Designing your birth announcement before the birth: a week-by-week plan
Start on your birth announcement somewhere between week 24 and week 30 of the pregnancy: Babyhelp.nl says most women begin looking around week 24, and Ouders van Nu suggests starting at about thirty weeks. Aim to have everything except the baby's details settled by week 36, because the NHS says pregnancy usually lasts between 37 and 42 weeks.
When should you start designing your birth announcement?
Two Dutch guides that answer this question start at week 24 and at week 30. Babyhelp.nl's Q&A page says most women start looking at birth cards around week 24, which leaves enough time to choose a card and ask for a proof print. Its "ideal planning" then runs in two-week steps: choose sample cards and request quotes at 32 weeks, adjust the design at 34, collect the addresses at 36 and have the design finished at 38.
Ouders van Nu starts later: begin looking at about thirty weeks and have the first proof print in by 34 weeks. Its reason is blunt. Once the baby is here, it says, your head is not on arranging a birth card, let alone that you have the energy for it.
The end point is the one to plan around. The NHS says pregnancy usually lasts between 37 and 42 weeks, and that your due date is an estimate of when you reach 40 weeks, so it is common to give birth before or after it. A plan that only finishes at 38 weeks leaves no slack for a baby who comes at 37, which is why ours finishes at 36.
What can you decide before the baby is born?
Everything except the facts. The date of birth, the time, the weight and the length exist only afterwards, and so, if you are still choosing, does the name. Dutch Wikipedia names one way round this: ordering from a printer who prints a standard card chosen in advance as soon as the baby's details are known.
The rest you can settle in the weeks before:
- the format, a folded card with room for a message inside or a flat postcard (our folded or flat comparison sets them side by side)
- the style and its colour
- the words, if your card has room for them
- who gets a card, with their addresses
If the choice of design will not settle, Ouders van Nu suggests picking a style you like first, so you can search in a focused way, or starting with the text instead. Sometimes having a text to work with helps.
A week-by-week plan from week 24 to week 36
This is our own plan, built on the two timelines above and ending two weeks before Babyhelp's:
| Week | What to do |
|---|---|
| 24-29 | Look around and decide between a folded card and a flat postcard |
| 30-31 | Pick a style and a colour, and type each name on your shortlist into the editor |
| 32-33 | Write the message for the inside of the card |
| 34-35 | Collect the addresses, print address labels and buy the stamps |
| 36 | Write down your style and colour, and keep your message somewhere safe |
Weeks 30-31: test the names as well as the style
A long name and a short one sit differently on the same design. In our editor, a name that is too long for the style you chose gets a message naming a style it does fit, with a button to switch, and a name that is too long for every style is asked to be shortened. Typing in two or three candidates now stops you falling for a design that cannot carry the name you end up choosing.
Weeks 32-33: write the words while you have the time
Our folded card prints an optional message on its inside left, up to 60 words. That is room for a welcome line and a sentence about the family, and our guide to birth announcement wording has openers you can adapt. Ouders van Nu's list of what a card often carries includes rest and visiting times for the maternity visit; on our folded card, those would go in the message.
Weeks 34-35: the address list
Ouders van Nu suggests collecting addresses through WhatsApp groups, or asking a friend from the same group for them, and keeping them in an Excel file you can reuse for a second or third child. It also says to write the addresses on the envelopes, or have them printed on labels, and to put the stamps on, so that everything is ready to post once the baby is here.
With our cards, that last step moves. Every pack comes with one envelope per card, delivered with the cards, so before the birth you print the labels and buy the stamps, and the envelopes get their labels on the evening the parcel arrives. Our postage guide gives the postage for a folded and for a flat card.
Settle everything but the baby's details by week 36: the NHS says pregnancy usually lasts between 37 and 42 weeks.
What is left for after the birth?
Fill in the facts, check, pay. Our editor asks for the birth date and does not accept one in the future, so this is the step that waits for the baby. On the proof you re-type the name to confirm it matches, then tick a box saying the order will be printed exactly as shown. Before you pay, the basket shows when your cards should arrive in your country.
One catch for early planners: the editor remembers your design in your browser for up to 30 days after you last changed it. A design you put together in week 30 may be gone by the time the baby comes, which is why the plan ends with writing down the style and colour and keeping the message in a note. Picking them again is then quick.
When to send the cards once they arrive is its own question, answered in our post on when to send birth announcements and how many to order. To try the names on your shortlist on a real design today, open the card editor.