The things I couldn’t live without in the early postpartum weeks

The first few weeks with a new baby are a potent mix of joyous, terrifying and exhausting. I had my first baby last year, and found the whole experience incredible but intense. There are just so many new things to take in, and with tiredness doubtless a factor, it’s important to acknowledge that you’re basically in survival mode, and do your best to just keep things on an even keel.

There are a few things I came to rely on to make those early weeks a bit more comfortable. Here are my suggestions for if you’re preparing for postpartum life. I’ve kept these focused mostly on things for the parent, not the baby. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the huge lists of things you need for baby in the first few weeks, but sometimes less thought it given to the parents’ needs!

My Brest Friend nursing pillow

I had seen this recommended by an Instagrammer I follow, A Small Closet, as well as a few other places. They’re fairly expensive, so I was a little hesitant to buy one without knowing quite how much I’d use it, but I was so glad I did. For the first month or two when the baby was so new and small, having this to rest her on during feeding was incredibly helpful. It gives plenty of support, and because it clips around you there’s no risk of it slipping off your lap. Now she’s grown and is a bit less fragile I’m not using it anymore, but it more than earned its keep in the early days. I didn’t really use the little pocket, but I can picture it being useful if you use pacifiers or had a smaller water bottle than me.

Camelbak water bottle

This is a long way from the first water bottle I’ve written about (see Joseph Joseph Dot here and Blem water bottle here). I really thought I had my water bottle sorted with the Blem one. However I soon found a whole new set of criteria once the baby was born. The priority really becomes things you can use one handed, and in the case of a water bottle, which doesn’t have any risk of spilling. The Camelbak, with its bite valve, is perfect for this. You have to drink so much to keep up with breastfeeding, you’re basically thirsty all the time, so a large capacity bottle which you don’t need to refill all the time (even though it still felt like I was refilling it every few minutes!) is also a must. It’s a little bit unwieldy to open with one hand, but it’s still easily doable, and knowing that it can get knocked over, forgotten about in bed, and dropped without sending water everywhere is super helpful. So, much as I love my other bottle, this has become my new favourite post-baby.

Wholefood bars

I’ve written before about what food I stocked up with in advance of having a baby (which you can read here), but I couldn’t write about postpartum essentials without giving this a shout out. My favourites were from We Bar None, a company that has sadly closed down, but really you just need something tasty, easy to open with one hand, and which won’t get crumbs everywhere! For a good long while I basically lived off these bars, with them doing for breakfast, lunch, and numerous snacks in between. That’s probably not ideal from a nutritional perspective, but at least with a decent wholefood bar you can feel fairly confident you’re still consuming healthy ingredients. It’s also supposed to be a good idea to eat a lot of fibre post labour, and these bars helped me with that. I’m finally reaching the stage of being able to eat normally, not just snatch any chance to eat that I get, but I was very grateful for the help these bars gave me when I need it!

Bluetooth speaker

About halfway through my pregnancy I splashed out and bought a good quality Bose bluetooth speaker. Previously I had almost exclusively listened to music and podcasts through my headphones, but I wanted the baby to be able to listen with me, so it was time for a proper speaker. I listen to a lot of classical music, so I wanted something that could handle this, and settled on the Bose Revolve + II Soundlink. I was really pleased with it, and baby got to listen to lots of my favourite music before even being born. Little did I realise though how essential this would become after she was born too! Primarily this is in its new function as a very fancy white noise machine. Every single night we use it to play rain noises which help her sleep, as well as for calming music throughout the day. Another bonus is that it makes listening to podcasts really easy – something I do an awful lot of now I’m home with baby so much. So it doesn’t need to be quite as fancy as this, but I highly recommend furnishing yourself with a decent Bluetooth speaker – you won’t realise how much you use it until you have it, and your baby!

A million muslins

OK, I said this post would be about things for parent, not baby. But this is just such an essential I can’t leave it out! Everyone says you need tonnes of burp clothes or muslins, and they really aren’t wrong. For me it wasn’t so much for actual burping, as my baby didn’t spit up too much, but rather for dealing with leaks and general breastfeeding related spillage. I ended up stashing a muslin on almost every chair in the house, plus bed, plus change table! You never have enough hands or time with a tiny baby, so being able to just reach out and grab a muslin is super helpful.

Postpartum support leggings and bike shorts

In all likelihood, and if you’re anything like me, you will have been wearing leggings for the majority of the last trimester anyway. Maternity leggings were a must for me, providing a bit of comfort and support when the bump was getting big. But I highly recommend buying some postpartum specific leggings for when the baby has arrived. I was really surprised by just how much more supportive they are than maternity leggings. It makes sense really – maternity leggings are there to support your big old bump, but postpartum ones are designed to help your tummy get back to normal. Now as I’m not a medical professional, I can’t speak to the actual difference these make in a physical/physiological sense, but I really noticed how much more comfortable I was in postpartum leggings. I tried my maternity ones a few times, and found my pelvic floor felt way more tired. And the bonus is that they fit a lot more like ‘normal’ leggings than maternity ones, so even months down the line, and when I no longer need that specific type of support, I’m still using them. All these benefits go for postpartum bike shorts too. These were an essential for coping with the warm weather Melbourne threw at us. My go-to outfit for most of the summer has been a pair of these, with a big, oversized shirt. Simple and a bit retro, but super comfortable and a little more polished than a t-shirt and leggings.

Biscotti Nursing Bra

I’ve written a full review of this piece over here. It really has been one of my favourite pregnancy and postpartum related purchases – I’m even wearing it while I type! It was so special wearing this in the very first hours and days, and getting lots of beautiful (and easy!) skin-to-skin contact. Now I still wear it every night, as it’s super comfortable to sleep in and makes night feeds easy. I have it in both black and pink. My only wish is that they’d bring out more colours!

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So that’s it for my major postpartum essentials. These items have really helped me navigate the early months, and brought a bit of comfort and ease at a time when I really needed it. I’d love to hear about your postpartum essentials! I’m also considering writing a piece about the things I thought would be essential, but turned out not to be, so I’d love to hear if you have any of those to share!