Shopping For Baby – Recommendations & Checklist

Ever since I had a baby, I have been asked by numerous mom-to-bes, about shopping for the impending arrival. Some people believe that it isn’t good to buy anything for the baby before it is born. I suppose there is some meaning to this sentiment; in case, God forbid, something goes wrong then one will only be subjected to unnecessary trauma on having to put away or give away all the new stuff. However, I do believe that it is good to be prepared and hence I did do a certain amount of shopping beforehand. I knew that I definitely wouldn’t have the time or the energy to shop the first few months after my bundle of joy lands! While there were other people around to help me buy the things that we might need, I still wanted to pick up some stuff personally for my baby.

The amount of stuff available in the market that caters to new-borns can simply be overwhelming. It is very tempting to buy everything we see, especially as a first-time mom when we don’t really have the experience or the knowledge to judge whether a certain item or product which looks like it is essential will in reality be useful or not. Honestly, it is quite easy to go bankrupt just shopping for baby!

D Day

The natural progression after the first post about my pregnancy would of course be a post about labour and delivery. I had finished shopping for the baby, packed up my hospital bag, practiced the breathing exercises that I had been told would come in handy during labour, followed up with my doctor countless times, read a bunch of pregnancy books, watched marathon sessions of 2 Broke Girls for lack of anything better to do long before my expected due date came around. By then I was pretty fed up of being pregnant. I simply could not find a comfortable position to lie down, I could not stand and see my toes, I could not bend and touch the floor, thanks to borderline gestational diabetes I could not eat whatever I wanted – as any woman who has ever been pregnant would agree, the list is endless. I was sick and tired of being confined at home and I was completely bugged with the avalanche of advices that I was being smothered in.

I was waiting rather impatiently for my due date; and eventually it came along. But nothing happened. No pain, no dilation, no leaking – my baby seemed to be quite content inside and had no intention of coming out. As days ticked by, I started getting more and more irritable and cranky. Finally, a few days after my expected due date, my doctor asked me to get admitted to Public Health Centre in West Mambalam to get induced.

The Beginning

I’ve been thinking of starting my own parenting blog for some time now,  although initially I was a tad hesitant. For one thing, blogs about motherhood and parenting are of course nothing new. There are plenty of great parenting blogs as well as websites in cyberspace today. Plus, with the advent of micro blogging sites and social media networks, it seems as though a lot of people are moving away from blogging, what with the almost instantaneous results that the former awards undoubtedly. Further, I myself am guilty of neglecting my other blog, a very generic and random one, and hence wasn’t very sure if I would manage to keep up another one.

However, fortunately or unfortunately, I seem to have a lot to say and share about my journey through motherhood. I love connecting with others through my writing and call me old-fashioned, but honestly I find it hard to state everything that I want to state in 140 characters! What’s more, motherhood seems to have brought along my daughter as well as an overdose of insomnia into my life. So, instead of lying wide awake beside my blissfully sleeping daughter night after night, with only my thoughts to keep me company, I decided that it would be a better idea to express myself through this blog.