BABY TIME: Hospital Essentials

1.  Notepad and Pen - the nurses will give you lots of tips and you'll want to keep track of baby's meal times, medicine times for yourself and jot down any questions for medical staff that may not be in your presence.

2.  Nipple cream.  Can't stress this enough.  It will help you with nursing and pumping.  I would have died if I didn't have this.  Literally.



 3.  Comfy jammies - preferably the nightgown sort because the hospital staff will need access to your lady bits and it's a pain to pull pants on and off. 

4.  Water and snacks.  It's nice not to have to get up.  It's also nice not to have to eat hospital food toujours.

5.  Shower supplies from home.  It's unlikely that you'll be up to shaving your legs and doing a body scrub, but you may want to wash the stink off and brush your teeth.

6.  Pads.  Big.  Humongous.  Pads.  The biggest you can find.  They'll still be 5x smaller than the hospital variety, but you'll need 'em.  There will be lots of "activity" down there. I brought:  Always Extra Heavy Overnight Maxi With Flexi Wings - they did the job. 





7.  Lip balm and mascara.  I know you just had a baby, but you don't have to look like hell.

8.  Flip flops

9.  Cell phone, camera, batteries, chargers.

10.  Receiving blankets and some little (previously washed) jammies and hats for the baby... hospital blankets are so scratchy

11.  Reusable grocery bags - visitors typically bring you gifts and you can just toss everything into a couple of big sturdy grocery bags, rather than have your partner lug zillions of bags and flowers to the car in several trips.

Amy

I have an 8 month old... when did that happen?!?

It's 7:05pm.  I've just put Simon down to bed for the night and I can't believe that 8 months has already passed.  I'm really a mum !  I'm totally doing it!  Sometimes I forget that I'm a mum.  When my husband and I are in front of the tv, watching "our shows", everything feels normal, and as it has felt for the last 5 years.  Then I catch a glimpse of the baby monitor light, the toy box, or my "jiggly bits" and I remember that I'm an actual mum.

There is a little tiny person upstairs who is depending on me for everything.  Sometimes I have a little laugh to myself, like, "I'm totally a grown-up", other times, a little cry, because it's completely scary!

Simon, 18 days old

Everyone told me that the first year flies by so quickly.  It sounded too cliché to be true, but I truly can't believe that this time last year, I had the biggest cankles known to man, and I was converting my spare room into a nursery.

I hope my experiences encourage, assure and humour you !

Amy