Tips for meaningful baby announcements

A birth announcement is the traditional way to tell your friends and family about the arrival of your new baby. But there’s nothing traditional about how your announcement has to look or sound. Try some of these fun ideas:

Design and print your own

Use a graphics application on your computer to design a personalized baby announcement. Choose a color theme—bold primaries, sweet pastels—or pick the theme from the nursery. Choose your own typeface and import a digital photo of your newborn. Then use a word processing program to create labels for quick mailing.

Create a photo card

Take a photo of your baby on the day of her birth. Buy blank cards and paste a photo on the front. Add your baby’s name and birth stats inside the card.

Baby blog and web page

Create a blog about your new baby. You can post vital statistics, digital photos, and daily anecdotes. You may not want to identify your family by last name, hometown, or phone number because anyone online can access your blog.

Older sibling-made cards

If you have your older children, help them bond with the new baby by enlisting their artistic talents to create a baby announcement. They can cut out of colored paper baby-themed shapes such as a teddy bear, bottle, rattle, or cradle. They can then paste the colored shapes onto a folded piece of pink or blue paper.

Answering machine birth message

Replace the usual, "Sorry, we’re not here right now" message with your baby announcement. For example: "You’ve just reached the new mom and dad of Jeffrey Robert, who was born last night at 11:47. He weighs 7 pounds 10 ounces and has red hair. He looks a lot like his dad. We need a few quiet days right now, but we’ll call you back sometime next week."

Getting a jump start

Before your baby arrives, spend some time working on announcements.

• Preaddress the announcement envelopes, either by hand or using your computer to print out labels.
• Prepare your basic baby announcement on your hard drive, leaving the birth data area blank. Then when your baby arrives, quickly fill in the information and print. Or with one stroke of the Enter button, email the announcement to everyone.

Quick Tip

You can make DVDs of baby photographs and short video clips and send them to relatives who live far away.