Sharing your due date, and news that you're in labour

[StephV]

I'm telling people the due date as with a lot of 1st babies it seems to be 10 days overdue - so I tell them not to get too excited about the date..

But the labour - nope I don't want anyone calling during especially if it happens to be one of those 24 hour pls labours!

[Antheia]

With this pregnancy i have only told people i'm due in February and that's it and they havent asked for a specific date. To be honest, half the people i know don't even know i'm pregnant!

With regards to labour, we're having a homebirth and i won't get much support of this descion so only MIL will know as she looking after the other 2 kids. No one has actually asked where i'm having the baby so luckly i have avoid that. I will let them know probably the next day after bub is born. But then again, we have no family close by so i wouldnt have any hassles of people waiting about anyway.

[satya]

You may as well be honest about the due date - everyone will want to know and most people don't go on their due date so it doesn't really matter anyway.

Don't tell anyone that you are in labour unless you want them at the hospital and therefore probably in the labour room with you. I wasn't intending to tell anyone until I was well advanced by my DF got overexcited and called both my mum and his mum. This resulted in having his mum at hospital for much of the labour as well as my parents there for some of it. I had only ever intended on my DF being in the labour room with me but I think it worked out well to have the family support as well. My labour was a long (17 hours and 12 hours or so of pre labour) so he did need a bit of a break at times. Having the others there allowed him to take a short break leaving me with someone there to hold my hand or rub my back.

If you are intending to share news with your BB due date group be careful about sharing your phone number. I've noticed some people get inundated with messages from people when they go into labour. That can't be fun for your partner to deal with - as they tend to end up with your phone while it's all going on.

My phone got left at home so I didn't advise any friends of the birth til the following day. Joint friends found out the day of the birth as their numbers were of course in DF's phone. I vaguely remember having a couple of very weird phone conversations with family/close friends shortly after the birth (DF was way over excited by that time). I was so out of it and I have no idea what I said to them. Might be wise to word DF up to not pass the phone to you after the birth.

[PinkPalace]

We have just told people we are due late october and no we wont tell them - until after the baby is born.
We didnt tell anyone when i was in labour with DD and wont with this one either!

[Baby Blue Eyes]

we told people the due date for Toby and it drove me batty the phone calls, have you had it yet - oh yes I had a beautiful baby the most amazing experiance of my life and decided to not tell anyone about it

this one I am just saying April for everyone but close friends/family

[Snowy Love]

I would say definatly be vague - my EDD is 18 April, but we're saying end of April. If you're pushed for an exact date, just say only 5% of babies arrive on their due date, so that date is when the y probably won't arrive, but bubs will be here by (insert 43 weeks date). It depends on the personality of the people you tell of course, if you know someone won't hassel you then there's no problem telling them the date and when you go into labour - we told my Dad & step-Mum (so they could feed our cats) and they left us alone and waited for the announcement, others might not be so thoughtful.

[Shanti]

I've told people our baby is due end of January, early February (being our first, probably due beginning Feb!) if they ask, i do tell them 26th Jan. I'm pretty sure of my dates too.

I'm going to turn my phone off when i go into labour and DH can look after it until after the birth when we turn it on when ready to.

If I go into labour in the middle of the night, we're not going to tell anyone and just head to hospital. If i go into labour at a reasonable hour, we are then going to call both parents and strictly say to them "we are on our way to hospital everything is just great and when we have some news we will ring you. Please don't visit us as we don't want visitors waiting around and please don't call us"

We're lucky that none of our friends or family live near us anyway!! PIL's live 1hr away they are the closest. so we shouldnt have anyone coming down anyway.