Things to do on maternity leave before baby arrives – I can not believe that its finally here, but I am now officially on maternity leave. I’ve still not really settled into it, despite only have three weeks until Kipper’s guess date. I thought that by writing my to do list it may make me feel more prepared as at the moment I don’t really feel like I have done anything! Although I have pretty much done everything on my 3rd trimester to do list now its about the whole nesting thing…
Although I am thinking Kipper will make an arrival before his guess date I am not sure all of these will actually get done…
For the delivery/hospital trip:
- Review the online tour of hospital we are visiting, as we planned a home birth with Monkey so we have no idea where to go when the time comes
- Pack a hospital bag… or several
- Attend the active birth session at hospital focusing around water birth – I am hoping this will strengthen my case for a water birth and it sounds like active birth has improved in the hospital since our last visit.
- Load up the iPod with my delivery playlist
- Plan an alternative route to the hospital due to extensive roadworks on the main road, adding an hour to the journey!
- Continued prep for natural birth and revisit my birth plan
- Think back to your early pregnancy scan chat to make sure all your questions were answered, and you’re comfortable about what’s going to happen – if you need to know more, now’s the time to find out before the big day itself.
For the sibling:
- Write down a list of places to visit while I am on maternity leave over the Summer
- Finish off Monkey’s room and get him completely moved in
- Buy his present from Kipper
- Arrange with parents/relatives, sibling cover while I am in the hospital
For the baby:
- Book a professional baby shoot and research some photo ideas
- Clean the nursery, wash the curtains and clean the carpet. It will never be brand new as Monkey has lived in it for the last almost four years but I would like to make it as close as possible
- Get the clothing down from loft, sort and wash – do I need anything else ( any excuse for a trip to John Lewis!) and shop for essentials
- Buy a new moses basket – I was going to use the old one but have since been freaking out about bugs and since I would buy a new mattress anyway…
- Wash, clean and install the car seat
- Finish off my pregnancy journal (theres still a lot to do!)
- Buy a nice notebook for recording the first 6 months of his life
- Decopatch a memory box for congratulation cards etc the same as Monkey’s
For the mum to be :
- Catch up on sleep!
- Get my hair done…after all it will be a while until I do it again
- Book a pregnancy massage
- Arrange lunch with girlfriends
- Have a little DIY pregnancy photo shoot – I have a couple of ideas to involve Monkey
- Craft – I have some tea towel cushions which I would like to make for our conservatory plus maybe a throw, I find sewing very therapeutic
- Take some photos of Monkey in amongst the bluebells
- Clear out my study, removing old paperwork and getting it all tidied up and organised for my return to work – so its done!
- Gardening (yes I know slightly mad) but I would like to put some herbaceous perennials into the flower beds on our patio, as I won’t have time once Kipper arrives and I love sitting out on the patio in the sun with flowers all around.
- By some new nursing bras
- New Buggy? … step away from the iCandy!
- Attend my Baby Shower
- Catch up on some reading – I have several books I would like to read before baby makes an arrival around sleep, feeding and siblings. Thats without all the development reads for Monkey
- Clean, clean, clean…
For Mudpie Fridays:
- Schedule three weeks of blog posts… yes really…
- Schedule three weeks of tweets ….hmmm
- The wonderful Debbie at Random Musings will be covering my maternity leave over on #BloggerClubUK so there are a few things I need to do to handover
- Avoid too much baby spam on IG…. never going to happen
This list is a lot longer than I thought it was going to be and I know there are things which I haven’t thought of yet. Hopefully I will get through most of it, but if I don’t then I’m not worried after all Kipper will make an appearance when he feels like it and the bits will get done eventually.
What do you think is there anything I have forgotten?
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Things to do on maternity leave before baby arrives
9 Responses
I saw some gorgeous new born shoots with bunny ear knitted hats! 3 weeks of tweets yikes, I found that I was up at random hours of the night tweeting then! #MarvMondayss
Yay maternity leave is here! You have an ambitious list with so many wonderful ideas for all three of you. Take it easy & keep your feet up while you can is what I’d recommend. The iCandy would be lovely tho… 😉 #MG x
Fab list! I’m going to have to refer back when I go on maternity. It’s so awesome your hospital do sessions etc. as I haven’t been informed about ours doing anything like that, nor last time. We were sort of thrown in head first. >_< Thanks for linking to #MarvMondays! Kaye xo
I’d rest up whilst wishing you could stockpile steep … Good luck with getting it all done 🙂 I filled my freezer with food I could just defrost and heat up. That might be helpful if you’ve not done that already.
How exciting! You seem to have a good list there. Make and freeze meals would be my top priority. Even if they are just toddler ones for Monkey and you live on pringles! 😉 So exciting, enjoy it, and definitely try to rest as much as possible. Can’t wait for the baby spam! #bigpinklink
Very busy maternity leave for you it seems 🙂 this time I would definitely make sure I had some ready made meals as thats one thing we struggled with last time (we just ate lots of takeaways) but we obviously have S to think about this time!
Make sure you fit lots of rest in for yourself too 🙂 xo
#MarvMondays
That is one fantastic list I was so lazy on my maternity leave in comparison I think my list included lots of lunches out with the folks and then being able to get a pair of shoes on featured at top of my list by the end. Hope you have a fab leave it all goes way too quick x
wow you sound busy but so much more organised than I ever was!! So excited for you, what a beautiful time in your life! Rest up and have plenty of hugs xx #mg
All sounds very exciting! Hope it all goes well and I love baby spam!! #mg xx