Everyone is making a list for the baby. This one starts with you.
A registry for pregnancy, birth and motherhood, so you choose what belongs.
Lists made by mom'z
The pregnancy edit
Weeks 6 to 40. I bought too much in the first trimester and used almost none of it. The things I came back to were quieter - a good pillow, a maternity dress that fit from week twelve to week forty, a tea I drank every morning.
34 items
·Shirin
The hospital bag
My checklist for the day itself. I packed two full bags and used about five items. The peri bottle, the recovery pads, one pair of socks, the lip balm, a phone charger long enough to reach the bed.
30 items
·Shirin
The nursery
The room itself. I redecorated it three times in two years before I realised the version that worked was the simplest one. Most of the furniture from the original nursery is still in the house, just in different rooms.
27 items
·Shirin
The recovery shelf
Weeks 0–6 postpartum. The first six weeks at home. I spent most of them on the sofa with a basket next to me. Everything I needed had to be within arm's reach, because standing up was its own decision.
33 items
·Shirin
The early months
Birth to 6 months. Birth to six months. I started understanding my baby around week ten - what she liked, what set her off - and most of what I bought before she arrived started to either make sense or quietly go in a drawer.
30 items
·Shirin
Going back to work
The return after maternity leave. The pump under the blazer was the easy part. The hard part was standing in a meeting at eleven and not knowing if she'd taken the bottle.
27 items
·Shirin
The first year, from six months
6 to 12 months. She became a person in this half of the year. She had preferences, jokes, a favourite spoon. I bought less in this period than any other.
30 items
·Shirin
For the mother
A list for her, at any stage. I disappeared from my own life in the first year. The things on this list are what I started doing in the second year to come back to myself - slowly, and not always successfully.
28 items
·Shirin
The toddler years
1 to 3 years. She walked at thirteen months and from then on the house had to be lived in differently. The toys I kept buying her, she ignored. The wooden objects from her first year, she carried around for two more.
30 items
·Shirin
The growing years
3 to 5 years. Preschool age. By now she told me what she wanted, usually quite specifically. Most of what's on this list is what I bought without being asked - the things she didn't yet know to want.
30 items
·Shirin
For a friend who has just given birth
Written from the other side. The visitors I remember are the ones who brought food and held the baby while I showered. The flowers all died in a week and the cards I never read.
27 items
·Shirin
For a new grandmother
A list for her own home, and how to be useful. My mother kept a high chair at her kitchen table and a travel cot in her spare room. It meant Sundays at hers were the part of the week I most looked forward to.
30 items
·Shirin
The second child
The honest answer is that I needed very little. Most of what I'd bought for the first one was still in the house. The bigger preparation was for my older daughter, who was about to have her world rearranged.
31 items
·Shirin