Preparing for birth is an anxiety-inducing task, but it’s essential for keeping you and your child safe. However, after you’ve given a healthy delivery to a perfect newborn, the next step in your journey begins: taking care of your child and yourself at home. Thankfully, if you know the right tips, you can prepare yourself and your home to welcome your child in a safe, anxiety-reducing manner. To get you started, here is a useful eight-step guide that will help you prepare for life after delivery:
1. Prepare Post-Birth Meals Ahead of Time
After you give birth, you will be utterly exhausted. To help you and your partner care for your new child in a less exhausting manner, planning to make plenty of meals (both for you and your child) ahead of time is crucial. Meal prep is not only for busybodies, after all. Finding recipes that can be made in bulk, and that will keep well for many weeks, is particularly recommended if you’re tackling this step. Foods that will help you feel stronger and fitter post-birth are important to remember as well.
2. Ensure Your Household Essentials are Stocked
Trips to the grocery during the first few weeks of your child being home can be incredibly frustrating and will leave your partner to take care of the child solo while you’re gone. To avoid this frustration as much as humanly possible, be sure to stock up on all the essentials your household needs to function. Make sure you consider the essentials your child will need during these first few weeks as well, or you’ll be making many more trips to the grocery than you’d like to.
3. Gather and Organize All of Your Baby Gear
Nothing can be as panic-inducing as realizing you’re missing a key piece of gear needed to take care of your child. Consulting your parents or friends that are parents about the gear they needed in the first few weeks is highly recommended. Make sure you take plenty of time before the birth to nail this step, as few of the other steps on this list will be as important in the long run as this one will be.
4. Make Sure Your Pets are Ready
Children can be confusing for pets, especially if they’re used to being the baby of the family. Getting areas of your home set up for the pets to see as their own, finding friends that might be able to pet sit from time to time, and even introducing pets to other children before your child comes home are all useful. Just remember, this process will often feel more impromptu than the others on the list, as pets’ minds can be just as unfathomable as a human child’s mind can be.
5. Study Post-Birth Preventative Care
Your healthcare leading up to birth should not be solely about the pregnancy and your child’s health. After all, your body is just as important as a solo figure. Doing as much preventative care, check-ups, and other scheduled medical tasks as possible before your child arrives is highly recommended. This will give you the flexibility you need to put as much of your focus as humanly possible on your child once they finally arrive. Make sure your partner does the same to ensure maximum efficiency.
6. Get All of Your Prescriptions Filled
Speaking of medical needs and taking care of yourself, get as many of your prescriptions filled pre-birth as possible. If you let your doctors know about your upcoming birth, they may even allow you to get more of your medication at once than you might have been able to previously. This is one of the simplest steps on this list, but the frustration and time it will save you are hard to overstate.
7. Baby-Proof Your Home Ahead of Time
While your child will take a while to become mobile enough to make child-proofing an immediate concern, there are still many aspects of a home that need to be “baby-proof” as soon as you come home with the child. Taking on this time-draining task in the months leading up to the final stages of your pregnancy is recommended, as it will ensure that you feel your child is safe in its new home.
8. Know Your Birth Plan In and Out
Knowing exactly what your birth plan is before the big moment comes is critical. Have it etched into your mind as though your life depends on it. Doing so will ensure you feel more relaxed when the time comes, and will help you avoid any complications that can be easily thought of ahead of time. If you or your child experience the tragedy of a birth-related injury, you should get in contact with professional legal help that can get you the restitution you deserve.
Your House is Now a Home
With these eight steps, you’ll have a child-friendly, and relaxing environment to welcome your child into. The absolute thrill of being a parent will keep you motivated to complete these steps, so be sure to follow them carefully. Here’s to your new life, and your newly life-filled, happy family home.
