Expecting or hoping for a baby? Congratulations! Here are some tips to help make your transition as a new mom as joyful and smooth as possible!
4 things that will make your first night home with a newborn easier
1️⃣ While you’re still in the hospital, set alarms on your phone for any medicine you need to take. You may be given pain relief or other medications that you’ll have to take several times a day. Once you get home, it’s easy to lose track when you’re spending every second taking care of a days old baby.
You can also set alarms for feeding the baby so you don't lose track. Once you start feeding, just shift those alarms 3 hours later so you know when it's time to feed them again (if they don't request to be fed earlier than that...)
2️⃣ Have a plan for easy meals for your first day/night home from the hospital. You may be so absorbed with doing everything for the baby that it's easy to forget about food for yourselves! You’ll likely be starving and probably not up for making a meal or a dinner decision.
3️⃣ Use disposable puppy pads on the changing table. That way, when they soak the changing table while you’re changing their diaper at 2am, you can just fold it up and throw it away. This makes such a difference when you already have so much laundry to do.
4️⃣ Start using a baby tracking app in the hospital for feedings, diapers, etc. They’ll ask you to track baby’s feeds and diapers at the hospital anyway, and the pediatrician will ask how many of each at baby’s first visit. If you’re planning to use an app to track things like this, save time updating later and start tracking it in the app while you’re already doing it at the hospital.
4 must-have, often forgotten items for your hospital bag
1️⃣ Nursing pillow - these provide much better support than the floppy hospital pillows, and are especially helpful if you’re learning to breastfeed for the first time!
2️⃣ Electric nail file (or clippers) - newborn nails are LONG (even right when they’re first born!) and they are constantly scratching their precious little face, which is so hard to see! I like the electric nail file because you don’t have to worry about accidentally clipping their tiny fingers.
Newborn shirts and footies with foldover sleeves work great for covering their nails as well!
3️⃣ Extra long phone charger - outlets can be far from the hospital bed, and of course you’ll want your phone charged to take pics of your new little one without having to get up!
4️⃣ Flip flops for the hospital shower!
4 photos of your newborn you'll love to look back on
1️⃣ Ask if there is someone who can take pictures of you and the baby as you are seeing them for the first time
2️⃣ A picture right after they are born
3️⃣ A picture an hour later ... it’s crazy how much they change!
4️⃣ A picture of the car ride home from the hospital… You’ll look back on these and remember exactly how you felt in that moment
Of course, things don’t always go according to plan. If you can’t get these photos, don’t worry, there will be millions of other sweet moments to capture and your camera roll will soon be full of them!
And most importantly, a reminder that these first days are HARD and you are a great mom!
To make things easier, we designed a cooler made especially for moms!
Our dual layer, insulated Luxuroo COOL cooler bag is perfect for keeping pumped breast milk and baby bottles cold, and includes a separate section for storing pump parts. Use the COOL together with the PumpPartment pump parts box for an on-the-go fridge hack* when pumping away from home or in the middle of the night. Shop it here now and enjoy your sweet little one!
*This product is designed for use with healthy full-term infants. Please be aware of applicable milk storage guidelines, and consult your pediatrician and/or lactation professional with any questions.
This is not medical advice. Please ask your doctor if you have questions.
