So, you want to welcome a new baby into the world, but how on earth are you going to organize your home and your life in time? First thing’s first, don’t panic! This is a fear that all new parents have and, regardless of your anxiety right now, you will cope, and you’ll do fine!

Recognize the Need for Change

Making a plan for when the baby arrives is all well and good, but you need to recognize that this will be a big change for you and your partner, and it may mean that you need to shift things around in your home to make space for the new arrival to live and grow. At a very minimum, your new baby will need a nursery, which means you need to clear out that spare room of all the junk and get decorating!

Organize Baby’s Room

While newborns won’t be doing much crawling or running around for a few months yet, the sleep deprivation and chaos of feeding schedules will make it difficult to organize the baby’s room after the birth, so it’s always recommended that you sort it out beforehand.

Get yourself a self-storage unit for a few weeks to store all the furniture and essentials that you need without it cluttering up your home; you can find a local one to you by using websites like StorageArea.com. Then, with everything bought, you can start to make a plan to decorate and sort out the baby’s room well ahead of time and bring in the items one by one.  

Coming back to a clean and tidy room with all of your baby’s clothes put away ready for use is a good way to take just a little bit of pressure off.

Set A Budget For Baby Gear

Baby gear is expensive. When you start adding up the cost of a stroller, a cot, clothes, blankets, diapers, pumps, and those essentials you need to take of yourself, it can get expensive, but if you set a budget, you’ll find it much easier to plan with a clear head.

Set a realistic budget by looking at your dream gear, your budget, and what you think you can afford. Just because there are strollers out there for $5,000, it doesn’t mean your baby won’t be perfectly happy with a $500 stroller instead.

Pack Your Hospital Bag In Advance

Once you’ve got all the gear that you think you’ll need (reality check: you’ll need more!), it’s time to pack that hospital bag and get ready to go! Hospital bags are best packed well ahead of time, in some cases up to a month before your due date, as this means you’ll be less flustered and frantically packing when you go into labor.

Only allow Visitors When You’re Ready

One last but very important tip for new baby preparation is to explain to all potential visitors that you’ll let them know when you want them to visit after the birth. No one can predict exactly how the birth will go, and you may not be feeling up to visitors in the first few days or even the first few weeks, and that’s fine. Take that pressure off by letting your loved ones know that you will welcome them round when it’s the right time for you and your baby only.