The Countdown has Begun!
Top 10 things to do before baby comes home…
To help you along your journey of parenthood, we have compiled a list of the top 10 best and most useful things you can do before your baby arrives. All items on the list are from personal experience coupled with feedback from the lovely parents who have attended our antenatal courses.
- Prepare wholesome, home cooked food in advance. For example hearty soups, pasta sauces and curries. This will be a total life saver! Do not underestimate how the first few weeks go by in a blur and with your hands very full, think of the joy of just reaching into the freezer and grabbing something healthy and home cooked!
- Use your nesting instincts to their potential! Get your home in tip top shape – a clean and tidy house and garden (if you have one) are lovely to come home to and it will be a while until you feel like doing that again.
- Set up internet shopping. If you already have this set up, stock up on lots of store cupboard essentials and all the bulky items you usually get through.
- Get 2 nappy boxes ready – one for upstairs and one for downstairs. Fill each box with nappies, cotton wool, a little bowl for water, a small, changing mat, a soft towel to put on the changing mat (a cold changing mat isn’t much fun for your baby’s bottom!), barrier cream and a spare outfit in the case of an explosive bottom 😮
- Prepare a ‘before birth birth plan’. Get 14 dates in the diary for each day after your due date. E.g. book in to meet a friend for lunch, have a maternity reflexology treatment, go to the cinema, go out for dinner, get a pedicure… Soon it will be much harder to just nip out for lunch or pop to the cinema and having something planned for each day will take your mind off your ‘due date’ (they are such a ‘guesstimate!’ – a ‘Ditch Your Due Date’ post will be arriving soon)
- Treat yourself to a hair cut/colour if this is something that’s important to you – it may be a while before you are able to get to the hairdressers once the baby arrives.
- Don’t forget your birth bag – even if you are planning a home birth. Aim to have this packed and ready by 36 weeks. Some women say they found it useful to have a labour bag and a postnatal bag to make it easier to find things.
- Subscribe to your favourite magazine in readiness for those 4am feeds…
- Nap, nap, nap! Enjoy it while you can 😉
- And last, stock up on all the goodies you’ve not been able to eat during your pregnancy ready to enjoy – you most certainly deserve it!