8 To-Do's before Baby Number Two
I'll start with what we did to prepare for Baby Girl's arrival.
1. Meals in the Freezer. I did this when I was pregnant with Little Will, and I found it so helpful that as we approached Baby Girl's due date that I stocked the freezer with no less than 6 months of pre-prepared food. We have a vacuum sealer, which is what made this possible. It extends the life of your stored food by quite a bit. Each vacuum sealed pack had either a precooked entree or something that I could throw into the slow cooker earlier in the day. I included enough servings in each for an evening meal, and lunches the next day.
2. Stock up on easy snacks for your first born. We are big fans of homemade, unprocessed food around here. Generally, you won't even find breakfast cereal on our shelves, and I make our own bread. However, when you think through what everyone will eat after baby arrives, focus on things that are easy and quick to prepare. We bought lots of snacks that our little guy could handle on his own, with little assistance. They were generally healthy - Cheerios, berries (don't need to be cut up), cheese string and unpeeled bananas were good options. Some days I would put these items out on a child sized table with his sippy cup. Throughout the morning, Little Will would help himself if he was hungry. It wasn't how we normally did things, but he seemed to enjoy the novelty and it was less stressful than trying to fix a snack from scratch while Baby Girl nursed off and on throughout the day. If you love to cook from scratch, and you have time, muffins are a great option to prepare too while waiting for baby.
3. Organization. Each day during my pregnancy I picked one small thing to organize - a drawer, a corner of the closet, a pile of papers... By the time Baby Girl arrived, our house was much better organized and stayed that way for much of her first year.
4. Simplify. We also started culling or storing any belongings that we did not use on a regular basis, or that we thought we would not be using over the next year. This really reduced the number of material possessions that I had to manage as I focused on my kids.
5. Reduce the number of your other responsibilities as much as possible. We made no commitments for this year. Whenever someone asked us to sign up for something, we just told them that we wanted to see how things were going with the new baby before we agreed to anything new. We even went as far as to reduce our current responsibilities. For example, my mother-in-law took care of our dog for about 3 months after Baby Girl was born. Any small thing you take off your plate will be appreciated when it gives you more time to focus on your little ones and your own self care.
6. Talk to your spouse about how they will help you. My husband is a good man. If you make a reasonable argument about equality and sharing household responsibilities, he's on board with that. Since I decided to do the stay-at-home mommy gig for a few years, he's also been incredibly supportive. However, with this support there has also been an assumption that I will take care of all housekeeping and cooking responsibilities, as well as the bulk of the childcare responsibilities. Which is fair. I firmly believe, though, that most parents with a newborn baby should expect help from their spouse, and I did not receive much help when Little Will was born. I made it clear to him, before Baby Girl was born, what I expected from him. This time around we had fewer arguments related to housekeeping, and he basically took care of Little Will when he was home, giving me tonnes of time to bond with and care for Baby Girl.
6. If relatives or friends offer you help in the first few months, take it. My mother was particularly generous with her time. Before Baby Girl was born she had already planned on coming out to help for a few days or even a week. However, after I had a C-section and could not lift Little Will or anything else heavier than 10 pounds, I was immensely grateful knowing that I would have extra help and support. Mom ended up staying for about 3 weeks, and my husband took time off of work to help out. I know that not everyone is so lucky to have such a supportive family, but if someone offers to help you out, take them up on it! Even if you think you'll be able to manage, you never know how your labor and recovery will go. You won't know the temperament of your baby in advance, or how her sleep patterns will affect yours. NEVER say no to help. This is true of any new baby, but I think doubly true when you have other young children in the family.
7. Go on a shopping spree! Hit the mall before the new baby is there, but go with a list. Make sure everyone has lots of socks and underwear. Stock up on shampoo, conditioner, cleaning products, paper towel, toilet paper... You don't want to be making an emergency shopping trip in the first couple of weeks, and you don't want your life to be made any harder by something silly like running out of a product that is essential to a well-run home.
8. Prepare your older child. In the months before your baby is born, explain to your first born about babies and what is going to happen... at least as much as you can. Having two little ones close together may limit how much your first born is going to be able to understand. My Will was 20 months old when his sister arrived on the scene, and his language was very slow in coming. We knew that he seemed to understand quite a bit, but had little to say. I think we only had about 20 words around that time, so we didn't know what he was expecting. That being said, Will seemed completely unfazed by Baby Girl's arrival. He seemed to understand who she was, and grinned broadly whenever someone mentioned "Will's new sister." Do what you can to explain. I pointed out babies at the grocery store, and then would point to my tummy and explain yet again about the baby that would soon be joining our family. We looked a picture books. We looked through his baby book. By and large, though, the thing that seemed to get through to him the most was youtube. Lots of people put family videos online, and some of these include older siblings welcoming their baby sister or brother into the world. He LOVED this. At the time we weren't letting him watch t.v., but I made an exception. I highly recommend it. We found many cute clips, but this one of a baby sister welcoming her new little brother was Will's favourite:
You may also want to help your older child to be as independent as possible before the new baby arrives. I worked towards this, but only as much as felt natural to expect from Little Will. Luckily for me, he was going through a fairly typical phase of wanting to do things himself as much as possible. I encouraged him to learn how to climb into his high chair and his carseat (with me spotting him of course), and after the C-section I was really glad that we had done this. He also had been feeding himself finger food, but we moved on to working with a spoon so that he was able to feed himself just about any kind of food on his own with minimal assistance.
I have lots more to say about how to help your older child to adapt to being a big brother or sister, but that is a post for another day. I hope this helps, and would love to hear your advise on how you prepared for a new baby in your home. What was the best thing you did before baby arrived on the scene?
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