Shirt: Here Boots: Steve Madden Duster: Similar
As this pregnancy starts to come to a close, I have been thinking a lot about the tricks, advice, and little bits of information that I have collected that have either made this journey easier or more difficult. I really didn’t find a lot of the information on the Internet to be extremely helpful when dealing with day to day pregnancy struggles. I spent endless hours of research and Pinterest scrolling trying to find articles that covered topics I was interested in. All this wild searching inspired me to be the guinea pig and help all my ladies out!
I plan on writing a huge blog post that covers every trimester of pregnancy. [Update: Complete Guide to Pregnancy]. But first, I thought I would share some basic hacks and tricks that I found to either save me money or make my life a little easier while preparing for baby.
Handling Nausea
1. Keep a stash of shopping bags in your car and purse at all times in case you have to throw up on the go.
2. Chew ginger root candy and drink beverages that have real ginger in them. Check your local grocery store’s health food aisle.
3. Do not wait until you are hungry to eat. Keep nuts and granola bars on you at all times. You will be more nauseous the hungrier you are.
4. Sleep as much as possible at night. The nights that I got less sleep, I felt more nauseous the next day.
Maternity Clothing
5. Take a hair tie and loop it through the button hole of your jeans to prolong the wear of your favorite jeans.
6. It is really difficult to find cute maternity clothes. I only bought 1-2 items. Instead I opted for skirts and dresses that had a stretchy material to them. My favorite places to shop while pregnant were H&M and ASOS. Search “baby bump” on the blog to see some of the outfits I wore.
Baby Shopping
7. You have to be careful about purchasing used baby items. But I got lucky on the letgo app and found a few high quality items that were like new for baby.
8. Research around your area to see if it has a consignment shop for pregnancy and motherhood. I found a Me n’ Mommy to Be store in Vegas that sold everything from pregnancy clothes, baby clothes, and baby items for awesome prices.
9. Goodwill and used bookstores are great places to find children’s books to start your baby’s first library.
10. Register for baby using Babylist instead of choosing one or two stores. You can add anything from any website, including Amazon to your registry.
11. No matter what gender you are having, choose neutral colors whenever possible. For example, if you plan on having more children, you will be happy your diaper pail isn’t bright pink if you have a boy in the future!
Preparing for Motherhood
12. Many women take it upon themselves to read a million books while pregnant. If you don’t have time to read and research as much as you would like, utilize audio books on your way to work.
13. There are so many great apps you can use to keep up with the growth and development of your baby. I didn’t even read the famous What to Expect When You are Expecting book. Instead, I downloaded the Ovia Pregnancy app to track each milestone. They also have apps to monitor kick counts, contractions, and breastfeeding. I will talk about those more in another blog post.
Nursery Decorating
14. Take your time when purchasing items for the nursery. I started decorating right after we found out the gender. Giving yourself time allows you to fully envision what you want.
15. Create a vision board, but do not feel the need to buy the exact item. You can find look a like furniture and decor items at Homegoods, Hobby Lobby, or At Home.
Do you have any tips or tricks that made your pregnancy journey easier? Share them below!
