MSE baby on the way - frozen meals and OS baby tips please!

Olliebeak

I've loved reading this thread - oh what memories! Unfortunately my own thoughts would be w-a-y out of line with today's thinking - DS1 is 36, DS2 is 30 and DD is 29. There are 5 dgks's but they're only my responsibility occasionally - and THAT has taken some getting used to.

Regarding the hooded baby towels - they are great! BUT I'd like to bet you get bought at least one, and possible more, of them, so I wouldn't bother just yet - see what people buy or pass on to you first. And, believe me, they will pass stuff on to you. Never refuse - if it's good whoopee :j; if it's not then pass it on to somebody else/charity shop with the comment that they outgrew it sooooo quickly.

I was also a great advocate of the pillowcase for a pram mattress cover - would also do for a moses basket as they're about the same size - beauty is that you can flip them over when baby pukes (NB - when baby pukes not if....!).

Obviously, mine were in terry square nappies - disposables in 1973 were hideous - more like incontinence pads with revolting rubber pants to insert them into :eek: OR plastic covered with sticky tapes that wouldn't stick if you got vaseline/baby cream onto them :rotfl:.

Best Wishes to you, your OH and your baby when it puts in an appearance - this is the greatest adventure of your lives - Ollie xxx

Aril

If someone offers to cook you a meal say "yes please":D - it's an absolute life saver! Load up the washing machine the night before and then you can just flick the button first thing. Washing is something you will be doing a lot. Beyond that make sure you're well stocked up on the basics like baked beans etc. I seem to remember we ate things on toast quite a lot in the very early days but once the shell shock has worn off it does get better promise!
Aril

Nitha

Get throws for everywhere. And rugs too. Projectile vomit is hard to clean up.

Enjoy the first year because believe you me the second is much harder

daska

I batch cook the most basic mince, literally just with the onions, garlic, seasonings, grated carrot, oats (for creaminess) and enough tomato to wet the mixture. I then store it in two person servings (based on a starting weight of 4oz meat per person) and use that as a base to which I add tomato sauce or ratatouille (also frozen in portions) or kidney beans or whatever. I actually store my portions in sandwich bags because this takes up far less space than containers (a family of 5 and one small freezer is a great incentive to find ways to economise on space!)

Features of a good mum - don't beat yourself up, save your energy for being a good mum! Down with housework, up with peekaboo...

Things I found helped: Make a thermos of tea instead of a mug; baby led weaning; fleece by the metre from ebay (for blankets, nappy liners and wipes); tesco on-line grocery shopping; NCT groups; lansinoh (don't pay for it, get it on prescription!); disposable nappies for the first week or so; oh and dozens of muslins (for mopping up, wiping down, taking the chill off the changing mat, a quick change sheet when baby gets snotty, to prevent fountains when changing boys and puddles when changing girls, providing a bit of extra shade, modesty when feeding and to wrap the baby in when s/he has just poo'd/puked on the last babygrow etc etc etc)

Angelfeathers

Congratulations! And as everyone has said, I know you're all excited and want to be perfect but please do rest while you can! And remember that you're not going to be perfect. Nobody is. It's taken me the first 3 1/2 years of my son's life to get that through my thick head and I'm so much happier now I'm not striving for perfection. *grin*

Hooded towels - I bought some but found they never stayed on and weren't big enough for long, though admittedly my boy was BIG. Normal towels are perfectly good for babies, and once they're toddlers, towelling ponchos are great for after baths.

Sheets - I used sheets and blankets at first and spent most of the first winter fretting about whether DS was warm enough. I didn't want to pay out for a grobag/baby sleeping bag because I had free sheets and grobags *are* pretty expensive. But once I did decide to give them a go, I never looked back. They're warm and snuggly, DS loved them and I didn't have to worry about him wriggling out of his covers. (Also, all the guides say to have two - one on, one in the wash - but I always got away with just one and spare sheets and blankets just in case of the odd accident.)

Freezing food - I always freeze it fully cooked, because I've always made a big batch, then we eat some for dinner that night and I freeze the other portions. I hate cooking something and not being able to eat some of it 'now' - feels like a waste of effort to me if I cook something and stick it all in the freezer and then have to cook something *else* for dinner! :-)

Olliebeak

Even small portions of stuff can be frozen and then used as toppings for jacket spuds - which can be pinged while even the most awkward sleeper snoozes!

daska

Angelfeathers wrote: »

Freezing food - I always freeze it fully cooked, because I've always made a big batch, then we eat some for dinner that night and I freeze the other portions. I hate cooking something and not being able to eat some of it 'now' - feels like a waste of effort to me if I cook something and stick it all in the freezer and then have to cook something *else* for dinner! :-)

I know what you mean, but I have the largest slow cooker in the world and a very small freezer LOL

Olliebeak

Nitha wrote: »

Get throws for everywhere. And rugs too. Projectile vomit is hard to clean up.

Enjoy the first year because believe you me the second is much harder

oooohhhhh I'd forgotten about the projectile vomit - such joys of motherhood! I could sit on the sofa with No.1 and he could STILL score a bullseye on the wall facing :rotfl:.

And that's another thing you will learn about us 'other mothers', that we all have 1001 horror tales - especially about 'the birth' - to regale new mum's with . Like most things in life, take much of them with a pinch of salt. There's always an element of truth in such tales of woe, but ............. (APART from the guaranteed authenticity of my bullseye scoring, projectile vomitting No.1 son :rolleyes:;)).

(I'm now wondering if any others on here have had the experience of the 'bathtime sausage-making machine'? First time it happened to me, I squealed the place down, No.1 son (yup him again) just carried on with the deepest expression of concentration that he's ever had in all his 36 years :rotfl:.)

Let's face it, if ALL such horror stories were 100% truth, do you really think that most of us would have gone on to have 2, 3 or even more of the little [STRIKE]blighters[/STRIKE] darlings .

DianaMattos

Hi, looks like you've had some great advice here.

What I found really helpful was to give myself a break and remind myself I was in a simple season, much like when I was first pregnant and felt so very sick for the first 14 weeks. So, have simple meals, buy in frozen stuff from the supermarket. Fishcakes with sweet chilli sauce were a staple for us!

When I had finished work, I made a 30 day meal plan and a corresponding online shopping list. I used this meal plan and shopping list for the first 3 months of our little girl's life, but as it was all there, it was easy. After all the batch cooking ran out, we had lots of frozen food like pizzas, fishcakes, meat pies etc with frozen veg. And once a month Hubby and I made a joint effort of cooking a huge batch of mince and turning it into lasagne, bolognase and chilli. Lots of pasta with easy tomato sauces were on the list too. Life doesn't last like this forever, so I figured it was ok to give ourselves a break and eat stuff not totally made from scratch all the time.

I spent almost every afternoon after the baby came for the first 2 months curled up on the sofa watching E4. Again, it is precious time with your baby, soon they won't want a cuddle for more than 2 seconds! (and mine is now 11.5 months old!). Enjoy, be kind to yourself and ignore unhelpful comments (my MIL was horrified to find that when Ruth was 5 days old I wasn't making my own bread, and that I hadn't written all my thankyou letters yet...).

Enjoy!

count_rostov

Wow, thanks for all the helpful replies! Lots more questions though...
Nickyc, freezing portions in a bun tin is a great idea. It's a windy day here so I might go and scrump some windfalls from my mother's fruit trees this afternoon.
Earthmother, how do you make the camomile and honey tea solution? Sounds delicious!
Daska, thanks for the tip about cheap fabrics on ebay. I guess I could also get a couple of metres of muslin and hem the squares. What is lansinoh? Really, I don't know anything about babies and motherhood!
Angelfeathers, what age are babies able to use the growbag/sleeping bag things? Someone told me a year... it would be great if it was sooner as our house is half-renovated and not very warm!
I'm hoping to use cloth nappies as we have a pulley clothes dryer over a range cooker so laundry dries in about 3 hours. We've been given quite a lot of nappies for 6 months + but does anyone have any recommendations for ones which fit newborns?
Last night my friend invited us to her quite grand 30th birthday party which will be 8-9 weeks after the baby is born. This involves flying to the other end of the country, having a posh meal (squeezing into a posh frock) and staying in a b&b/hotel. It will potentially be great fun and a chance to catch up with really good friends I haven't seen in a long time. It will also potentially be a nightmare where I don't get to eat anything/talk to anyone/dance and the baby sicks on the posh frock. Am I unrealistic to even consider going?
Anyway, off to finish the border on my crocheted baby blanket.