & Parenting Ltd disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information, which is provided to you on a general information basis only and not as a substitute for personalized medical advice. All contents copyright © Health & Parenting Ltd 2016. All rights reserved.