Flowers for a new baby: timing, scent and what to write

Send to the home, not the maternity unit

Many maternity units do not accept flowers at all, and the ones that do rarely have room for them. A bed space comes with one small locker, a vase of water is one more thing to be knocked over or kept clean, and the stay after a straightforward birth is often short enough that a bouquet arrives after the family has left. The flowers then sit at a reception desk, or travel home on a lap alongside a car seat, a bag of nappies and a very new person.

Sending to the home avoids all of that. Ask a partner or close relative for the address and a rough idea of when the family expects to be back and settled, and let the flowers arrive to a house rather than a ward.

The first days, or a few weeks in

The instinct is to send flowers the day the news arrives, and there is nothing wrong with that. But picture the first week from inside the house. Cards, visitors, midwife checks and relatives all come at once, several bouquets may be competing for the same two vases, and nobody has a spare minute to trim a stem.

Then it goes quiet. In the UK, statutory paternity leave is one or two weeks, so in many households the second parent is back at work within a fortnight or so, around the time the community midwife hands over to a health visitor and the stream of visitors thins. That is often the hardest stretch: long days, broken nights and much less company. Flowers that arrive then are properly noticed, and they say that you remembered after everyone else moved on.

If you want to mark the birth straight away, send a message or a card now and the flowers two to four weeks later. Some families, across many cultures, keep the first month or so as a time of rest with few visitors. If you know that is the case, a delivery at the door is a way of being present without asking to come in.

Scent and pollen near a newborn

There is no good reason to think a vase of flowers in the sitting room will harm a healthy baby, but a newborn changes how a home is used. Parents sleep in short bursts, often in a small, warm bedroom with the baby beside them, and a room like that concentrates scent. Freesias show the problem well: strongly scented, pleasant in a hallway, strong in a bedroom. Heavily perfumed lilies, hyacinths and tuberose are stronger still.

Pollen is the other practical concern. Open lilies drop a rust-coloured pollen that stains muslins, cot sheets and pale clothing, which are exactly the fabrics a new parent is washing most, and a parent with hay fever is dealing with it on very little sleep. Most commercial roses and carnations shed little pollen and smell gently, if at all. If you do choose lilies, ask the florist to remove the anthers before delivery, and wherever the flowers go, the kindest place for them is somewhere other than the room where the baby sleeps.

Choose something that looks after itself

A hand-tied bouquet asks for a vase, clean water, trimmed stems and a fresh change of water every couple of days. That is a small job in an ordinary week and a real one when you are feeding every few hours. Gerberas are a case in point: cheerful and almost scentless, but sensitive to bacteria, so they want shallow water and a scrupulously clean vase. Roses last about 7 days and do best with the water changed every two days.

For tired parents, an arrangement that arrives ready to display, in its own container with water already in it, removes every one of those jobs. There is nothing to unwrap and no vase to hunt for. Long-lasting flowers earn their place too: carnations often last around 14 days, which carries them well past the busy first week.

A plant can be better still. Moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) are among the easiest orchids to keep indoors, and their flowers can last for many weeks, so the gift is still there when the visitors have stopped coming. Avoid anything that needs daily attention, and anything big enough to be in the way of a pram in a narrow hall.

On colour, pink for a girl and blue for a boy is a convention rather than a rule, and some parents feel strongly about it either way. Unless you know their taste, whites, creams, soft yellows and greens are a safe and pretty choice.

Write the card to the parents

Most new-baby cards are addressed to the baby, who cannot read them. The people opening the box are the parents, who are often recovering physically, short of sleep and quietly overwhelmed. A line that notices them tends to mean more than another welcome to the world.

Keep it short, avoid questions that need an answer, and do not ask to visit in the card itself, because that hands a decision to someone with no spare capacity. Write to whoever is actually there, since not every family is two parents. A few lines that work:

• Congratulations to you both. No need to reply, just enjoy these.
• Thinking of you in these first weeks, and so happy for you.
• A very warm welcome to your little one, and a huge well done to you.
• Sending these now that things have gone a bit quieter. We have not forgotten you.