Pre-birth to do list

It’s time to start writing a to do list.

Before your baby’s arrival there are a lot of little tasks you have probably noticed you need to do. And if you’re lucky, you’ve probably begun nesting, which means you can’t wait to get started ticking things off of that to do list. We’ve written one to get you started.

• Get cooking. Once your baby arrives you won’t have too much time to make homemade meals, but you will still need to maintain a healthy diet. For this reason, during the last few weeks of your pregnancy we suggest freezing some homemade meals. It can be as simple as cooking double portions at dinner time and freezing half.
• Stock up. Go through your fridge, kitchen cupboards and pantry and throw out any old products, like that can of tuna you thought you had eaten last year. Give everything a good cleaning and then head to the supermarket. Buy healthy, non-perishable foods, like canned fish, dried fruits, nuts, cereals, baked beans…to name a few. Like your frozen meals, these will be very helpful during the first few months after you give birth and will be desperately short of time.
• Do the laundry. We’re talking about your duvets, towels, pillow shams, rugs and any hand me-down baby clothes you may have acquired.
• Spring clean. Just like your laundry, attack the crevices, corners and surfaces that you usually miss, because they’re hidden away. You probably won’t be cleaning them for another year so you might as well. Remember, get help to reach high places and move heavy furniture. See safe nesting practices.
  

  Is the nursery ready yet?

• Prepare the wardrobe. Do you have everything you need for you and your baby? Go through what you do have and check it against our baby clothes shopping list so that if you’re missing anything you can buy it. For you mum to be, make sure you’ve got several nursing bras and some big knickers for those first few weeks after birth.
• Decorate the nursery. Have you done this yet? If not, early in trimester 3 is a good time to get it done. You can use our baby shopping lists to check that you don’t forget an important item or piece of furniture.
• Birth announcements. After you give birth your free time will be very limited so get these organised early on. Make a list of who you will need to send a birth announcement to and fill in the names and addresses on each envelope. If you’re planning on sending a photo birth announcement, get in touch with your local photo shop and choose a template so that later on all you have do is send the photo you want to use.

See more pre-birth preparations