Birth of a Child in Rotterdam

New baby flowers: when to send them, and where

Almost everyone sends on day one. The ward is full of visitors, three arrangements arrive within an hour of each other, and the family goes home two days later with more than they can carry down to the car.

Wait a fortnight and the same gift lands in an empty week.

By then the visitors have gone, the grandparents have flown home, and the household is working out its own rhythm with very little help. Something that arrives at that point is remembered far longer than anything delivered into the crowd of the first afternoon. The cost of waiting is nothing at all, since there is no deadline attached to this occasion in the way there is to a birthday.

Where to send, and who signs for it

Many maternity units will not accept cut stems on the ward, and policies differ from one building to the next. Ask before ordering rather than after. If the answer is no, the delivery moves to the home address for the day of discharge or later.

Sending to the home has a second advantage. Somebody is nearly always in, which removes the usual problem of a courier standing at a locked door with something that cannot wait in a hallway all day.

Book a slot in the middle of the morning or the middle of the afternoon. A newborn household sleeps in fragments, and a doorbell at seven in the evening is not a kindness.

What the format has to do

Send something that arrives finished. A box or a lined basket with a soaked base needs no vase, no scissors and no sink, and it goes straight onto a shelf with one hand while the other hand is holding a baby. A wrapped bunch asks for fifteen minutes of work from the person with the least time in the house.

Keep the footprint small and the base wider than the top. Surfaces near a cot are crowded and things get knocked.

Leave out anything strongly scented, and leave out lilies in particular. A small room holds perfume in a way a hallway never does, and lily pollen stains cloth badly enough that it is simply not worth the risk near white bedding.

Colour, and the parts people forget

Pale shades do more here than bright ones. Cream, blush, soft peach, pale green and white give a room full of white textiles some depth without the hard contrast that reads badly under a night light. The old pink and blue convention can be ignored entirely and usually should be.

A potted plant is worth considering for a family that has been through this before. Second and third babies attract fewer gifts, and something that keeps growing on the kitchen windowsill for a year says more than a repeat of what they received the first time.

Do not forget the other parent, and do not forget an older sibling if there is one. A separate small arrangement for a four year old who has just been demoted costs very little and settles a great deal.

Whoever is receiving new baby flowers in Rotterdam is unlikely to reply for a week or two. That silence is not a verdict on the gift, and a card that says no reply needed takes one small obligation off a very full week.