Somebody you know has had a baby, and you want to send flowers. The question that decides everything else is not which bouquet. It is whether the flowers go to the hospital or to the house. Get that wrong and a thoughtful gift becomes one more thing for an exhausted person to carry to the car.
Hospital or home?
Hospital stays after a birth are short. In most cases a mother is discharged within one to two days, and a caesarean adds a day or two beyond that. Flowers sent on day three often arrive after the family has already gone home.
Send to the hospital if you know the birth happened today or yesterday, and if you know the ward. Send to the house in every other case. The house is also the better choice for anything large: a hospital room has one small table, already holding a water jug and a phone charger, and anything tall gets moved to the floor.
There is a second argument for the house that people rarely think about. The first week at home is disorienting and slightly grim. Visitors have gone, the adrenaline has worn off, and both parents are running on four hours of broken sleep. A bouquet arriving on day four or five lands better than one competing with the excitement of day one.
What maternity wards allow
Policies vary by hospital and it is worth thirty seconds on the phone rather than a guess.
- Many maternity units permit flowers; neonatal intensive care units do not, without exception
- Some wards restrict them where there are shared rooms, because of scent and allergies
- Strongly scented flowers are the usual sticking point, not flowers as such
If the baby is in NICU, send to the family’s home instead. Parents in that situation are at the hospital constantly and come home to an empty house, which is exactly where something warm should be waiting.
What to send
Three things matter: scent, size and how much neglect the flowers will tolerate.
Keep it unscented or nearly so. A newborn’s room and a recovery room both benefit from air that smells of nothing. Lilies are the classic mistake here: beautiful, and far too much in a small space. Gerbera daisies, carnations, spray chrysanthemums and roses are all safe on this count.
Keep it small enough to sit on a shelf. A new parent has no free surfaces. A compact arrangement that fits on a windowsill or a kitchen counter will get looked at. A statement piece gets shuffled around the house until it ends up somewhere out of the way.
Choose flowers that survive being forgotten. The vase water in that house is not going to be changed on schedule. Carnations and chrysanthemums are forgiving and can hold ten days or more. Delicate seasonal blooms that need attention every second day are the wrong gift for this particular week.
About the pink and blue thing
The convention is pink for a girl and blue for a boy, and plenty of people still expect it. It is also optional, and the blue part is awkward in practice because genuinely blue flowers barely exist. Most blue bouquets are dyed.
If you want to follow the convention without dyed flowers, soft pink and cream for a girl, and white, yellow and green for a boy, both read correctly without anyone having to explain them. If the parents are not the type to care, a bright mixed bouquet is the better gift and it is hard to get wrong.
A practical note: if you do not know the baby’s sex, do not guess. Yellow, green and white are the neutral palette, and they look deliberate rather than cautious.
What to write on the card
Short. The card will be read once, probably one-handed, possibly at three in the morning.
Congratulate the parents rather than only the baby. A surprising number of cards address the newborn, who is famously not reading. Mention the baby’s name if you know it, because seeing it written down for the first time is a small pleasure. And if you are close enough to the family to be useful, offer something concrete: “Tell me when you want food and I will bring it” is worth more than three sentences of congratulation.
Avoid anything about how tired they must be. They know.
When to send
- Day one or two: hospital, only if you are certain they are still there
- Day four to seven: home, and this is the sweet spot
- Week two or three: also good, and by then the flow of gifts has stopped, which makes yours memorable
- A month later: still welcome. New parents are not on a deadline
If you are choosing between sending something immediately and sending something better a few days later, choose later.
Sending flowers for a new baby in Atlanta
We deliver across Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs for a flat $12, with same-day delivery for orders placed before 1 PM Eastern Time. For a new-baby delivery specifically, a few practical points:
- For a hospital, we need the mother’s full name as the hospital has it registered, and the ward. Flowers cannot be delivered to a neonatal intensive care unit
- For a home delivery in an apartment building, include the building name and unit number, since most Buckhead and Midtown deliveries go to a concierge desk
- Tell us the delivery is for a new baby and we will keep the arrangement compact and unscented rather than tall and fragrant
Bright, low-scent mixed bouquets are the most common choice for this occasion, and gerbera daisies in particular are hard to beat: cheerful, long-lasting and almost odourless. If you would rather send something classic, pink or white roses work for the same reasons.
Order online, or call us if you are not sure what fits. New-baby deliveries have more moving parts than most, and it is quicker to sort out on the phone than to guess.