We are first time parents and one of the things I stressed about was what to take to the hospital with us when I went into labor.  I know, it’s a little silly, but if we were going to be there for 2-3 days, I wanted to be prepared!

I read all kinds of posts online, read through the lists in the packets from my doctor’s office, asked what others took, and tried to think through us and what we might need.  So I thought I would share what we packed, what we used and of course, THE most important thing that I never would have thought of…

For Catherine:

• Going home outfit
• a few sleepers and onesies
• swaddle blankets (the hospital has really good ones, but they aren’t very cute)
• hats, socks & newborn mittens
• headbands/bows (because I was terrified she wouldn’t have any hair!)

For Ben and me:

• camera, 50mm lens, 24-70mm lens (we ended up not using this one), flash, extra batteries, 32GB memory card (+backup for second slot), card reader (although we ended up not downloading any photos while at the hospital)
• iPad, laptop, phones, chargers for all
• headphones & earbud splitter (we have this one) so we could use the iPad to watch Netflix together!
• snacks (for Ben during labor and for me after delivery – The hospital had a little basket of snacks in the room, which was wonderful and unexpected! And they delivered meals for me while we were there, but during the night it was nice to have our own stash of food!)
• pajamas for us both (although I was in either the hospital gown or yoga pants the whole time)
• 2-3 changes of clothes for Ben
• nursing tops, yoga pants, and zip up fleece (which made nursing easier than if I had a pullover on) for me
• socks and house slippers for me
• a going home outfit for me (which I think was yoga pants, a nursing top, and warm shoes since it was cold outside) – the important thing for this was to be comfy!
• sweatshirt for Ben (this is key!! The room temperature is regulated for the mom during labor and delivery so the room can get a bit chilly for anyone else who may be in there!)
• makeup, shampoo & conditioner, body wash, toothbrush & toothpaste
• Boppy nursing pillow
• my pillow from our bed (although we ended up forgetting this at home!) – be sure to put a pillow case on your pillow that is something other than white so that it doesn’t get mixed up with the hospital pillows!

And THE most important thing that we took with us?  An extension cord.  I’m not even kidding!  One of the girls that I do crossfit with is a nurse in the NICU and suggested we take an extension cord for our room so that we could plug our phones (or anything else in) and actually have them close to us and not sitting several feet away.  It was brilliant and SO useful!  Even our own nurses commented on how smart it was to have brought it because they’d seen so many dropped phones from patients trying to keep them plugged in but them being too far out of reach.

The winner of the Etsy gift card from Tuesday’s post is Michelle E! I’ll email you soon! Congrats!!