100 Days Celebration For Baby!
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in April 2017 and has been updated for accuracy.
It’s a tradition to hold baby’s full month, full moon or “Man Yue” party in Singapore. It is to celebrate the baby for surviving his/her precarious first 30 days of life on earth.
Why didn’t I do full month celebration?
I didn’t think I have the energy or time to plan for a full month bash during my DIY confinement. Moreover, my body was still recuperating and was in no mood to host a party. I gave my body 40 days to “heal”. Just to grumble, though my mum and grandma insisted I rest and not move (literally just lie down the whole day without any gadgets), they expected me to plan for a full month celebration and entertain the relatives.
Another major reason for not having man yue is because I didn’t like the idea of having many people bring germs from outside and handle the fragile newborn. I find it hard to ask them to use hand sanitiser.
100 Days Celebration for Newborn
So when I learned from a variety show about how the Taiwanese do a 100 days celebration for the baby instead, I was immediately onboard! Later I realised it’s popular among Koreans too.
By 100 days, the baby’s immunity will be much stronger and I will be feeling much more adjusted and less sleep deprived. I will also have more time to plan. Sounds like a good idea! And there are more reasons to celebrate because baby has survived 100 days Vs 30 days! Although our parents still didn’t really buy into it…and prepared their own red eggs and cakes to give their friends and relatives upon 30 days.
I am not a party kind of person, so organising a baby shower cum housewarming was a huge effort, even if we tried to keep things really simple.
Decorations
We got our 100-Day decorations from Taobao. In the balloon set, there were many balloons but our wall wasn’t big enough to fill them all. We bought an extra balloon set (with Line Friends design) in case the original didn’t work out. So if you are Line Friends lovers, I have an unopened set with handheld pump to let out at $19, inclusive of normal postage and table decorations that’s used once (triangles in photo above). Sorry no photos of the balloons to show because the seller discontinued the design.
One downside to DIY decoration is that we have to pump the balloons, set up the table and hang the decorations ourselves the night before. The balloons were surprisingly easy to fill up with the handheld pump. But we definitely prefer this value for money option, since the balloons would be discarded or given away after only a few hours of usage.
Food Catering
We wanted to order from Manna Pot but they were fully booked by the time we ordered from them 1-2 weeks in advance. Our party date, 30 September, a Saturday, was apparently a popular date for parties and weddings.
So in the end we scrolled through the reviews on Foodline and decided on Meihao99. The set up was simple but the food turned out to be good. My guests cleared most of the dishes and gave praises for the food. The two dishes that I liked the most were the curry chicken and red bean soup.
We ordered through Foodline since we can get S$10 cash for uploading our receipt and leaving a review. We chose all the dishes that were marked as their signature, although I suggest you give their prawns and sambal fish a miss. Most guests found it a chore to shell the prawns and a few guests commented that the sambal fish had more flour than meat.
Baby Cake
We wanted to order cupcakes and cake from Dessert Cup (Plaza Singapura) but we didn’t in the end as our friend offered to make a cake for us. But before the offer, I had already walked in to inquire about their pricing. You can read more about Dessert Cup pricing and service at ‘Dessert Cup Singapore Pricing‘.
Door gifts
We could have gone for the popular Sweetest Moments, however I didn’t really like their items when my friends ordered from them. Hence I searched for alternatives and came across babyinlove, who offered me a slight discount for my review and thoughts. However babyinlove has since closed down and not in operation.
Packaging
First off, my guests and I like babyinlove’s packaging! It’s a cute box with handles. But as goodwill, babyinlove still gave fancy plastic bags for us to put the boxes in (seen in collage below). Only a handful of guests used these bags though, but a good thing to have for those who are taking more than one box.
Box Contents
The standard set I always received has 2 red eggs, 2 ang ku kuehs and cakes. At babyinlove, you can get this standard set or you can choose from a variety of permutations. You can replace the red eggs with metal egg (tin case), replace the ang ku kuehs with Dorayaki (Red bean)/cookies, and so on. There’s also cute cupcakes for you to include in your set. Oh one thing I prefer about babyinlove is that their set has one whole swiss roll cake as opposed to 2 slices of cake from Sweetest Moments.
I picked hey013 (metal holder instead of red eggs) for the 100 days party because I don’t usually eat the red egg and so assumed a metal egg would be more “useful” to the guests as momento. As for my husband’s colleagues who didn’t come to the party, hubby chose hey014 (metal egg and Dorayaki) to be delivered to his office. Free delivery to our home and his office as we hit above S$200 per location. He preferred Dorayaki because his colleagues can keep them longer than ang ku kueh and also for afternoon snack. However, babyinlove is not halal. Hence, we had to buy 1-2 bengawan solo vouchers for his Muslim colleagues.
Box Contents: Review
When I was getting feedback, there are quite a number of people who mentioned their preference for real red eggs. The metal egg tin case is popular with kids though. So if a majority of your guests has kids, then perhaps packages with metal egg and cookies will be good.
I have guests telling me that babyinlove’s ang ku kueh and swiss roll are delicious. Just make sure to ask your guest to eat them on the same day or refrigerate them as soon as possible.
Announcement Card
With babyinlove, you can choose whether you want to top up for the personalized announcement card to go with your boxes. It’s the card with baby’s face print and details. I was contemplating whether to print because I suspect it will only end up in my guests’ wastepaper baskets.
However, being so in love with baby Evangeline, I think it’s nice to have the card printed with her cute face and show off. Hehe. Babyinlove has a variety of card designs to choose from and I chose design 14. But their drafts were less than ideal and different from the one on the website.
So in the end I designed my own card based on their given dimensions. Thereafter I sent babyinlove to print. I love the print quality! Photo paper, I suppose. I was so busy that day that I didn’t keep more of the cards and accidentally gave the extra prints away 🙁
Overall, I’m happy with babyinlove’s door gifts!
Do note that for babyinlove, you have to order 7 days in advance from delivery date, and there’s a minimum order of 10-20 boxes, depending on the package you choose. Read babyinlove’s full order and delivery terms to find out more.
Ending note:
It was a roaring success for Baby Evangeline’s 100 days party! Though she was cranky for most part because her morning nap was disturbed 😅 started to smile only after everyone is gone 😂
Still, the Tan family is happy to see everyone join us for this celebration of life. Our bundle of joy, please grow up to be joyful, beautiful inside out and a woman after God’s heart!
So how are you celebrating your newborn’s life? Any review about the vendors above? Do you have other recommended ones? Feel free to leave a comment below.