For first time parents, the first few months of your baby’s life is an absolutely wonderful time, but some of it can seem a little overwhelming and mysterious. In the lead up to the birth, your mind will be absolutely full of questions and worries, with preparations taking over the majority of your thoughts.
One of those pressing concerns is making sure that the house is clean and tidy enough to bring a newborn into, as well as being able to keep the place in order once your little one or ones are home, without sacrificing too much time with your precious new arrival. With this in mind, I thought I’d give you some tips on little things that you can do which will make things more simple for you:
Declutter in Advance
One thing on which most new parents will agree is that newborns require a lot of STUFF. Your usually minimalist space will suddenly contain dummies, muslins, toys, books, nappies, a million babygrows, teethers, wipes, changing bags, nappy bins…the list goes on! Something that can really help is having a serious declutter before baby comes along. This will ensure that your house isn’t full of unneccesary stuff that will just give you more to dust and tidy in the long run.
Keep it Simple
When you’re recovering from birth, looking after a baby and probably hosting a whole slew of family and friends, you want to make sure you get as much rest as possible. Grabbing 40 winks when the baby sleeps is one of the most important tips I can give first time parents, but once you feel rested enough to tackle the housework, just take care of the basics. No-one cares if your windows aren’t spotless or if your oven hasn’t been deep cleaned. Vacuuming, washing up, laundry, cleaning loos – that’s all fairy vital. Almost everything else can wait!
Use a Sling
When Sausage finally came home from the NICU, she did NOT like to be put down for very long, which made doing almost everything tricky. Then, I invested in a sling and suddenly, life was easier! Sauage was more than happy hanging around on my front while I did washing up, vacuuming, all sorts of stuff (although nothing involving chemicals or fumes, obvs!) and it was lovely to have that closeness. By the time BB came along, I was a pro and the sling was deployed straight away.
Accept Help
Everyone tells you to accept help if it’s offered, but so many first time parents are too proud or don’t want to be an inconvenience. But seriously, if someone is offering help, ACCEPT IT! Your parents, siblings and friends all want to feel like they’ve been able to help you, so you should let them. Something simple like chucking a wash in the machine, loading the dishwasher or pushing the hoover round will be a minor effort for them, but a big load off for you. It will also give you more precious time with baby.
Do you have any handy tips for first time parents? I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice!
Burrito Baby is almost three and a half and will be starting nursery in September, so our baby days are well and truly over. Husband and I have made the decision that two kids is enough for us, so newborns aren’t something which will feature in our future, however I was recently speaking to a pregnant friend about how much simpler parenthood was the second time around because you don’t feel as pressured by all the STUFF. With Sausage, we had so much information and advice about what we NEEDED and MUST HAVE, but the reality of it was that we probably could have done without most of it. Here’s a list of things which, for us, were the true essentials the second time around:
If you’ve got a newborn baby, you know all too well what it’s like to live in that lovely bubble of baby wonderfulness. They may not be sleeping at night but in the early days it’s all about finding your groove and if it’s your first baby, it’s so tempting to stay at home in your little baby-centric haze for as long as possible. There are, however things that you’ll need to do in those forst few weeks, so we thought we’d give you a little list to remind you of the essentials.
