What’s in my Hospital Bag?
In my experience, packing to go to the hospital to deliver your baby is a mix of feelings. It’s both daunting and exciting! Especially if you’re like me – a serial overpacker and procrastinator. In a way pregnancy forced me to ditch my procrastination, which I love, but I can’t quite say the same about overpacking. I did however talk to so many of my girlfriends who were already moms and compiled a list of everything they suggested, along with all the girlies on the gram, to decide what to pack for baby boy, myself and even Chris in the most strategic way. Yes – Chris needed a list too because well…boys. I couldn’t have been more happy with everything I included and honestly wouldn’t have changed anything either.
My due date was July 22 however I had a strong idea that I would be induced a little early, and had the normal worry of “what if he comes early?” I packed my bags the first week of July, when I was around 37 weeks. Our hospital was a 35-40 minute drive so I wanted to ensure we were not only packed and ready, but had absolutely everything we needed since “running home” wasn’t really an option. Also, our hospital stay ended up being four days so I was even more thankful for how prepared I was and everything we brought.
I’m sharing the packing lists I put together below along with everything I packed so you can feel prepared and ready!
For Baby
You can find everything I packed for baby below
For Mama
You’ll likely find that there’s a lot of opinions (most unsolicited) about what to pack or not pack based on what people think the hospital provides you. My advice: pack what will make you feel most comfortable during your stay. People gave me such a hard time about bringing my skincare but I cannot express how happy I was to have that packed. It made me feel good, made me feel like me, and like I mentioned before we were there for FOUR DAYS! I can’t imagine having gone four days without it! You can find everything I packed for myself below 🙂
For Dada
Chris was giving my already anxious self major ANXIETY with his lack of urgency around packing and I have to imagine I’m not the only pregnant mama who has experienced this. I wasn’t packing for him and I couldn’t force him to pack, so to at the very least calm my own nerves and relax knowing I did all that I could, I made him a packing list. We did luckily end up getting an induction date, so he packed in advance for that but otherwise he was living on the edge with being ready. A pro tip we received from friends was to bring my pregnancy pillow for Chris to use in the hospital to help make his stay a little comfier. It was a top tier recommendation and helped make the couch bed a little cozier.
