5 things every Mum should do on Maternity Leave before the baby arrives

There are countless articles on the internet listing alllll the essential things you need to organise and prepare before your baby arrives. This is not one of them.  

While packing your hospital bag, washing all the baby clothes and catching up on sleep are important, I want to suggest 5 extra things you should consider doing just for the sake of making yourself feel good things.

These are technically non-essentials. I mean, you’re still going to have a baby, everyone will survive and you’ll get by if these things don’t happen. 

BUT. (and I want you to read that as the biggest loudest ‘BUT’ you’ve ever read. 

BUT, I think new Mums deserve better than just ‘getting by’.  

So these five things are about making you feel really good going into having a new baby. It’s about reconnecting with your partner and getting certain things organised so that you can spend those first few weeks or so sniffing your newborns head, rather than stressing about things that you need to do. 

This is definitely how I’m preparing for our third baby and these aren’t things I really even really thought of when I was pregnant with my two boys. 

1st time round it was all about getting things ready for the baby. I spent those last few weeks before he arrived admiring all the tiny clothes and willing him to come out because I was so impatient to meet him. 

2nd time round I was so fixated on how the hell I was going to manage having two children.  I remember saying to other Mums ‘no… like seriously, HOW do you do it.”

This time, I’m so much more relaxed about the actual prospect of adding an extra person to our family. Perhaps it’s because our lives and family is already chaos so I feel like ‘what’s one more?!’  Or perhaps it’s because I know from past experience that yes it might be hard for a while, but eventually it all works out. 

Either way, my focus is less on preparing things for this baby (sorry baby, hand-me-downs are just going to be your life as the third child) or stressing about how to manage with an extra baby, and more about getting things set up to make sure I get to actually enjoy having a newborn. 

Oh how times have changed hey? From not even giving myself a second thought for almost a full year and a half after having my first to actually planning to put myself first going into being a Mum of three. 

So you can either watch the video below or read on if you’ve got a sleeping babe in your arms.

5 things every Mum should do before the baby arrives

1.Go on a date

Nothing puts a great big foggy sleep-deprived barrier between a couple than a fresh baby. 1st time round we did a really crappy job of staying connected during the newborn stage. 2nd time we were definitely better, but this time I’m determined to keep our relationship in front of our roles as parents.

2. Sort out any necessary paperwork now – Centrelink, tax, birth registry, etc

In Australia it’s inevitable that you’re going to have to do some paperwork post-baby. There will be some forms that you can’t finalise until after baby is born. But I thoroughly recommend doing as much as possible now, because your brain really won’t want to focus on this sort of thing for at least the first 6 weeks (to 6 years – lol).

3. Take a whole day off to do something that you enjoy.

It can be tempting to spend your maternity leave before the baby arrives on a manic nesting spree, doing all the things, while wishing away the time until you get to meet your baby. But it could be a long time before you get to do something that is just for you again, and you’ll probably feel different about doing it (#mumguilt is real).

So take at least a whole day, more if you can, to do something that has no other purpose other than you enjoy it. Go to the movies. Spend a day reading in the sun. Go to the beach. Go out for lunch. Get a massage and your nails done. Have your hair done. Finish a project that you enjoy. Take an art class. Go to yoga. Whatever you want to do… just for you.

4. Get food organised for the next 6 weeks

So we’ve all heard the advice to fill your freezer with ready-made meals but I suggest going a few steps further. If you can, try and get your food sorted for the first six weeks.

+ Organise a meal delivery service

+ Cook double batches of meals in the weeks leading up to birth so you can freeze some.

+ Host a cooking party and get your friends to help you fill the freezer.

+ Order fresh boxes or repeated orders from supermarket to arrive weekly.

+ Organise your friends to do food drops rather than gifting you with baby presents.

+ Create a stockpile of snacks that won’t go off (dried fruit and nuts, muesli bars, dates, lactation biscuits, rice crackers, etc).

5. Buy yourself some in-between clothes.

More than ever I think Mums need to put time into doing things that will make them feel good. It can be really easy to resist buying anything new towards the end of pregnancy, thinking that instead you’ll just wait until you can fit back into your pre-pregnancy clothes. But I really think it’s worth buying a few new non-maternity pieces that are comfortable, easy to wear and make you feel put together so that in the first few weeks (and most likely months) after birth you can feel good about how you look. It honestly will make a huge difference to how you feel about yourself.

So that’s my list of things I think every Mum should make time on maternity for before the baby arrives. What do you wish you’d done more of before your baby arrived?