Baby Prep Notebooking

So much prep work goes into getting ready for this moment and the days/weeks/months after!

There’s a lot to keep track of when you’re pregnant or have a newborn baby.  Here’s some advice I took and ran away with from my big sis:  Get a notebook.  LB would hold it up and say, “This is my brain.  If I don’t write it down, it never happened.”  I like a thick spiral notebook with big pockets.  You can use sticky notes to make tabs to find your entries.  Here are some of the entries in my notebook:

1. Usernames and Passwords (Insurance, Registries, etc.)
2.  Baby Moon Planning
3.  Things to Buy for Post Delivery Mama
4.  Bible Verses for Nursery, Announcements, L and D
5.  Nursery Décor To-do
6. Questions to ask the Pediatricians
7.  Pediatrician Interviews
8. Questions to ask at Hospital Tour
9. Hospital Info
10. Labor and Delivery Class Notes
11.  Introducing Pets to Baby Class Notes
12. Caring for your Baby Class Notes
13. OB Visits: Weight, Blood Pressure, Questions
14. Gestational Diabetes Info
15. Meals and Blood Sugar Record
16. Ordering Breast Pump Through Insurance
17.  Ideas to Induce My Own Labor
18. Record of Gifts and Thank You Notes
19. Hospital Packing List – Labor and Delivery Bag
20. Hospital Packing List – Mother and Infant Unit Bag
21. Induction Questions for OB

Here is my Baby Prep Notebook... Can anything be more exciting than some bright colored pens, little Post-its, and a big fat notebook with manila pockets?

What went in the pockets:

1. Hand-outs from doctors and classes
2. Prescription slips
3. Records of Diaper Changes and Feedings
4.  Pediatrician Paperwork
5. Photos and Ultrasound Pics
6. Appointment cards
7. Copy of birth plan

One thing that I will add to my next notebook is a page on controlling anxiety before and after baby arrives.  Having my plans written down helped me keep the little sanity I had left, though!  Plus, when it’s time for baby #2, I will be able to look back and remember what to do!

How I Can Almost Always Stop Baby From Crying

Sometimes she's had enough with Mamarazzi!

Music can change your mood immediately.  Think about coming home after the worst work day and hearing your jam on the radio.  Instant mood lifter, right?  When I got pregnant, I started listening to my favorite worship song every single morning while I made breakfast.  My intent was to listen to “Lord I Need You” during labor and delivery to help me through, and it did, but I also found out that the song had a magic quality.  If it was playing, Little LB abruptly stopped crying.  What was really going on?

1.       In the womb, baby is awake at night and asleep during the day.  I basically made the song a bedtime lullaby.

2.       Baby was rocked to sleep to the song as I walked around the kitchen singing along.

3.       Baby came to associate this song with both the comforts of the womb and sleep.

Choosing a lullaby like this is easy.  Pick a gentle song you love and think you could listen to several times a day.  Make it a song that feels calming to you.  Go easy on the percussion.  I particularly liked mine because I thought the rolling cymbals would be reminiscent of the air rushing through my lungs and my blood pumping.  Listen every morning while pregnant, during L and D, and anytime baby gets upset.  We have used it to calm her in the hospital, car seat, at the store, at home, and right after shots!  It still works like a charm after 6 months.  It amazes us that she can be crying in the car and hear the first notes of this song and stop crying immediately!  (Disclaimer... when the song ends, she often starts crying again if she hasn't fallen asleep. Sometimes it's a temporary fix... Unless we put it on repeat!)

Pre-Prepping, Part 2

One of my educational philosophies is to operate in a way that my future self will thank me.  This idea helped me during my pre-prepping phase.  And every day I do thank the old Joanna who was smart enough to get things done early! 

•  Simplify your life.  My email inbox was always bursting at the seams.  Anytime I was sitting around waiting for an appointment, I unsubscribed to emails.  Soon, instead of getting 10-20 new emails a day, I was getting 1-3! I also deleted unused apps.
•  Fix what gets you in a time crunch.  I knew I wouldn’t have time for last second loads of laundry when I was taking care of a baby.  We stocked up on my husband’s undershirts, which he always seemed to be running low on.  It helps me a ton now! 
•  Decide how you want to do your “bump pics”.  Start taking them every week!  But you’re not pregnant yet?  Or are you?  When you get the positive test, you’ll be at least four weeks pregnant!  (Just snap a nice selfie or something for now.  If you make too big a deal out of it you might get even more disappointed when you get those negative tests.)  Check out Pinterest for lots of cute ideas for documenting your growing baby bump.  And if you accidentally miss a week, it’s okay!  Just keep going!  You can buy a Belly Book like the one LB and I used to handwrite notes in each week, or type something each week and have a book printed later!  

I love to read back through all the weeks of my pregnancy.  It's amazing how fast you forget all the precious little details!

We decided on weekly chalkboard pictures.

By the end of my pregnancy, I wasn't taking chalkboard pictures anymore.  But Big Sis told me to snap a pic anyway.  So glad I did!

• Check out local haunts.  Pay attention to which of your favorite spots have changing tables in the restroom and the type of high chairs in use.  It’s fine to run to the car for a diaper change, unless the weather is bad!
• Shop with bump and boobs in mind!  If you’re planning on having a baby in the next year or so, you can help your future self out by keeping some general ideas in mind.  You’ll end up with having a wardrobe that works preggo or no for at least the first couple months and after baby arrives, which will save lots of money on maternity clothes that you’ll only wear for a short time.

1.       Elastic or stretchy necklines and button-up shirts are great for breastfeeding!

2.       Skirts with elastic bands will grow with your bump!

3.       Look for a higher waistline on dresses and shirts. This accentuates the beauty of the bump without making people think, “Is she pregnant… or just getting fat?”  If it’s flowy, add a belt!

4.       The longer the top, the better.  As the bump grows, shorter tops turn into belly shirts.

5.       Open-toed flat shoes will work better with swelling feet.

6.       The bump will make short skirts and dresses appear even shorter.

7.       Extender slips are your best friend! I bought mine at Altar'd State, my favorite store ever!  (See middle pic above.  You can see it peeking out under the coral dress.)  You can find easy directions on Pinterest to make your own.

Pre-prepping

Without birth control... Ha!

I was not born Type A, but my husband was.  To make our marriage work, I slowly became more and more Type A, and the order and routine of it all made me happy.  (I still find myself wondering how random piles of stuff appear throughout my house, though!)  Ryan and I were married for eight years and 30 years old before we decided to grow our little family.  I had plenty of time to go all crazy Type A on the pre-prepping phase!  When I signed my final teaching contract, I couldn’t help but start planning!  You never know which month the pee stick will read positive… Will it take one month?  The usual three?  A year or two?  I occupied my mind and time with pre-prepping.  Here is a list of things that I learned from my mother hens during that time that might help you with your pre-prepping time.

1. Pinterest!  Those of us who got married before the invention of Pinterest lament how creative and organized we could have been.  Here’s your chance to dream!  (Might want to make those boards secret for now.  It’s surprising how quickly word spreads!)  Some fun boards to create: Future Girl Nursery, Future Boy Nursery, Bump Outfits, Fit Pregnancy, Newborn Photography, Labor and Delivery, Caring for Newborn Baby, etc.
2. Get a pre-conception check-up.  This helped me try an OB-Gyn office I was thinking of using.  Plus, the doctor helped me come up with my list of things to do… start prenatal vitamins, get off my prescription med, get off birth control pills and wait a few months before trying.  (My husband later showed me a new medical article stating that waiting after birth control pills is probably not necessary.)
3. Discuss logistics.  Pay off debt Dave Ramsey style.  Find out about work leave.  (One friend found out too late that Christmas break counted as part of her maternity leave.)  Think about your deductible and the timing there.   
4.  Prenatal vitamins.  Start at least a few months before “trying”.  (Gummies rock!)  In case I was to get morning sickness, I took my vitamin with dinner.  Set a “Vitamin Alarm” to go off on your phone so you make a habit of it.  When pregnancy brain kicks in, the vitamin alarm will keep you from skipping.
5. Get off caffeine.  (You don’t want your sweet little pookie to be born with caffeine headaches!!!)  This took some effort but saved us a bunch of money!  Sometimes I was only able to roll out of bed because I promised myself a cinnamon latte!  Here’s my totally Type A method:

1.       Switch from medium size coffees to small.  Two weeks.

2.       Switch to decaf every day but Friday.  Two weeks.

3.       Switch to decaf tea every day except small decaf latte on Friday.  (Constant Comment is my favorite and sold as decaf at World Market!)  I put the mug of water in the microwave and the tea bag and spoon in the Tervis Tumbler next to a banana the night before so I had no excuse!  Two weeks.

4.       Switch from decaf tea to watered-down cranberry juice. Two weeks.

5.       Switch to all water except for a small decaf latte on Fridays.

Why I'm Here

Coming from a big family (1 older sister, 1 younger sister, 2 younger brothers, and at least 35 cousins off the top of my head), I always thought that motherhood would be a natural thing for me.  Being an elementary school teacher made me feel even more ahead of the game.  When I started thinking about getting pregnant, I realized that I really didn’t have any clue how to grow and take care of a newborn baby, except for what I had gleaned from my mom so many years ago and from my big sister, my mother hen, LB.  LB had two chicks of her own at the time, my beautiful niece and nephew.  As I started to feather my own nest, I read every book, website, blog post, pamphlet, and handout I had access to.  I joined Facebook groups of other moms and constantly texted and called my mom, LB, my mother-in-law, and other moms in my life.  Luckily, I’m married to a Family Nurse Practitioner, so that helped, too!  I discovered that the most helpful information often came from the trial and error of a new mom trying to figure out how to live in the world around her. Every time I learned something new and useful, I filed it away in my memory to share with my little sister when her time came.  As you find when you’re pregnant, remembering anything is quite a task!  So, I simply started typing these ideas randomly into my phone during the minutes that I waited to see my OB.  As my bump grew, my list got so long, it would be overwhelming and impossible to share in its disorganized stream-of-consciousness format.  I decided on a more structured arrangement of blog posts to share the wealth of knowledge I had picked up from other mother hens and from my own trial and error.  So here’s hoping that I can pass to you some mommy wisdom that I’ve used with my little chick, Little LB!