The New Born Visit Manners

This is for that time of the year when maybe someone from your friends or family circle has a newborn in the house . You are all excited to meet the newborn either at its home or if you are invited for the naming ceremony.
Before you visit or when you visit there are some basic ground rules to be followed. I call them "The New Born visit manners"

1. If you are visiting immediately in the hospital, call and ask about the visiting hours. Even if the hospital allows to visit during non-visiting hours, resist the temptation to do so unless unavoidable. The mother generally needs rest and is tired after the delivery. If its a C-section as was in my case, I was constantly feeling like sleeping. If someone would visit me , though I would excitedly talk to them but then I would get tired and sleep again

2. If you are visiting the new born at home, very clearly ask if you can visit and at what timings. A house where there is a new born is trying to set itself and tune itself to the new born sleep timings and habits. Having a visitor unannounced or at unwelcome timings is a strict no-no. Many people would hesitate to say no to visitors. Its best to judge and use intuition as well before visiting.

3. No matter where you visit the newborn, as much as possible avoid taking him in your lap or moving him around. New borns catch infections very immediately. Avoid handling too much. I have seen so many times during naming ceremonies - one after the other the guests take the newborn with them. Many a times even if the mother is saying no, still the guests would do it. "Hamare bacche ko aisa Kiya kuch nahi hua" is the excuse. Remember no two bacchas are same.

4. And yes about milk- if the baby is exclusively breastfed, avoid advising the mother on how formula is also ok. Also no feeding anything additional if mother is against it. I remember during my daughter's naming ceremony, someone had suggested I should give a taste of 2 ice cream drops to my daughter. And how nothing would happen to her. I very clearly said no. Respect what the mother says.

And yes if you realy feel like helping or care, you can do these things
1. If there is a new born in your neighbor's house, ask if they need help for accompanying during vaccination
2. Help with getting healthy food for the mother, any other grocery stuff or the likes

If the excitement of visiting the new born is accompanied with some help( wherever possible, which might not be the case always) ;then it would be really great.

I wanted to write this for long but a visit friend's newborn finally made me write this down. Lot of people ignore commonsense ( common sense and empathy very uncommon these days :P ) in such cases and cause unnecessary inconvenience to the new born and its mother.

(Issued in interest of mothers of new borns and their families)

-Dhanashree