Planning for Life as a New Parent
Here are worksheets to help you plan for your early weeks with baby. Each has a PDF version you can print, or a Google Doc version you can copy and edit to meet your needs.
What supplies do you need for baby? (PDF, Google) If you have a parenting partner, how will you divide up the responsibilities for baby care and housework? (PDF, Google) If you have family members or friends who would like to help out, here is a letter (PDF, Google) that you could share about what would be most helpful. And here are questions to ask when: Choosing your Baby’s Care Provider. (PDF, Google) Choosing a Postpartum Doula. (PDF, Google) Planning for Parental Leave (PDF, Google) and Planning for Return to Work (PDF, Google)
If you’re concerned about postpartum depression or other PMAD’s (perinatal mood and anxiety disorders), put a plan in place including protective factors to reduce your risk and learning about treatment options.
And because parenting a newborn can strain any relationship, here are 6 Key Relationship Skills to try out.
Life as a New Parent
Whether postpartum is “easy” or hard, you can always use more information, more resources, or support. We’ve collected links to helpful resources. for postpartum. Here’s a sheet for tracking what your local postpartum resources are. (Doc)
Caring for Your Baby
In the book, we cover some of the common newborn procedures, here is more information on medical care for newborns. If you’re feeling concerned about your baby’s health, and considering calling their doctor, it’s helpful to gather your information in advance, and have somewhere to write notes: our worksheet for calling baby’s doctor can help. After baby is born, it can be helpful at times to track their daily cycles, so we created a chart for tracking baby’s sleep/wake cycles. And here are links to helpful resources about new babies, child care basics and how to choose a child care option, and a video on a helpful double swaddle technique.
Feeding Your Baby
We cover breastfeeding/ chestfeeding in depth in our book, and cover the basics of all infant feeding. Here’s a collection of helpful feeding resources, in case you need to know more, which includes links to lots of helpful video clips of latch, hand expression and more.
When You’re Pregnant Again
If you’re expecting a new baby, it can be helpful to have fun, age-appropriate children’s books about pregnancy, birth, new babies and becoming a sibling. We recommend several kids’ books about birth.
Your Experience: We have created simple journal sheets you can use to record your experiences, from when you first learn of your pregnancy till after your baby’s birth. Your printable journal pages.
PCN Guide 