Nesting and Preparing Yourself and Home for Baby.
Mamas will instinctively want to prepare their homes for baby by nesting, but often they worry about having enough and being prepared for their baby’s arrival. In this blog, I’ll share with you some post-baby essentials and how you can best prepare yourself and your home for your baby! This topic excites me as I’m interested in helping you to create a firm understanding of childbirth and prepping everything for a successful postpartum period. Hopefully, I’ll be able to release my own guide one day but for now, I will supply you with tips as I can. *Disclaimer* links that bring you to Amazon are my affiliate links and I earn a small profit if you purchase!
Preparing yourself
Having a baby is a completely life-changing experience, and being a parent is a journey of its own. Preparing yourself for labor is about setting up a mindset of confidence. Know that your body was made to do this and that your birth is about you and what you want. Be sure to advocate for yourself during pregnancy and your birth. Preparing for postpartum is a little different, you need to set yourself up for success. One this I recommend is a postpartum planning workbook like this one! Build Your Nest is a postpartum planning workbook that outlines how you will care for yourself and your baby in the postpartum period. It covers a wealth of topics including finances, cesarean recovery, breastfeeding, and community support. It may seem silly to go through a workbook, but it will allow you to think about and communicate a plan for your postpartum period.
Another important part of preparing yourself is setting boundaries and expectations with your partner and other support people. Have a conversation with your partner about this, how do you want your partner to support you? Do they need to take on more domestic responsibilities, do they need to take the baby for a few hours so you can nap or shower, the important piece is communication which is easier said than done but make your expectations clear. Setting boundaries for the postpartum period will help you to stay focused on what really matters: the needs of your baby, yourself, and your family. Postpartum is about recovery, adjustment, and bonding. It’s important to surround yourself with people you feel comfortable with and that will support your choices. This can be so hard to do especially if you have a headstrong, stubborn group of family members but setting these boundaries early on will allow you to continue to set boundaries as you raise your children. Something you can do to set clear boundaries with loved ones is send out a clear concise message letting them know what they are and aren’t allowed to do postpartum. Here’s a small post that you could put on Facebook, Instagram, or just text in the family group chat.
Preparing your home
Preparing your home ultimately comes down to organizing for efficiency, cleaning, and area preparation. The first thing that you can do is a home clean-up. No need to do an extreme deep clean but make sure you feel comfortable, wipe the counters, clean the toilet, wipe your windows down, and vacuum or clean the floors. Simple, yet can make a world of difference in feeling comfortable in your home. If you want to keep up a cleaning routine once your new addition has arrived, you can try setting up a cleaning schedule or use one someone else made such as the fly lady cleaning method this method allows for you to clean one space, and one task at a time.
The exciting part comes organizing space for the baby. There are a lot of different options for creating a space for a baby, one of the most common being a nursery. In any of these spaces efficient organization is the key task. These simple drawer organizers will come in handy with separating and organizing all your little ones’ clothes and supplies. If you have a closet you may want to use these closet dividers to separate clothing by size.
Another key part of preparing for a baby is setting up feeding and changing stations. The best thing to do is have one set up per floor or one in the bedroom and another in your living space. A great tool for this is a three-tier cart. You can set it up to have diapers, wipes, extra clothes, and diaper cream on one tier, feeding supplies like nipple cream, colic medicine, and burp cloths on another, and have the last tier be other supplies you may need like a water bottle and snacks for yourself, as well as a book or chargers for your device. Having this will allow you to not have to go back and forth to grab supplies but instead have them available to you on all floors. Another cheaper smaller option is this diaper caddy that can be carried around to different floors.
If you are bottle feeding something so helpful is having a feeding station set up in your kitchen with everything you need available to you. One handy tool to have is this bottle drying rack, where you can dry the bottles and all other little pieces involved in bottle feeding. I don’t think you need the fancy formula dispenser or bottle warmer so just having your formula on the counter is just fine, feel free to make it aesthetic by moving to a different container. If you’re breastfeeding it’s important to keep your supplies easily on hand so again the diaper caddy or 3 tier drawer is great., even better if you have one with a dedicated space for your pump. If you’re planning on pumping and storing breast milk you’re probably very familiar with the idea of having a stocked freezer and fridge full of milk to use. , something you can use to help organize is these simple reusable gallon-sized bags or an organizer like this. It may seem like a lot of work but if you can stay organized and on top of things, you won’t get overwhelmed by all the side work.
Lastly, you may want to prepare meals. you may be too tired to cook or prepare a meal every day so you have a few options. One option is to create a meal train where different family members or support people plan to bring meals on different days. This is an amazing idea if you have a large support system that is willing to put in the work, but if your system isn’t as big or as willing you can try freezer meals, crockpot meals, or meal prepping. There are so many recipes on Pinterest and other blogs online so I urge you to find what works best for you there!
This task of preparing your home can seem daunting so don’t be afraid to ask for help, tell your partner, your support system, or even your doula! We, your support system, want you to succeed in this time and are willing to help wherever you need it.
