.@TeddyOutReady: Top Considerations For The Incoming Newborn

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Top Considerations For The Incoming Newborn

Newborn

It’s one of the most exciting moments in anyone's life. The arrival of their own child. The newborn. You spend months preparing and waiting, but there’s always the few which slip through the net. The ones which come back to haunt you a little later on. Everyone is different in how they approach preparing for their baby’s arrival. People have different lives, with different responsibilities, budgets and time available. It’s why you need to look at advice objectively and try to apply it in the best way to your own situation and circumstances. It's better to be prepared. You might have thought about some of these already but the others can help you ace the newborn’s arrival. Good luck!

Prepare The Nursery

Some parents like to know what gender the baby is going to be before the birth, others like to wait. Waiting sometimes means you won’t be able to properly decorate the nursery. At least not how you’d like to. Don’t let this throw you. There’s nothing worse than having to decorate a nursery when you’ve got a newborn to look after. Get it sorted before the baby arrives. Sometimes creating a safe sleep environment for your newborn can be a little overpowering. There’s a lot to think about. Decorate it as you see fit. A crib is necessary of course. Useful fixtures and fittings include a set of draws for the baby clothes as well as a side table level with the cot, enabling you to pop a crib camera on it to keep an eye on the baby. It’s likely that you’ll have the criv in your bedroom for a month or so, but you should still spend time on the baby’s room. Is the heating working there properly? Are you happy that there isn’t any mould on the walls or that there isn’t a draft coming from cracked caulking around the windows. Get all of this out of your head and sorted before the baby arrives and you’ll absolutely thank yourself later on.

The Deep Clean

You don’t just want to clean the nursery of course. You need to do the same for the whole house. A proper, top to bottom deep clean. Especially at the moment with elements of covid still flying around. Make sure you use a good quality antibacterial cleaner everywhere you know the baby will be. It’s hard to get the timing right but you need to do it as close to the birth date as possible. This doesn’t just include the house of course. The same applies to your car and anywhere else you know the baby is going to go. Make sure you wash all of the clothes you’ve bought before letting the baby wear them. Same with all of the accessories like blankets and plush toys. If everything has been sterilised and is clean it’ll give you much better peace of mind.


Think About A Side Hustle

One thing a newborn means is more money. Money spent on bottles, clothes, toys, the list goes on. It’s nice to have a little bit of extra money coming in. Whether you’re taking paternity or maternity leave, if you get things set up before the baby you can let it roll in your free time afterwards. A side hustle is anything you do aside from your main job to bring in some money. Some will launch a business on the side, while others will offer up a skill they have. These include things like tutoring, translation, transcription or any other large amount of marketable skills. You don’t have to set up from scratch either. You can use a third party site to help you make your mark. Think about a freelance site like fiverr or upwork, or a website like etsy to sell your small creations. Monetising a hobby is always a good idea if you’re a creative person. Just think how the extra money can help out. Especially if you’re taking a bit longer off work. The flexibility of your side hustle may allow you to make some cash on your own terms.

Know Your Leave Entitlement

You might already have sorted this out, but some leave it to the last moment and let it catch them unawares. It usually happens to those who have not long started a new job because if you haven’t been there long you might not get as much entitlement, or at least paid entitlement. Grab a hold of your contract or better yet speak to someone from HR. If the business is small, speak directly to the owner instead. The key is in knowing. It allows you to properly budget and plan for the baby.

Stock Up

Getting out and about will get a little harder when you’ve got a baby. Especially if you’re on your own. So stock up as much as you can. Go to your nearest wholesaler and stock up on vests, bibs, diapers and everything else you can think of that will help you to stock up. Think about baby food and formula too. Being able to stock up will leave you with a great amount of peace of mind. You’ll know you have what you need to properly look after the baby. You can always buy items online, so you don’t have to leave the house. However, there is always room for deliveries to go missing or to turn up a day or so later. Actually having the physical items there is far more practical.

Childcare

If you have another child you might need to look into childcare options. They won’t be able to come into the hospital with you and your partner will be busy too. Speak to friends and relatives and see if they can help. The problem here is them needing to be alert at a moment's notice. This means they need to be fairly local so you can drop them off or they can get picked up. It depends on how young or old they are but ensuring there’s someone available, just in case, will make things just that little bit easier for you when it’s time.

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