Did you know that there are more than three trimesters in pregnancy? Many consider the first months postpartum to be the “fourth trimester.” The baby is born, but you’re not back to normal yet. You haven’t yet recovered from the trials of labor and you’re adapting to the demanding lifestyle that comes with raising a newborn. You will be woken often to feed and soothe the baby, and you will probably not get a full night’s sleep for a while.
In the meantime, you’ll still have to go about your regular tasks, like cooking and cleaning. The laundry will still need to get done. You will still need to stock your fridge with groceries. And you will still have to maintain your house so that nothing falls apart.
Trying to juggle all of these basic tasks in the fourth trimester can be overwhelming. So, to make the juggling act a little easier, these are some preparations you can make before the baby is born.
Make a Meal Train:
You’re not going to be in the right state to cook multiple times a day while you’re in the fourth trimester. So, one thing that you can do to make this chore easier on yourself is to organize a meal train for the first few weeks with your new baby, when you’re going to be the most exhausted. If this is too much for you, you can ask a trusted friend or relative to do the organizing for you.
Look Up Grocery Delivery Services:
You’ll still want to have a fridge full of snacks and drinks, even if you’re not planning on cooking for a while. To stop you from having to take a trip to the supermarket with your newborn, you should try to order your groceries online and have them delivered to your home for a portion of your postpartum period. Look up grocery delivery services available in your area and see which ones you would prefer to use.
Or, if that’s not possible, you can arrange to have a trusted friend or relative to tackle the shopping for you in this postpartum period. Send them a list of your needs, transfer them the funds they need through a P2P payment app and then wait for them to drop off the bags when they’re done.
Consider Cleaning Services:
You won’t have the energy to vacuum the carpets or wipe down the kitchen counters in the fourth trimester. So, if you can afford to do so, you should consider hiring a cleaning service to come over to clean your place during this postpartum period. It doesn’t have to be very often. It could be once a week or two. And the service doesn’t have to clean the entire house. It can tackle the dirtiest areas that need the most attention, like your bathrooms.
Focus on Home Maintenance Projects:
Try to get most of your home maintenance done before the baby arrives because you certainly won’t have the stamina to tackle a household project like cleaning the gutters or testing out the sump pump while you’re recovering from birth and taking care of a newborn. So, prioritize maintenance projects before your due date creeps any closer.
As an added precaution, you should make sure that your emergency fund has enough in it to cover any urgent repairs that might crop up in the fourth trimester. That way, you can rest assured that a professional can take care of the problem for you, while you’re focusing on your new job of “parent”. If you don’t have an emergency fund, that’s something you should change as soon as possible. Start putting together one now. Even a small emergency fund is better than nothing.
If you don’t have enough in your emergency fund to cover an urgent expense, you might consider a borrowing option like a loan as a payment solution. You don’t have to make a visit to your local bank branch to do this. You could try applying for a loan over the phone — you don’t even have to leave your front doorstep to do this. If your application is approved, you can use the personal loan to pay off the urgent expense shortly after it falls into your lap. Then you can follow a simple repayment plan.
Postpartum life is hard enough without having to worry about tasks like grocery shopping and cleaning. You can make your fourth trimester a lot easier by taking these steps now, long before the baby is born.
