I think one of the hardest things to prepare for is the birth of a child. If you are anything like me, you scoured the internet for every article on bringing home a baby, tips on breastfeeding, how to get the baby to sleep through the night, and oh so much more!!
I wanted to do a blog on how I prepared for the birth of Will and how it has helped us in so many ways (our budget mainly). Will was my second child. I did not do these things before my firstborn was born. I thought I knew how having a child would impact our budget, but I really had no clue. I regret not saving more while I was pregnant and not getting things ahead of time. BUT hindsight was 20/20 and I learned from it and did things differently with my second child.
If this is your first child, do not worry and stress too much over the little things! You will have baby showers and most people will give you the things you need….well, only if you tell them. Before the baby showers, have a list of items that you REALLY do need. If anyone asks what you want, be able to give them some ideas in different price ranges. If you don’t, people will just buy whatever they think looks cute whether it is on your registry or not!
After these baby showers, resist the urge to take things out of boxes and start washing things. Wait until you have had all your baby showers and until about a couple of weeks before you due date to do too much. Yes, for those of you like me that are already planning ahead and you just found out you were pregnant yesterday, this is hard to hear. What happens is that people will give you too much of certain things and some don’t have receipts for them. You will then want to keep the ones you don’t have receipts for and return the others.
But before all of the showers, you need to take a look at your budget and decide how much you need to start setting aside for baby. We took a simple $100 a month and starting putting it aside. I slowly started buying things (see in Diapers, Wipes, and Food) and then when I had everything, we started saving that money. Looking back, we should have started saving more money each month like we would if we were paying for daycare. More details on this in the Budget section.
Speaking of daycare….if you think you will need daycare, start looking at them NOW. We were put on a waiting list at our daycare and my youngest didn’t get in until he was 5 months old. **Never knew daycare was that intense…maybe I should open one….
This blog series will hopefully have you feeling fully prepared for this little miracle…if not….there is always more Pinterest 🙂
Stay tuned for the following posts:
- How to stock up on essentials for baby (diapers, wipes and food)
- What to pack in your hospital bag
- How to prepare for birth
- How to survive the first 2 weeks
- And an intro to Breastfeeding!
