Hello, world

You had your baby, congrats! Now it’s time to announce it to the world—or not. Whether your announcement has been thought out as carefully as your birthing plan, or you spontaneously decide to snap a pic, and share, here are some tips to inspire your big news.

The Basics

Your announcement should contain some essential information, like:

• Name
• Birthday
• Weight and length
• Time and place of birth
• Parents names

It could also include a picture of your newborn. Depending on how elaborate you want your announcement to be (aka whether you’ve planned a photo shoot a few days after coming home from the hospital, or you couldn’t contain your excitement and happy snapped the baby in your hospital bed), you also have a few options as to how you’ll diffuse the information.

Online or snail mail

In this digital age, most announcements happen the same way we get our news: through social media, of course. Nothing stops you from sending out a very intimate hospital pic by text to your nearest and dearest—especially if your loved ones are far away and couldn’t be there in person. You can always follow up with an announcement card by mail later.

Use props

Petit Lem + Parcelles & Co keepsake cards are the perfect way to commemorate all of the milestones in the first year of your baby’s life—starting with the day they were born! Use the baby announcement card for your pictures and create consistency in all your images as you use the following cards for the rest of the big moments you’ll be capturing.

Picture-worthy

There are specialized photographers who have experience shooting newborns that could also play with a theme, boy or girl, superhero, or princess, basket of fruit, or bed of roses. If you’re a more DIY type, you can also browse shoppable designs on sites like Mixbook or Shutterfly and customize your own message to go along. Does mom brain have you searching for the perfect words?

Incorporate holidays

Look what Santa brought! If your baby is born around Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, your birthday, or any other notable day, get inspired by the sayings of the holiday, and personalize the message.

Incorporate siblings

Oh brother, there’s another? Whether you just solidified your soccer mom status with another boy, or your husband multiplied his ballet recital evenings, you may want to incorporate the siblings in the message.

Give it personality

Use your own tone of voice. If you’re known as the comedian in your family, play that up in your messaging. Once the dust has settled on the hours of labour and the (sometimes) comedic lifestyle changes of having a baby, we promise the humour returns.

Make paraphernalia

T-shirts and coffee mugs with your baby’s face on them? Sure, why not. This is your big moment and you can eternalize it however you choose. As with parenting, there are no real right or wrong ways of celebrating this wondrous event, so knock yourself out.