Navigating family dinners and gatherings

Coming up on 12 weeks. At 10 we had an unpleasant experience going to an extended family dinner.

We’ve been invited to another dinner with other extended family this weekend. I really want to go but know baby’s sleep suffers. I’ve accidentally got him accustomed to sleeping in our bedroom in the dark, on me or in his crib so he’s not a great sleeper out of the house. At the dinner that went poorly he ended up being awake for 3 hours and I cried the whole way home (we left early and I didn’t even eat, I just tried to get him to sleep the whole time).

So now there’s this upcoming dinner. My biggest issue is that the following day we have a once a year extended family gathering with my husband’s family. It’s a BBQ in a forest/park about a half hour away. No dark room to put baby to sleep. Lots of noise (these places are always packed on weekends with many families). His side of the family has not met our baby yet, mine have. We have had 3 meals with my family who invited us this weekend so there isn’t the pressure of going for them to meet baby but I do feel bad not going because it’s my aunt and uncle who took me in when I moved across the world to live in my parents birth country and they’re stand in as my nuclear family here, and all of their kids (my cousins) are going to be there and we’re on friendly terms with them and it is good to see them.

So in all of this messy rant above, what I’m trying to get advice on is how to deal with sleep when we’re out of the house when baby doesn’t fall asleep in the stroller or carrier. It is problematic to have family gathering 2 days in a row if it’s at the expense of the sleep routine? Is it actually hurting baby if we were to attempt this? What would you give as a reason for declining the dinner invitation or would you not offer a reason?

I’m overwhelmed. I just want baby to be comfortable, I love him so much and don’t want to do any harm.