This post is just like, my opinion, man, and unlike everything on standard mom blogs, has neither pop-science citations nor affiliate links. Having babies is fun and great and they do need attention but they don't need products. I don't like clutter and I don't like smart home devices or basically anything digital or electronic at all -- really. Like not even a monitor. Overall you'll be fine if you just remember not to panic.
Boy warning: Girl things.
There’s never a right time; Lean In; etc. Don’t you dare not do this because you’re “waiting for a good time”. If you’re emotionally and financially stable (as defined by you), in a loving relationship where both parties are enthusiastically on board, and this is what you want from life, you can’t let things like not being convenient for your career or macroeconomics get in the way.
Corollary: if you and/or your partner are hesitating or unsure, hold those horses and have a good think. Practice babysitting someone else’s kids together. Quarantine together during a pandemic and make sure you can stand each other during stressful times. It sounds unrelated but literally the best screening device I ever had was whether I could handle backcountry backpacking with a person. YMMV, but find a way to be sure.
Probably drink less alcohol? I don’t know your baseline but I certainly had to. Definitely quit smoking everything. Coffee/caffeine is fine if you’re not on like six Red Bulls a day. Ignore most of the internet for the 1970s nonsense about lunch meat and cheese, but never economize when buying sushi. Practice ticking the box that says pregnant/nursing when you go get facials or color your hair so you find out what you’ll have to moderate for the next while.
Natural conception: There’s all kinds of voodoo you can practice here for boy/girl/Aries/Year of the Dragon but basically just track your cycles with any app (I like Clue) and open yourself to the first of many things you can’t control about your children.
Assisted reproductive technologies (IUI, IVF, etc): I have no experience here so find someone who does, but if this is the route you pursue I beg that you make it a point of religion to explain to your baby how perfect they are and how you personally chose them or optimized for them or whatever. I have a friend who is sensitive about being a “test tube baby” and that’s a tragedy.
Products to buy: You could start taking a prenatal vitamin; they’re pretty interchangeable at best and probably harmless at worst. Once Instagram pegs you as TTC you’ll get ads for a bunch; try whatever. Start or continue using your gym membership or pool pass or Pilates machine, but no matter what vehicle you choose you should always have movement as part of your life. If you subscribe to the cult of CrossFit there is a really helpful, non-judgemental resource card floating around which references all the modifications you can make to different exercises (everything from “stop rope climbing you dummy” to “ok once your belly sticks out you’ll have to use kettlebells”) but the point is that there aren’t any excuses to stop working out.
Personally I got crazy sick both times and lost serious pounds. Some people don’t. The official “safe” time to announce from a medical perspective is 12 weeks but you might need to be more reserved in the workplace depending on your role or the company context. The second time I had to do a bit of a premature “reveal” to a few select people because I threw up on an interview candidate and I had to explain why I was leaving in the middle of the day to go buy new pants.
I was also “elderly” both times (35 and 38) so there are extra tests (genetic, ultrasound, etc) that my insurance authorized but I refused everything they let me out of. I did do a gender screen and the blood-based trisomy (Downs Syndrome etc) calculator and it was negative so I felt comfortable opting out of the more invasive screenings, but in another universe where we screened positive / high probability for any of the miscellaneous conditions we likely would have terminated and tried again. In the case of termination or other loss let’s have a separate conversation because I can’t cover it in a flippant list of bullet points.
Products to buy: a giant box of Saltines and a Hydroflask. You need crackers in your purse at all times for nausea and you may as well hydrate consciously.
Life is fairly normal, akshully, although you might need pants extenders. You have something like monthly appointments with your prenatal provider, which isn’t too disruptive. You show but it’s not so apparent that people feel any right to do anything other than speculate quietly about a burrito lunch.
Continue carrying snacks for when you get hangry. Give yourself a little more time to react to highly charged situations in case you’re having hormone-induced crazybrain and are about to say or do something irreparable.
Get going on that transition/leave planning. Start a document where you list everything you do and who can also do it and begin to either train replacements for cases where you are a bottleneck or begin to devolve responsibility for cases where you are one of several or many. Talk to HR for whatever paperwork you need to fill in for the company and the state and FMLA.
If it makes you happy to design a nursery for your residence you are free to, but the reality is that babies live in the same house you do and inhabit all the same rooms, even sleeping next to you in your room for half a year or so. So they don’t care about your theme. Do it for you, or save the time and take a nap.
Go to the dentist, yo. “Pregnancy gingivitis” is real.
Products to buy: One of those U-shaped body pillows (brand doesn’t matter). The pants extender I used both times is like a dollar on amazon.
I stayed in jeans for weekdays and leggings for weekends but sneakers 100% of days. Some women with their acts together wear nice-looking shoes and makeup the whole time and I’m impressed but can’t myself achieve it.
You definitely show. People feel the right to comment. Have something snippy prepped so if anyone says something too intrusive you can tear them a new one and not suffer esprit d’escalier after they get away with it. Your brain is a little soupier now so perhaps your razor-sharp wit has dulled.
Exercise: Do what you can. Take it easy on yourself but don’t be too lazy. Swim and lift until you truly can’t (week ~36 or so) and you can do prenatal yoga aka “breathing for credit” right to the end. Swimming a mile will take a shockingly long time and you’ll have to cap deadlifts at body weight, but the breathing and hip circles you practice during yoga will do wonders for the delivery / recovery. Highly recommended with the usual caveats about consulting your primary care physician for your personal situation.
Sleeping ... won’t really work. You’re uncomfortable despite your pillow fort. You might have reflux. You’ll probably get banished from the normal bedroom due to restless legs and getting up 235 times per night to pee. Pepcid is safe for reflux. You might try magnesium lotion for the leg cramps but it’s as much witchcraft as anything else. If you’re really desperate you can take Unisom for insomnia but if you already have an older kid just make sure your partner is a lighter sleeper and can be on nightmare/sleepwalk watch.
Arrange your first care situation this quarter. For my first it was interviewing the nanny for when I went back from leave and for my second it was registering for preschool, but whatever you intend to do, you’re going to need layers of backup (an extra babysitter, neighbor, in-law, whatever).
Pre-term leave: for my first I didn’t, for my second I took a week to coincide with coronavirus quarantine and preschool being closed. I didn’t want to take longer either time because I use focusing on work as a distraction from worrying about the future. Depending on your municipality and state you might get up to four weeks and it might or might not be paid but this is another case where you definitely talk to HR if you want to take it.
Products to buy: 2-3 shirts that actually fit (Gap maternity is fine). I bought “Preggo Leggings” brand in both maternity and postpartum “snapback” style for now and later. Magnesium lotion for the legs. Squalane oil to avoid stretch marks as you grow and to make your belly button look normal again after you shrink. You can borrow my copy of Ina May’s “Guide To Childbirth” because it validated all my feelings about how defaulting to having a doctor involved in most births is just silly and you really just need a chill older lady to remind you to breathe. If you want to take a childbirth education course you can. All it did for me was reassure me that I was right and childbirth education classes were pointless, but I’m a jerk. If there's an older sibling already in the mix, now is the time to start producing bribes "from the baby".
Labor: Both times for me were natural/spontaneous/unmedicated with labor at home, an uncomfortable car ride, and delivery at the hospital. Both times I banished all doctors, refused continuous monitoring, and only allowed the midwife. One time I brought a doula, one time I didn’t; both went basically fine. Home birth wasn’t really on the table for me but if you’re considering if you might want a professional midwife instead of total DIY; what do I know.
Birth plan: Nobody cares and nobody reads it. They ask you the most important question verbally (“what are your plans for pain management”) while you’re being admitted and everything else they’ll double check at the time anyway. If your written plan has to include instructions like not having an episiotomy you’re not at a modern hospital and you should investigate alternatives. There’s all kinds of advanced tactics I never had the patience to develop an opinion on (Dried placenta pills, really?) but the default is probably fine.
Baby: they come out floppy and sort of confused, with little tyrannosaurus arms. They might have baby acne or bald spots or birth marks or be covered in uterus goo, and also you will love them unconditionally.
Immediate recovery (full recovery takes weeks): You have to wear a giant maxi pad because you’ll be spotting for a few days. Eat like an athlete on a bulking cycle by adding red meat and milkshakes to every meal. Keep taking your prenatal vitamin until the bottle runs out because it probably has iron in it and you need that.
Things you need: my hospital bag had my phone, a charger, JBL FLIP-5 speakers, pajama pants, a hoodie with a plastic zip (metal zips are cold if you aren’t wearing a shirt underneath due to breastfeeding access), and a set of zip (NOT SNAP) baby pajamas in size “N”. The hospital gives you plenty of diapers and wipes to take home and the nurse will show you how to wrap a swaddle blanket. There will be a lactation consultant in case you have questions or breastfeeding isn’t quite working yet -- do give it a chance, if you’re physically able.
Products to buy: Snacks maybe, if you’re picky? UCSF discharges at 24 hours after delivery (earlier if you’re a pain about it) so you’re not there long enough for it to matter.
Mama things / self-care: Try to have enough of a routine that you feel human but not so much of one that you stress out. It’s probably not constructive for the first month to have anything cognitively or physically demanding on your list. But you can’t fall in a baby black hole or it will be really hard and disorienting to climb out the other side. Have some minimum set for each day like:
- Brush your teeth. It sounds obvious but when mornings never really “start”, evenings never really “end”, and you’re snacking this often, there aren’t the typical triggers.
- Have (brief) contact with other adults. Your mom probably counts. Your partner counts sometimes but can’t count every day because they're just as likely to be in a baby hole as you are. Whoever it is, this can come in the form of a meal train (other families volunteer to bring you dinner so you don’t have to deal with cooking) or meeting for coffee or a walk (a reason to put on pants other than pajamas and get some fresh air).
- Move/get outside. Postpartum yoga on YouTube where you set the baby up on the bouncy chair next to your mat during a nap, a babywearing walk around the block, whatever.
- Your one personal demand. Basically you get one rule during this time that you can impose on your loved ones and other support people: mine was that every day I needed a hot shower and my husband had to 100% guarantee that he would manage the offspring during that time. Other people’s rules I have heard are weekly nail salon visits with no children in tow even if it means hiring a sitter, uninterrupted time for calling their mom, one guaranteed solo power nap, partner guaranteeing to do 100% of the loads of laundry for some amount of time, etc.
Baby care
- Pediatrician caveat: Do whatever your actual medically qualified doctor says, superseding whatever ignorant nonsense I mostly made up.
- Overview: A baby really just wants to spend her first month nursing, sleeping near your heart, and looking concerned at things as she works to coordinate complicated concepts like “her own arm”. She wants to listen to you chat or sing about anything or nothing (I read mine the Icelandic exploration sagas). In the case of random other problems, my pediatrician has a great phrase to describe virtually everything baby-related that seems alien or potentially worrying: “alarming but normal”. Give them a bath every few days and make them go carpet swimming (tummy time) a few times a day as enrichment.
- Baby wearing: I technically didn’t, and not for lack of trying every brand under the sun (Maya, Moby, K’Tan, custom, HipSling, …). Front carry hurts my lumbar, so, too bad: they’re in the stroller until ~2 months when they have enough tone to be in a cuddle backpack. At home, I did prefer at all times to have them in my lap or arms so they got lots of touch.
- Crying/Sleeping: Use whatever acronym you like to get them down (“the five S’s” or “S.I.T.B.A.C.K” etc) but the basic system is to make them feel safe and loved and full and the right temperature. Nonsense lullabyes help. Do they need a burp? Odds are good that a cuddle and some milk will solve whatever, except sometimes when it doesn’t, and then it’s a battle of wills that will leave someone crying. There’s also a phenomenon called “cluster feeding” aka “demon evenings” where your child will go inexplicably insane for like 12 hours a day for half a week every once in a while and all you can do is listen to endless audio books and just feed feed feed and believe that this too shall pass. Make at least one nest/armchair chimera for night nursing where you stock up with snacks, blankets, pillows, and a charger because you’ll probably sleep there at least once when the “idiot-proof” system you read about in a book for getting the baby back to her bassinet falls short. Try not to punch people who tell you to “sleep when the baby sleeps”.
Partner care: I know even less about the nuances of your adult relationship than I do about your developing bond with your new tabula rasa baby, so this is kind of a choose your own adventure section. The only thing to note here is to be intentional about both directions of caring for each other as you blow up everything about your previous life and rebuild a new family unit.
Products to buy, borrow, or inherit:
- NB: Do take advantage of the great circle of parent life and accept all reasonable handmidown offerings. You’ll pay it forward in a few years but it’s all too easy to end up with literal triplicates of useful things, or high-quality toys or items of clothing that just don’t fit your particular baby but might fit a friend’s.
- Clothing: Half a dozen baby pajama outfits with zip not snap closures. A 2am diaper change will roll by some night and you’ll thank me if you get zips, or you’ll curse yourself if you got snaps, which every manufacturer manages to arrange in infuriatingly different patterns somehow. Just FYI.
- Transportation: a convertible car seat/stroller combo at your price point of choice. I like Graco; Uppababy is popular but I didn’t see the ROI for my personal convenience and it’s not any safer. I had the goal of getting the girls out of the stroller as fast as possible anyway so it wasn’t intended to be a long- or even medium-term investment.
- Sleeping: a co-sleeper/bassinet (I like Arm’s Reach). You can get a crib next year. Use receiving blankets as sheets (don’t get a good set because you’ll be changing it most days). SwaddleMe blanket wraps for daytime naps and Halo brand fleeces for the nighttime. A white noise machine (I like DreamEgg).
- Around the house: a little bouncy chair with buckles so you can put them down, one per floor of your residence. We didn’t babyproof beyond one outlet cover, I don’t think. Babies aren’t super mobile for a while and once they’re mobile they’re stronger than most plastic. Obviously this only works if you keep tabs on what they’re liable to get in to and stay ahead of it.
- Diapers and wipes: I liked Pampers for being out and about but used EarthBaby (compost service) when I was around the house, but if you aren’t in their service area then I don’t know. I have also tried Honest (blowouts left and right) and Huggies (good but not great). Oddly enough, Huggies makes superior swim diapers, but you’re not really going to be swimming much the first month.
- Optional: You could try getting a little baby gym where they wave their little armies at a colored rattle or whatever but it’s also interesting enough for them to just exist and watch you that you can do without. By all means monogram a fancy blanket or custom make a bear but they’ll end up getting attached to something arbitrary. A nursing pillow to save your upper back. A pacifier, which might or might not work -- my first wouldn’t touch it and the second uses it for five minutes going down for naps but won’t use it for night sleeping; I don’t know why.
- Don’t bother / send back: You don’t need to buy baby bathtubs because for the first month you can just fold a towel on the kitchen table and they don’t use much water anyway, and after that they can just sit in a shallow bath with a parent and it's fun. All products other than J&J baby shampoo (or Burts Bees equivalent if you’re going to be that kind of parent) are irrelevant and have no place on a healthy baby. Return with extreme prejudice all toys that beep or flash.
- Pumping -- I have complex feelings here. It's a pain for sure, but disentangling the exact moment of the mother producing milk from the moment of the baby consuming it actually gives you some freedoms that you don't have when purely breastfeeding, such as drinking wine or going to the gym and leaving the baby with your partner. It also lets a sibling or partner get some of the bonding from being involved in feeding, so on balance it's probably good even though the actual action is drudgery? Pumping in the privacy and warmth of your own home is the least bad; pumping at work is sort of annoying; pumping in your car during a multi-day professional engineering workshop full of too many men to have thought of a lactation room is... tolerable, I guess. Anyway, there's a whole separate post here but I'll close this particular little sub-note with the reminder that how long you pump might have nothing to do with how long you nurse: With Leila I stopped pumping at 6 months but stopped nursing at almost three years, for example. The first time I had a Hygeia I got from Obamacare and hated it, the second time I was gifted a Medela and it was better but still not "fun". I have heard promising things about the Willow but there is no universe where even the best possible pump is anything better than “less tedious”.
- Coworkers -- try and have sympathy or at least not roll your eyes at the ones without kids who tell you how tired or busy they are this weekend with their six social engagements and a yoga class. But for real, it’s all expectations management, boundary setting, excessive communication, and so on.
- Old and new responsibilities: Who are you now? You might not be able to pull arbitrary all nighters but ideally that’s not the position you’re in. You excel in a way you never did before at time management / prioritization, how can you use that to your advantage?
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