Essential Third Trimester Checklist:

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Woohoo the third trimester! Your pregnancy is coming to a close, which is so exciting and terrifying at the same time. Now what do you do?? How do you prepare for this little one. We are also officially in the 3rd trimester and I can not wait to meet our little girl. BUT I also know I have so much to do before she makes her arrival. I’m sure you are in the same spot as me.

Well don’t worry that is super normal and common. It often feels like it takes forever but the finish line is within sight. So what do you need to do before the arrival of your baby? There is quite a bit, but just take it one day and one task at a time. They are not complicated things, but are SO helpful when the baby gets here.

I have to remind myself to take this checklist one bite at a time, I get so excited for my babies to be earth side that I try to rush what I need to do. That doesn’t help them come sooner and then I always get hip and back pain because I did too much.

These is my third baby so I have done this before and I have weeded out the tasks from the checklist that I had with my oldest daughter. I know what is more important and valuable. Time is a gift, especially if you have multiple little ones, you are always going in more than one direction.

I have broken done my list into 4 categories. This helps me feel more organized and makes these list much simpler. So here is the first list that I put together is easy and essential that I find is actually worth doing.

HOME:

• Declutter

• Organize each room

• Do baby’s laundry

• Prep Freezer Meals

• Stock up

I normally combine declutter and organize together. In the next few weeks I will filter through each room and remove things we do not need anymore or do not use. This is a good time to go through your clothes and your other kids clothes too.

Before baby comes I like to have all their laundry done and ready to go for when they are here. This helps me know that I am prepared, they will come home to clean clothes and their things ready for them as well as mine.

Meal Prep! This one is so so so helpful. But the thought of just sitting and prepping a ton of food before baby comes can be daunting. The way that break it down that is so much simpler for my life as a momma of two littles is this.

Do one crockpot meal a week. When you plan your weekly menu, make sure you have one meal for the crockpot. Then double it, when you dump all the ingredients in the crockpot take the extra ingredients and dump it in a bag and freeze it. That way once a week you add a meal to the stock in the freezer and it is not overwhelming.

I found this method helps me so much have a good freezer stash of meals I know our family already loves and it is so simple to pull the bag out the night before and then that day dump it into the crockpot. And ta da!! Dinner is done.

Making sure that you have plenty of what you’re going to need before baby comes is necessity. This way you do not need to make a ton of last minute trips to the store because you went through the diapers or wipes faster than you thought.

I love to stock up on snacks for me and the girls, pads, diapers, wipes, toilet paper, and anything else that is a necessitity. Stock up on what you need and you know is important to your family.

BABY:

• Pick a pediatrician

• Get car seat

• Baby gear

• Childcare lined up (if you need it)

• Pick out going home outfit

• Choose name

It will be so much easier to line up a pediatrician before you have baby. This way you won’t have a wait for you new baby to get into their busy schedule, they already know that your new little on is going to be their patient when they make their appearance.

With my first one I got the car seat super early and I did not have to worry about it, and then with my second daughter came my eldest was already in a front facing car seat. So she just inherited her sisters.

But now with my third baby my second love bug is still in our rear facing so I realized I need to get another rear facing for this baby. So make sure if this is not your first baby or even if it is, you need to get the car seat before baby comes. I think it’s handy to have one sooner rather than later, just in case they make their arrival early.

Baby gear is a very broad topic. But in my mind it lumps together, bottles, breast pump, and baby wrap. I swear by my elvie stride, it is an investment since its a tad bit more than I normally spend, but I make a TON of milk and donate to the NICU so I wanted a reliable and good pump. I was not let down by my elvie stride. I will link it here.

Before the baby comes I like to make sure my pump and bottle are super clean, because I like to take my pump with me in my hospital bag. So this is a great one if you are going to pump. Or even if you bottle feed, making sure the bottles are all ready to go.

Baby wearing is absoletely one of my favorite things ever. I do not know if I would want more kids without baby wearing (crazy I know). But it helps me feel like I am actually giving my baby the cuddles and attention they need, while also giving to my other kids since I can do so much more while wearing them.

Ugh I just think it is so good for bonding and keeping on top of the house when you baby wear, I can not recommend having a baby wrap enough. I have a ring wrap and love love love it. I will link my wrap here.

Before I have baby and put them in the wrap I obviously need to wash it before putting a sweet newborn in it. I will wear my kids until I physically cant. Normally that means my bump makes it hard to have my toddler sit in the wrap comfortable since our kiddos are close together in age.

I do have the blessing of being able to work from home for the past 2 years, so I haven’t had to do this with my second daughter and will not have to with my third daughter. But with my oldest baby I was still working as a paralegal in an office, so I had to find someone to watch her while I was at work.

Now again I was so blessed with an amazing boss and was able to bring her in half the week, but the other half I had lined up with a family friend to watch her while I worked. This is also something that if you need it you do not want to put off too long. If you are having family watch them then its good to figure that out quick and the details of that, or if you are putting them in day care, they may have a waitlist so you want to figure it out sooner rather than later.

While picking out a going home outfit isn’t extremely crucial it is a ton of fun! I love looking at the baby’s clothes and picking which they are going to wear first. My husbands family does have a special outfit that his mom and sister both wore going home from the hospital and I thought it would be so fun to continue that tradition. Now while we took both the girls home in that outfit, I did take it off once we got home and put them in the outfit I picked out.

Choosing a baby name is so much darn fun in my opinion. I love talking baby names and truly most anything babies. I know some people like to wait until they see the baby and I totally get that. Having a few to choose from will be helpful to narrow it done before they come.

Sometimes names can be a difficult discussion with spouses if you can’t agree on one. But its important to keep trying to talk about it and find one you both love. It took us months to decide our first daughters name, we had our second daughters name picked before we were even pregnant with her, and this third baby my husband decided at 20 weeks he hated the name we had picked out and we were back to square one.

But low and behold we did find one we both love and I am so excited to use for her!

BIRTH:

• Hospital bag

• Contraction App

• Hospital Tour

• Child Birth class

• Research Labor signs

• Have a plan for other kids if need be

I had a much bigger hospital bag for my first baby then I have packed for our third baby. But regardless it is important to have one packed in about the last month of pregnancy just in case the baby makes an early appearance.

Here soon I will do a whole post on what I have packed in my hospital bag the third time around.

Contraction App downloaded is not a necessary thing to do but I found it very helpful, I love to track things and monitor how my labor is progressing so I found this handy. There is tons of different contraction apps that you can use.

I personally used Ovia app. I used it to monitor how big baby was each month and when I was in labor with the other girls I used the contraction tracker feature they have. With this baby I plan to do the same thing.

Now again this is something I did with my first daughter but do not plan to do this time around. We will be in the same hospital for our third that we were with our first, so we have been there and this will actually be our third child delivered there.

But with my first baby it helped me a lot to see where I would be going to deliver her and put a lot of my nerves to rest. This is the same as the child birth class, I highly recommend it before your first, but for my second and third I will not be doing it.

Though now I have a clear picture of what things will be like. I have very easy and quick labors as far as delivery goes, but I was a bundle of nerves for the first baby. It’s scary! You have no idea what youre doing, so put your mind at ease and take a good birthing class.

Here in our town in Colorado, the hospital offers one every 3 weeks for expecting mothers so it was really simple for us to do this. Depending on your hospital or town you may need to pay or drive a bit. Do your research and find one that will work with you.

With both of my girls when I hit about 34 weeks every little thing that I felt I was looking into if it was sign of labor. I may do the same thing this time, but I feel pretty confident at this point I have done the research and I know what I am looking for when it comes to signs of labor. But I would not have felt so confident if I had not looked into it before hand.

For our first daughter we obviously did not need to have a plan for other kids since we did not have any, but we did need a plan for our dog. We had our grandparents watch our Aussie while we were in the hospital. We did not remember to figure out a plan for him until the week we were scheduled to be induced, the second time around thankfully we were more prepared.

We had a plan for our dog and our older daughter a month in advance so we did not need to feel rushed. This time around we got the plan much sooner, mostly because we have already talked to the girls aunt who had our oldest last time if they could take both girls this time.

It is such a relief knowing already that this one is already checked off. So if you have other kids do not wait, figure out a plan for them while you are in the hospital. Or if you do not have any other kids, have a plan for your pets if you have them. It will be a weight off your shoulders I promise.

Yourself:

• Me time

• Date night

• Prenatal yoga

• Prep Finances

• Confirm Maternity Leave

• Prep for 4th Trimester

Making sure that you take some time just for yourself before the baby comes I think is so darn important. It is amazing to have a newborn and to soak in all those sweet cuddles and love but it can also be draining to have no personal space or no sleep.

I find that making sure I took some time before baby to do things I enjoy helps me mentally. It does not have to be anything big either, take a bath, a walk a couple times, journal, read a book, or really anything that you find relaxing that you may not have time for after baby.

Eventually you will be able to have more time for yourself, but that newborn stage they need you a ton. And that is okay, remember that these times are precious and it only lasts for a season.

Date night. This is something that is so important for a marriage. Making time for the other person and making them a priority. Take some time to spend with your significant other before the new baby comes.

It does not need to be some expensive date, a movie night, a dinner date, a walk together, a picnic. You name it, just making sure you find time for your partner will be amazing before baby.

I love love love doing prenatal yoga especially in the third trimester. I did not do any with my first daughter and I saw the difference with my energy level, my ability to do things around the house, and my labor. It was much quicker. I have been active and doing prenatal yoga with my third and I adore the way I feel after.

This helps your body stay active without pushing yourself too far. There are so many amazing prenatal yoga videos on YouTube, I try to do one everyday. I promise you will see a difference in your pregnancy and your labor.

Prepare your finances for baby to come is crucial, adding another one to your life will change many things and money is one of them. If you are taking a maternity leave, a stay at home mom, or even a work at home mom like me you need to make sure everything is lined up before baby comes.

On top of the blog and my kiddos I work as a paralegal from home. My boss is amazing and happy to give me all the time off that I need when it comes to maternity leave. BUT the catcher is, unfortunely I am not on salary, and I only get paid the hours that I work. There is not alot of room in the work budget for paid maternity leave.

So the third trimester especially I try to relook at our finances, and see where I can make our budget tighter so that we can save more for the weeks I don’t work as much. After my second daughter I chose to go back to work a week after.

NOW I know that sounds crazy and super stressful, but I work from home and my meetings are all by phone. I did some meetings the week after she was born and while I did that meeting I was in my jammies, I snuggled her on the couch and nursed the whole time.

I normally try to get 3-4 hrs of paralegal work in a day, after my second daughter it went down to an hour or two. I was still bringing in something, but not as much as normal. Though I knew everything was in order money wise helped me not feel guilty about working less.

Sit down with your husband and just glance over the money, maybe you will find something you guys can get rid of or spend less on and save money before baby comes. It will be amazing and help your stress level.

If you are blessed and get to stay home with your babes, you do not need to figure out your maternity leave. Though if you are a working momma, this is important to know before hand what your time off is going to look like, how long, will you be paid, how much, etc.

With my first daughter I worked in an actual law office, so I did have to figure out my maternity leave. I was blessed again with an amazing boss, she was going to give me 6 weeks, but if I wanted to come back earlier, she did let me bring in my daughter.

I loved being able to bring in my baby to work with me. We worked with family law and cases with foster child, so everyone was very kind about the fact we had an office baby. Eventually we did have a family friend watch my daughter doing half the week, but I will always cherish those days with her and I in the office.

It was very relieving to have that all figured out way before baby so that I was not scrambling and stressed right before any of my girls arrivals. So just make sure you have all the ducks in a row about your maternity leave before you need to actually take your maternity leave.

Last but not least in the slightest, prep for the 4th trimester. Man oh man did this one hit me like a ton of bricks after my oldest daughter. I had some postpartum and was unsure what I was doing. I found that preparing for the 4th trimester is a mixture of a ton of things on this list. Make sure you have snacks, pads, and etc all stocked up.

But also prepare yourself for the wave of hormones that come after delivery. I find being aware that these are coming helps me handle them a lot better. You are a good mom and do not let yourself tell you other wise. You are capable of doing this, God gave you this baby for a reason. You are meant to be their mother. Have things lined up like dinners so that you can relief any stress off you before baby comes that you can.

Talk to your spouse about what they can do when baby is here to help support you in the 4th trimester and to know what you will need before hand. Communicate with family if you need additional help as well. Make sure you set boundaries with them, this can also help relief stress after having the baby.

If you do not want visitors right after baby then say it, and if that is a fight hold your ground. This is about you and your baby, do not worry. You got this!!!

Conclusion:

There is plenty to do before baby and it can all see like too much too soon. Just take it one bite at a time. One day at a time, this is not a time that lasts forever so try to enjoy it.

This is just a list of what I have been doing to prepare for my babies, but if you need to take something off. Or think of something you need to add, then feel free to change it. Do not be afraid to tweak things for you and your life. God is watching over us and our babies, do not forget that.

You are not alone in this journey. And you are totally capable of doing this!!! You got this.