Announcing the birth of your baby

There are two main challenges associated with sharing the exciting news. 1) You and your husband will likely be extremely exhausted after giving birth, and 2) You will both be busy taking care of the baby (and any other kids you may have).

There are a couple of ways to tell everyone the news. You can send out birth announcement, call everyone and tell them personally, have a computer leave each person a recorded message, or some combination of these three. Everyone has a different idea of what birth announcements should look like these days. There are a lot of ways to do them.

Take a picture of the baby wearing a shirt on which you have written the birth information.

Take several pictures of the newborn and create a digital collage. Add the birth information, print it off and mail it to people you know.

Use a professional to create the announcement for you. Try to look for discount coupons as this could be an expensive option, but it will likely look the best.

Scrapbook a picture of the baby using transparent vellum, and a baby related piece of cardstock cut to size.

Make a postcard out of a picture of baby. On the left side of the back, write out the birthing information.

Birth announcements should at least contain the following information:

• baby's full name
• baby's birth date and time
• baby's birth weight and height
• baby's parent's names and other sibling's names

What to do before baby is born

In an ideal world, you have time to think about birth announcements amidst all the other planning you have to get done before baby arrives. If you are planning on mailing out announcements, it will be easiest to print off address labels before the baby arrives. Once the baby comes, you will need to get as much sleep as you can and having the labels ready to go will be one less thing to worry about. You can even stick them on to the envelopes in advance, too.

What to do shortly after baby is born

In addition to mailing out birth announcements to let people know the good news, you can also call special people from the hospital or when you get home from the hospital. Make sure your cell phone has full batteries when you arrive at the hospital, or bring a phone charger. Make sure you have phone numbers with you, and spare change in case your cell phone doesn't get service, runs low on battery, out of minutes, etc.

You should try to keep the phone conversations as short as possible because you will need to recover from the delivery.

A new way to let people know about the birth of your baby is to leave a message with a company right after the baby is born. The company's computer program will call everyone on your list and play the message for them. That way you can get as much rest as possible, and people will still know about the birth. You give the company the list of phone numbers before the delivery. Most of these companies are quite inexpensive to use. We like babyphonecalls.com

What to do after baby is born

Take a lot of pictures of your newborn. Everyone will love to see pictures, even if you don't include them in the birth announcement.

You can also start a blog to keep long distance friends and relatives updated on your baby's progress. Try going to blogspot.com and creating a free one.

Mail, email, or call out birth announcements, and finally, get some rest! You deserve it.

What everyone will want to know

• What you named him or her?
• What time and what day was he or she born?
• How long you were in labor?
• How much did the baby weigh at birth?
• How tall was the baby at birth?
• How was the overall experience?
• Were there any complications with the delivery?