Tips For Packing Your Hospital Bag

Getting excited about the arrival of our new daughter! The due date is around the corner {March 3rd!}, which means I need to be ready at any moment to go. After having Little Girl, we realized we had packed way too much and not what we ended up actually needing. Here are a few tips for packing your hospital bag. I'm by no means an expert, but I hope my advice can help you out.



Enter my new favorite thing on the planet: my Vera Bradley Weekender in Clementine. My mother got it for me for Valentine's Day, and its replacing an old blag travel bag that I've had for probably close to 10 years. Its absolutely tiny and most of it has been ripped and chewed on by our cats. Now that my husband and I are married and we've got children, I think its time to let that thing go...and maybe toss it into a fire while I'm at it.

When it was getting close to my due date with Little Girl, I scoured the internet looking for what I needed to bring to the hospital when I went into labor. I wanted to be ready. What I found were lists upon lists upon lists of many, many, many items that I needed to pack. I combined what I had read and had a large bag at the ready.

Then we actually went to the hospital. Less is more. We've learned our lesson!

Here are my essentials:


- Toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, brush, and hairdryer
- PJs & Slippers
- Baby's take home outfit {at least two different sizes}
- An outfit for leaving the hospital
- Entertainment: Nook & Nintendo 3DS {a DVD, tablet, or netbook are also good options}
- Empty Bag
- Pillow & Blanket
- Baby Book
- Camera
- Chargers AND an Extension Cord

That is honestly all you really need to bring. Its a very short stay, so you don't need to pack a full suitcase. My hospital requires me to stay two nights, but some may only keep you 24 hours. Double check with your doctor if you're unsure. I know that I'm unable to breastfeed, so a Boppy and/or Breast Pump are not needed in my case. Even if they were, you can actually rent breast pumps at most hospitals if you don't want to pack yours. I have a preference in pillows, so I bring mine everywhere I stay over night. After the delivery, down there is quite uncomfortable and it will be checked consistently by nurses, which means that a pajama gown the entire time is really the best option. I will bring a pair or two of my own underwear, but I don't expect to use them until its time to leave. They give you these fantastic mesh panties that are comfortable and you won't care will be ruined {cause ruined they will most likely get}.

My biggest advice: take advantage of everything they give you. Every. Single. Thing. That brings me to the empty bag I included in my list. Whenever they bring me items like bottles of formula, diapers, blankets, helpful medicated toiletries for down there, I will toss as many of those items into that empty bag and send them home with my husband each night. The next day: rinse & repeat. You're already paying for it, so why not take it? And those little liquid 2 oz ready-to-drink formula bottles are life-savers! Newborns will drink 1 oz every couple of hours, which is kind of hard to mix with powder. Take advantage if you are supplementing or if you're unable to breastfeed. I'd take them for emergencies anyway.

One other piece of advice I have about staying in the hospital. Let the nurses take your baby for at least one of the nights. You'll be so exhausted after having the baby, you'll need your sleep. Yes, people talk about bonding, etc, but babies can sense anxiety and frustration in their mothers. If you're tired and frustrated, your baby will fuss, which is an endless circle of anxiety and no sleep will be had by anyone. So, let them take your baby and watch over him or her for at least a few hours while you get your sleep. It won't be the end of the world and you have the rest of your life to bond. You're going to be encountering upcoming months of sleepless nights, so its best to relax and let medical professionals watch over your little one while you recuperate.

Now that we have already have a daughter that will be joining us during the day while I'm in the hospital, I'm not quite sure what to do with that situation. I know she's going to want to see the baby, but since we're all going to be at the hospital most of the time, she'll get bored. When she gets bored, she gets into everything. Especially when attention is not on her.


Her favorite thing to do is color, so I bought her a few coloring books {Target dollar spot, oh yea!}, a brand new thing of crayons in the shape of cupcakes {Target clearance - my favorite thing}, and a cute little plastic bag to put all these goodies in. I'll throw a toy or two in there too that way she'll have something that's new for her, and hopefully she won't get upset about the new arrival. I'm hoping this works!

Does anyone else have any advice they'd like to share? Any tips, questions, or comments, just reply below! I'd love to hear from readers what their experiences have been like. I'd really love some advice from second {or third, or fourth} time mamas on what to do to entertain their other children and help make them still feel special when there's a new arrival in the family. Any help would be very welcome!

This post is linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons’ One Project at a Time, Lovely Ladies Linky, live laugh linky, Lamberts Lately's Create It Thursday, & Work It Wednesday.

Spontaneous Organization

I love spontaneous organization. It doesn't happen often, but I'm taking advantage of my random spurts of 'nesting'.



In one of my previous posts, it was obvious that our garage is quite full. What was not shown were two other shelves that contain more garage stuff than stockpile, but space is a commodity in our garage since we also still put both of our cars in there. This year, we decided to move all of our holiday boxes up into the attic to give us more room. However, after I do some shopping...we run out of room. We had to buy that one shelf with the laundry detergent because I had bought so much in one week that the only place I could put it was my trunk. Oops!

To give us a bit more wiggle room, my mother made a suggestion. There was a good spot above our water filtration system on the wall where we couldn't hang anything that was being wasted. My wreaths were taking up space on my shelf and they were tangled up. It just wasn't good. I grabbed two Command Hooks from Target and put them up on the wall. I waited about 30 minutes {I know the instructions say an hour before you hang anything, but I'm a rebel} and boom! I've got a place to hang the two wreaths that aren't in use and a whole section on one of my shelves that's cleared!


Another instance that took only a few seconds to organize and happened on a whim was our kitchen junk drawer. I updated our kitchen calendar to show February & March, so when I went to grab the dry-erase markers I saw that the drawer was kinda messy. I took a bunch of the stuff out, purged the dried up pens, and grabbed two of the Snapware Containers I was able to get at Publix for free a few weeks back. Now I'm thrilled that the candles and matches aren't floating around with the pens and pencils. Its the little things in life, you know?

Now if only I could get back to organizing the office and cleaning up what's currently on my dinning room table. Pulled out all of Little Girl's old baby clothes and I'm currently washing everything. Unfortunately the Space Saver bags brought up old spit-up stains, so washing is a bit slow going.


Wish me luck!

This post is linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons’ One Project at a Time, I Heart Organizing's Monthly Link-Up Party, & The SITS Girls' Saturday Sharefest.

Goals for 2014: Part 1 - Organizing My Life

You know how everyone keeps talking about the whole "New Year, New You" thing? Everyone's going on diets, getting organized, and are making resolutions to start working out. Well, I'm sort of doing that, but mostly its the whole "getting organized" thing. However, my approach isn't like the majority of people doing this. Mine is: "New Year, HOLY CRAP I AM GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER LIFE TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR!".

For the past 8 months that I've been creating our new daughter, I've been hit with a few panic attacks. Most of it me realizing that I can barely take care of myself, let alone take care of two other lives. I think I've been getting away with it for the past two years with our first daughter mostly cause I've been winging it. With my future looking more like a jumble of to-do lists, schedule juggling for schools and extra-curricular activities, and doctor appointments I realize that my "system" {if that's what you could call it} is not going to hack it.

Not at all.

Now with Pinterest, the mommy-guilt is getting all the more stronger each day. All these posts with beautiful homes and these amazing planners are making me feel like a slob. So with our newest daughter arriving in the next few weeks, I've got a year or two to figure out what will work best for me for when I really have to be on organized.

Organizing My Life
This is a huge and vague category, but it kind of encapsulates everything I actually need to get done. Within this overhang, I'm going to start small to see what I can do versus what is way too "Super Mom" for me. I need to find a good balance between my family and my sanity. I miss playing video games and adult interaction, to be honest.


First up is the Home Binder.

These are ALL OVER Pinterest. I've always loved the idea of one, but the sections that the majority of them contain don't apply to our family. I don't keep track of finances this way, I don't have a cleaning schedule yet, I keep my to-do ist on my person, and I don't have school things to worry about at the moment. As time goes by, I'm going to keep track of things that would be good to put in my Home Binder. I have a feeling that this will always be a work in progress.

For reference, I got the cover from here and edited it slightly to make it fit. The three-ring binder is just one I had empty around the house.


I have settled on one section. I found this meal-planning idea from Home Made by Carmona and I absolutely love it. I did make some adjustments to the font to suit my tastes, but all-in-all I kept it the same. The pages are laminated and I finally put them in the binder last night. I've got post-its at the ready and I just need to find meals to fill the boxes in! That is going to be the hard part, considering a good chunk of our meals consist of frozen pizza or mac & cheese with frozen chicken nuggets. Not the healthiest of choices. I'm hoping this will help spring-board us into eating better.


Now for the To-Do Lists and Calendars.

I've seen a lot of people with Calendars and To-Do Lists in their Home Binder. Since the Home Binder actually stays in the home, it makes it impractical for me. I need to have everything on hand and portable so when I go out, its close by. Here's my current system and seems to be working fine for the moment. It just makes me cry because I want to be one of those awesome Moms who have those filofax planners with the pretty pens and washi tape. If you're unfamiliar with this and need something to drool over, check out A Bowl Full of Lemons and you'll see EXACTLY what I mean.

After thinking about it for a long time and seeing how much those planners cost with all those fun accessories, I came to realize that I cannot do what I would normally do: jump into the deep end of the project thinking I can do everything perfectly. It ends up costing me an arm and a leg, it clutters the house, and in reality - nothing ever gets done.

My current system may seem like a complicated way to do things, but until I perfect it, this is what it is.

The black folder on the bottom I got years ago at one of the college stores at UCF when I was a student there. It has a pad of paper that I use to keep track of my big to-do things. Its literally a dumping place of everything that I can think of that needs to get done: from dropping off donations to adding a patio to the house. I try to empty my mind of tasks at night, that way I get a better night sleep. It also keeps me from getting overwhelmed, and less overwhelmed = less panic attacks.


The decorative small notebook is a break-down of my shopping to-do: grocery lists, Target runs, things I come across during the day that I need to remember to purchase, and a list of places that I just have to go to like the post office. It has to be small because I have to take it in stores. Pregnancy Brain has hit me seriously hard this go 'round and I can forget why I'm leaving the house while I'm in the car in the blink of an eye.

I got my teal calendar at Target. It gives me a full calendar to write in birthdays and doctor appointments and a daily breakdown. This is where I put what I should get done by the end of the day. The list usually consists of 3 tasks and 2 cleaning chores that are usually grabbed from my large to-do list. Ideally I'd like to condense all these books into one, but as I said I get overwhelmed easy and this is helping me figure out what I really need to track and what to look for in one of those gorgeous expensive filofax planners.

To finish it all off, my favorite black pen and this AMAZING Lisa Frank pen that has multiple colors in it that I nabbed from the Target Dollar Spot. I used to have a pen like that when I was younger and it makes me happy. If I'm going to struggle to be organized, then I'd like to be happy while doing it!


Just because I have pregnancy brain, doesn't mean that my husband should suffer {plus, he's just as bad as me at remembering things unless it pops up on his Google Calendar}. So I've got a crude little set up that I made from a frame I got at Goodwill for $5. All I did was take the ugly picture out, put pretty contact paper on the backing so it wasn't white, printed out a quick calendar, and boom! Its nowhere near as pretty as most of the ones on Pinterest or the ones from Pottery Barn, but it is incredibly functional and with all the doctor and dentist appointments we've had already this year - its been a life saver!

This is my start to Getting Organized in 2014, so here's hoping it'll stick. Any advice or any questions? Comment below and I'll get right back to you!

This post is linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons’ One Project at a Time.