2 May 2025 · Maia Hillsborrow
Marketing Director · Mother of five
Cherishing Your Baby's First Christmas
This is the fifth first Christmas I've done, and I can tell you with some confidence that the baby doesn't care.
Melissa is nine months old and won't remember any of it. She has no concept of December, no opinion about the tree, and no idea that anything unusual is happening beyond the fact that there are more people in the house and somebody keeps putting a hat on her. The entire event is for the adults, and once I finally understood that, the day got enormously better.
That isn't a cynical position. It's a freeing one, and it's the thing I'd most like to hand to somebody doing this for the first time.
Decide what you are optimizing for
Almost every difficult first Christmas I've watched came from two people wanting different things and neither one saying so out loud. There are really only a few possibilities. You want photographs. You want to see family. You want the baby to nap and the day to be calm. You want your own traditions started. Some of these are compatible and some aren't, and a day built around visiting four households won't also be a day where anybody naps.
So pick one, say it to your partner in November, and let the rest go. Our first Christmas with Dominic in the family was chaotic because I was trying to do all four at once, and the year I picked one thing was the year it worked.
The day, paced for a baby
A baby's day doesn't stretch to fit a holiday, and every part of Christmas that adults enjoy, the late start, the long meal, the crowd, the noise, is a departure from a routine she relies on.
- Keep the wake time and the naps where they normally are. Everything else can move.
- Do the exciting part early, while she's at her best. Morning is her good hour and it's when the photographs will work.
- Feed her before the big meal, on her own schedule, so that lunch is something she attends and not something she needs.
- Build in a genuine break away from the room. Twenty minutes somewhere dim, with one adult, resets a baby who's on the edge of being overwhelmed.
- Watch for the quiet signs of too much. She stops engaging, turns into your shoulder, and stays there. That's the moment to leave, not the moment after.
- Have an exit agreed in advance and no discussion required to use it.
As a physiotherapist I'd add one thing that's easy to miss on a long day: a baby who's passed between eight sets of arms for six hours has spent the whole day in other people's positions. Build in floor time on her back and on her tummy, in a quiet corner.
Presents
A nine-month-old wants the box. This isn't a joke and it isn't an exaggeration.
One is fine. She has no idea what a present is, she can't open one, and after two she'll be tired. What she will engage with is paper, a ribbon, a container to put things into and take things out of, and the faces of the people around her. Three gifts is generous. I'm not sure Melissa noticed any of hers.
The thing to tell relatives, and to tell them early because they'll have bought things by mid-November, is that clothing in the next size up is welcome, that books last, and that a contribution toward something larger is more use than five soft toys. Say it once, in good time, warmly. Nobody minds being told what to buy. They mind being told after they've already bought.
Safety, briefly
A house dressed for Christmas is a house full of small, shiny, breakable things placed at exactly the height of a baby who has just learned to pull to stand.
- Secure the tree to the wall. A pulling-up baby will use it, and it's the most common Christmas accident with this age group.
- Nothing breakable, small or edible-looking on the bottom third of the tree.
- Watch for button batteries, which are in cards, ornaments and light strings, and which are a genuine emergency if swallowed.
- Keep poinsettia, holly, mistletoe and ivy out of reach.
- Nuts, grapes and hard candy are choking hazards and they're on every surface in December.
- No candles at floor level, and no cords or light strings hanging where they can be pulled or wrapped.
- Keep alcohol out of reach, including half-finished glasses left on low tables, which is the one everybody forgets.
More family occasions
The photograph
Take it in the morning. That's the entire piece of advice and it counts for more than any amount of planning.
A baby photographed at four in the afternoon on Christmas Day is a tired baby, and the picture will show it. Take it early, take it in daylight near a window, take a lot of frames quickly, and then put the phone down and be there. I have one perfect photograph of Ilizabeth's first Christmas and almost no memory of the day itself, and I'd trade the photograph.
If it's harder than expected
A first Christmas is one of the days that most reliably catches people out.
There's a particular kind of flatness that arrives when the day you had imagined doesn't match the day you're having, and it's worse when you're a long way from where you grew up. We're an expatriate family, and Christmas is the point in the year when that's most obvious. Everybody else's traditions are happening somewhere else, in another time zone, without you, and the first year is the hardest one.
If you're finding the season heavy, or numb, or unaccountably tearful, please say so to somebody. Low mood in the first year after a birth is common and treatable, and it's asked about routinely by doctors and health visitors. December is a peak month for it, partly because everybody around you is performing enjoyment, and there's nothing at all wrong with you for finding it hard.
What parents ask
What should you get a baby for their first Christmas?
Very little. A baby under one is more interested in the paper and the box than the contents. One keepsake that will still exist in twenty years is counts for more than a pile of toys, a book with a message inside, or a dated decoration.
How do you manage a baby's first Christmas with lots of visitors?
Protect the naps above everything else, identify a quiet room before people arrive, open presents in stages and not all at once, and tell people your end time in advance. Leaving is far easier when it was announced.
What are the main Christmas hazards for babies?
An unsecured tree, glass decorations within reach, button batteries from gifts and cards, poinsettia and holly, unattended alcohol, and medication in guests' handbags left at floor level.
The evidence
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.