Those last weeks before baby comes can seem like they take forever! Most likely you are super ready to get that sweet baby out of your ginormous tummy and hold him/her in your arms! With my second pregnancy I found myself exhausted the last few weeks, while my husband is the one who had the “nesting” bug. Watching him motivated me, and since we knew exactly when we were having our baby girl (it was a planned c-section), I caught the nesting bug that last two weeks!
I came up with a few nesting ideas that are outside of the normal “pack your bag, clean your house, cook freezer meal” list.
Here we go! Hope there are a few in here that tickle your “nesting” bug! 😉
CLEANING: For whatever reason when I’m in the nesting phase I find that cleaning supplies smell 10x better than normal! I craved the original Pine-sol smell during my nesting phase for both pregnancies!
- One week before I delivered I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed my tile floor. Spent like three hours on it, but it was the greatest feeling! I used a bucket of warm water, Pine-sol, and baking soda (that concoction was mostly to clean the grout). After I scrubbed a section, I dried it off and scrubbed with a magic eraser. Oh how this made me so happy!!
- Shop vac in your vents!
- Shop vac under your fridge! Then wash under your fridge!
- Clean out your car
- If you are using a car seat from a previous kid, take off the fabric and clean it!
- Make sure you clean your bathrooms really well… people will be visiting and that’s something that you definitely won’t want to do after you come home from the hospital.
- Take a few short moments to clean out your pantry, fridge, and freezer. With people bringing you food you want to make sure you throw away old expired food, and it will also help you know what to get when you go grocery shopping.
- This is an obvious one, but get all of your laundry done.
ADMINISTRATIVE:
- Go grocery shopping. Sometimes it’s hard to have someone else do your shopping for you, and you’ll want to make sure you have the essentials.
- prepare some thank you cards. Go buy some cute thank you cards, or even better, make some! Thank you cards can go to nurses, your doc, but especially for the people who help you after. Those who bring you dinner, babysit your older kids, etc.
- Think about your bills. When are they due next? Need to write any checks and send them out early? Or have an online auto pay scheduled?
INSURANCE: Take a few minutes to call them and chat about your coverage. Trust me, and do this before you have the baby. Your nesting “get it done” attitude is a much better time to worry about this stuff instead of in the hospital when all you want to do is hold your sweet baby!
- Make sure you are in network with the hospital you are delivering at.
- Make sure you have coordinated benefits if you have more than one insurance.
- Talk to them about how/what you need to do to add the new baby to your insurance plan once they are born.
- Ask them what is your individual and family deductible
- how much of the deductible have you paid so far?
- Do you have a separate deductible for facility charges vs physician charges?
- What is your coinsurance?
- What is your total out of pocket amount?
- Are there any procedures that need a pre-authorization for your policy?
- Review your pharmacy benefits, what is covered, what is your copay for prescriptions?If you have any questions about what this stuff means, let me know, I worked in insurance for a while!
FOR YOU:
- Get a pedicure! Not all nesting has to be dusting! Take one hour and pamper those feet of yours! You’ll be thanking me after!
- Prepare for your “at home stay” while you recover and your baby is old enough to take out side! There will be days you feel frustrated you are locked in the same four walls! This one is fun because there are so many possibilities of what sort of things you can do during this time! Find a good book, get a few puzzles, get supplies for a sewing project, borrow a few new movies, etc! Have fun, but have something prepared so you don’t go stir crazy!
FOR OLDER KIDOS:
- Mentally prepare your older kids. Obviously this will vary in detail depending on their age. My son seems to do better with new situations when I’ve set his expectations. Talk to them, run through daily routines and talk to them with what the baby will be doing, let your older kids help set up the nursery, etc.
- Really focus on spending some quality time with your older kids. They need your attention too, and this change will be hard for them too. Make sure they know they are mama’s fav too.
- Here is an awesome post I read in preparation…
- Prepare some activties for them. Just like you, they might get stir crazy in those first few weeks when you don’t want to take out the new baby. This is an awesome blog for kid activity ideas.
Hope these ideas give you some motivation during your nesting phase! Enjoy the last few weeks! Soak in all of those baby kicks (well more like those tight scraping feelings), you will soon miss that! It’s so wonderful to be so close and so apart of your baby.
