Jul 282015
 
0 Flares Twitter 0 Pin It Share 0 Facebook 0 StumbleUpon 0 0 Flares ×

These things to do before baby arrives is brought to you by CariCord. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

Sam and Abby are counting down the days to the appearance of Baby Jayce.  Yesterday they shared their most recent sonogram photo with me, and let me tell you.  I am beyond excited to meet my little nephew!

Baby Jayce!

As the date gets closer (literally, actually, as the doctor moved up her due date by a few days) I have been thinking about what I was doing while waiting for Bubbles to arrive.  I shared a few of my “must do” ideas with Abby, and thought I would share them with you, too.

9 Things to Do Before Baby Arrives - take care of these 9 things before baby arrives to save yourself a little time and sanity

Freeze some meals – When you get home from the hospital, all you’re going to want to do is snuggle your new bundle of joy, and sleep.  What you will not want to do is cook.  But you (and everyone else in the house) still needs to eat.  So in the couple of weeks leading up to your due date, stock the freezer with some easy meals.

Do baby laundry – Chances are at this point you’ve either purchased baby clothes, or received some at your baby shower.  Wash them – along with baby blankets, sheets, etc. – in a baby-friendly laundry detergent and then sort them by size.  You can store away anything that’s too big (probably 6m+) and then organize what’s left so that you can easily grab what you need.  This is a good time, too, to select your “home from the hospital” outfit for baby.

Pack a hospital bag – Speaking of selecting your baby’s “home from the hospital” outfit, there are quite a few other things you’ll want to pack for the hospital.  Write yourself a list of everything you want to take, and have it ready to go at least a week before your due date, because you never know.  Pack for extra days, too; I thought I would be there overnight, and ended up staying four days.

Buy a car seat – Nearly every other piece of baby gear is a “nice to have”, but a car seat is a “must own”.  Baby has to get home safely somehow, and this is it.  Take some time to read the instruction manual and then install it a week or two before your due date.

Bubbles getting ready to come home from the hospital. One of the things to do before baby arrives? Buy and install your car seat!

Clean the carpets – Honestly, this is something you likely weren’t thinking about.  But before too long baby will be laying on the floor playing with activity gyms and other toys, and not long after that will be rolling (and soon crawling) all over your rugs and floors.  Give them a good deep cleaning now so you don’t worry about what germs are lurking (plus they’ll look great for all the visitors coming to see your little one).

Schedule date nights – Since Bubbles was born, I believe hubby and I have been on five? date nights.  It’s just going to be harder, for a number of reasons.  Plan a few last nights to spend together doing your favorite couple activities or trying something you wanted to do that’s not really kid-friendly (and talk about all the fun things you’ll soon be able to do as a family).

Use up bath products – Before Bubbles was born I loved taking long, hot baths.  I would relax and read and shave my legs accompanied by all manner of lotions and bath salts and facial masks.  I continued to look at them longingly for a year after Bubbles was born and then I got with the program and threw them out.  Some days you will be hard-pressed to find time for a 5-minute shower let alone an hour-long soak.

Pre-register at the hospital – Most hospitals I know of offer this (and some even require it).  Register in advance so you can pretty much show up and roll in when it’s time to deliver, as opposed to trying to fill out a bunch of forms or answer intake questions while your baby is trying to make his or her grand entrance to the world.

Decide about cord blood banking – I didn’t know much (okay, anything) about cord blood banking before I become pregnant, and even once I learned, I didn’t know much.  If you are going to bank, you need to have that plan in place before you head to the hospital.

Personally, I wish I had known more about cord blood banking so that my husband and I could have added a discussion about it to our “things to do before baby arrives” checklist.  Cord blood banking is a proactive way to plan for your child’s future health.  Medical professionals are learning more every day about using our body’s own resources to help with diseases by using stem cells, and one of the best sources of those stem cells is found in cord blood.

If you do decide to bank your baby’s cord blood, CariCord is one of the options available to you.  They have personalized payment options to make the cost of cord blood banking more affordable.  For more information on CariCord check out the video above; you can also find more information about CariCord by calling 844-227-4267.

Don’t forget to enter CariCord’s $2000 baby gear giveaway as well as join us at the CariCord Twitter party on July 30th at 7 p.m. CST by using the hashtag #CariCord.

What are your suggestions of things to do before baby arrives?

0 Flares Twitter 0 Pin It Share 0 Facebook 0 StumbleUpon 0 0 Flares ×

About Liza

Liza is a mom (5-year-old daughter, 20-year-old stepson, and 24-year-old stepdaughter) and wife living in Louisville. She loves spending time with her family, visiting the local zoo and parks, as well as planning travel adventures. Cooking and baking, DIY projects and crafts, and coffee - lots and lots of coffee - round out some of her other hobbies.

  4 Responses to “9 Things to Do Before Baby Arrives”

  1. What a great article! I have a friend that’s about to have a baby. I will pass this along to her! Thank you so much. I found your article through Think Tank Thursday.

  2. These are great ideas.Actually,it is good that you mentioned about cord blood banking.In my case,we wanted to do that.But I didn’t know that we want to do that before admitting.When I discussed with the doctor after admitting,already no time to attend to that.
    Thanks for sharing.

    • Yes, planning ahead when it comes to the cord blood banking is key, Amila! I really wish I had known more about it then so I could have done just that.

 Leave a Reply

(required)

(required)

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>