Day 22: Stock Up

If there's one thing you're short on once a little babe joins the family, it's time. Time to cook dinner, time to run errands, time to shop. Even the most well behaved, perfect little newborn still requires a lot of time to feed, change, clean, rock to sleep, etc. And then of course, when the baby sleeps, you need to shower/eat/sleep/whatever. If you have other little ones, you will find that you're even shorter on time.

One of the best things you can do before that little babe joins the family is to stock up. Even if you're not obsessive and a chronic overpreparer like I am, you'll still want to prep in a few different ways, and have a few things on hand. Here are some ideas:

• Meals: In those last few weeks before Javi joined us, Lover stocked the freezer with several batches of yummy, filling meals that we could nosh on after we came home from the hospital. Anytime anyone asked if they could do something, I asked if they would bring a meal I could stash in the freezer. Our church also organizes meals for the first couple weeks, so that stretched out our non-cooking time even further.


• Paper Products: we stocked up on paper plates, napkins, cups, paper towels and the like for those first few weeks. I just didn't want to have to worry about dishes. So we mostly dined off of tree pulp and then tossed everything in the trash when we were done. Easy peasy.


• Personal Products:: toilet paper, maxi pads (a variety is good), kleenex, and ibuprofen are just a few of the things that I made sure we had a plentiful stash of.


• Household Products: Laundry detergent, stain remover, dryer sheets. I had an extra of all of these in my laundry room so I could always do laundry without having to run to the store. And there was a lot of laundry those first few weeks!


• Baby Products: Diapers!! Wipes!! Lots of them! We had a couple small packages of newborn diapers, and then within a couple of weeks he was in size 1 diapers. But if you have a teeny baby, it will be longer.

Your list will be different. But taking the time to think it through and stock up now, instead of running out of toilet paper at 2am, will be worth it. You'll thank me. :-)