My Little Sister is Pregnant!
Congrats, Shorty! My sister is pregnant, and I’m thrilled - even if it’s hard to tell through my frazzled state of sleep deprivation.
It’s going to be awesome watching her grow her own little family, and maybe she’ll have a girl so I can shower her with all the pink things we never got to use at my house. Or, even better, maybe she’ll have a boy so I can offload my cases of boy clothing, toys, and gigantic, brightly colored items we collectively call “baby gear.”
Also, at long last I can offer her my full spectrum of unsolicted parenting advice!
This may take a while, so I’ll just start off with some general pregnancy tips for a first pregnancy:
Sleep
Sleep is the #1 thing you will miss once you have kids. There will be no more “sleeping in.” Or at the very least you will comfort yourself by telling the world you “slept in” until 7:30 this morning… Oh, and this missing sleep stage lasts much, much longer than a year or two.
Read
This your time to kick your feet up and read. Don’t wait until the baby is born to read various forms of parenting adivce, child rearing, and especially sleep resources. Read it now so you can just skim it later. Believe me the first few months are a blur, so be ready beforehand.
Research
Find out about things you know you’ll be dealing with. Having a boy? Read about circumcision. Planning to breastfeed? Research it NOW.
Clean
Your house will never be cleaner than it is right now until your children are out of diapers (unless you have two, and then it just will never be clean until they are in college.) Do the deep cleaning in the first trimester and just hope it’s good enough to last for a year or two. Don’t wait or you won’t be able to walk, much less bend to clearn. Better yet - hire someone to do it for you.
Shop
Go out and shop. Take your time and try things on. I wouldn’t buy any shoes unless they are flip-flops, but window shop now; you might have babies like mine that don’t like to just hang out in the stroller. Especially shop for baby stuff. It’s just fun.
Decorate
If there is any room in your house that still needs decorations, including the nursery, get it done now. There’s a sense of peace and pride when your home is ready for the new baby, even if she won’t arrive for another six months.
File
Get your files in order. Organize the office and set up any acounts you need to. Clear out the stacks of papers sitting around. Start fresh with new stacks when the baby gets here!
Plan
Get started now setting up savings accounts and life insurance. You are already a parent whether you’ve had the baby or not. Get a will. Get life insurance. Set up a living will. That goes for both of you. It might take some of the fun out of it, but you’ll be glad you have it, just in case the unthinkable happens.
Sleep Some More
Believe me, you’ll never know how good it feels to sleep at will.
And don’t get too comfortable yet - there will be much more pregnancy and parenting advice to come!
Great list! The one thing I wish more people had warned me about when I was expecting was what would happen to my body. Between boobs that belong on a Martian and mini tyres around my middle that havent budged after seven years of stomach cruching, my formally perky body is now the stuff of a dreamy past.
Comment by Rayaan | October 24, 2007
Don’t you DARE say you still have tummy trouble after seven years. I live in hope that the minute my energy and will power return I’ll knock out the rest of this belly fat, head to the doc for a tummy tuck and be hotter than I ever have before! (Maybe if I got to dream at night, I wouldn’t be lost in so many daydreams during the day….LOL!)
Comment by Rebecca | October 30, 2007
Thanks for all the advice, Bec. I’ll do my best to follow it…
Comment by Shorty | November 3, 2007
You’d better - there’s plenty more unsolicited advice where that came from!
Comment by Rebecca | November 3, 2007