Bringing 5 month old to a wedding

My DD will be a week shy of 6 months when my sister-in-law gets married next weekend. I have to take the baby to the wedding - I have no choice. However, we are going to have a sitter at the venue to watch her. The reception ends at 10PM and DD's bedtime is generally 7-7:30. I'm a little worried about the late night. Every night we have a routine of bath, book, feed, bed. I can do all of that except the bath - and I'm hoping that's not going to mess everything up. Well, that and the noise of the reception below.

Anyways, I guess what I'm asking is if any of you have any advice on how to have a baby that young at a wedding and NOT completely ruin their schedule. We're going to have about 3 nights like this - rehearsal dinner, wedding, then party the day after. I'm dreading it for DD. On top of that tomorrow we fly from Ireland to the States so she'll probably just have adjusted to the jetlag by the time the wedding gets here.

TIA

Re: Bringing 5 month old to a wedding

I think you should just forget about the schedule until you are home again. Respond to her needs at whatever time they come. Do you have a stroller that the babysitter at the venue can use? Most likely the baby will end up wandering around sleeping.

Re: Bringing 5 month old to a wedding

I agree with PP- you're going to have to skip the routine. When DS was 6 months old, we took him to a beach wedding in FL. There was too much commotion for any kind of routine. Whenever he wanted to sleep, we had the stroller ready and reclined for him.

Make sure you have enough bottles at the wedding. When the priest asked if anyone had a reason for the bride and groom not to wed (forever hold your peace), DS decided that would be a good time to start babbling

We stuck a bottle in his mouth as fast as possible!

Re: Bringing 5 month old to a wedding

Ok - good advice.

I forgot to mention that DH and I are also IN the wedding party.

Re: Bringing 5 month old to a wedding

DS was 5.5 months when SIL got married. DH and I were in the wedding party. My parents were invited to the wedding so they helped out a bit with DS.

DS was a go with the flow type of baby. We never had a rigid schedule with him. We stayed at a hotel for 2 nights and he slept horribly each night. However, he was fantastic for the rehearsal dinner and evening wedding. We brought the snap n go to the wedding. He actually fell asleep when the band was playing one of the loudest songs of the night.