Hi Ladies,
I am now one day overdue so at the moment I am feeling a little anxious waiting for our little one to arrive. Everything is ready. Though I do have a question about hospital bags. It looks as though I have packed for a long term stay in hospital. I dont want to get to hospital with this huge bag and they think I am a little freaky but in the bag it has my stuff and the babies stuff.
I am giving birth at RBH in Brisbane and have packed most things on the list they have recommended. Did/does anyone else have this problem? ANything they didnt need to take or wish they did take?
My sister recently gave birth (not the same hosp though) and she took in a suitcase, like the size I would take on a two week holiday. I think they expect you to come prepared with everything bar the kitchen sink!!!!
I ended up with a 5 day hospital stay when I was expecting a 2 day one so I'd advise to make sure you take plenty of sleepwear & clothing for yourself as well as lots of underwear. I didn't use most of the baby clothing as he was in SCN and they have their own clothing in there. I also didn't get to use most of my wraps and blankets for the same reason. If you can take some panadeine forte with you as if you get discharged to a bonding room the midwives can only give you panadol for pain. I know you can get your partner to get these things for you but it's easier if you have it all with you in the first place.
Pack some lollies or chocolate or whatever other snacks you like as sometimes late at night you just feel like something sweet to lift your mood. Make sure you have some reading material. I didn't sleep at all the first night as I was too hyped up and then bubs got removed from my room so I was then stressed. Reading helped distract me a little.
I overpacked my labour bag. All I used from it was money for a TV when I got to the ward (had to have cash for this), lip balm (which took forever for my DF to find as I'd packed so many other useless things) and sleepwear for afterwards as I labored in my clothes at first then changed in to a hospital gown (went through a few of them). Everything else remained unused until I went to the ward.
Ok first up i would say take loads of undies and make sure you well prepared on the maternity pad front (not to scare you but i went to sleep for 3 hours and woke up and it had leaked through everything including my pj pants)
Other than that take everything you normally would if you were going away for a couple of days, better to be over prepared than underprepared. I'm sure if your DH/P is anything like mine he wont know whats what if you send him home for something. lol
i had a bag for me a bag for the baby and a bag for the labour room! LOL i didnt use barely any of it. the stuff i took for the labour room like ipod, lollies, poweraid, change of clothes, oils etc i didnt use at all. i think they even gave me some disposable undies to put on cause we didnt even think about looking in the bag to find some clean ones! LOL
as for the baby bag, hannah went down to special care nursery for a couple nights so they used hospital clothes on her and even hospital nappies. (but all going well you will need to use your own baby clothes)
as for my bag, needed all those pads. a few pairs of pyjamas and heaps of undies. it was easy enough to get DH to pop home and get anything that i needed and take dirty stuff home with him.
the one thing that surprised me though was that DH had to adhere to the visitor hours too and couldnt sleep over! so annoyed at that. oh and at the RBWH you can buy a weekly pass for parking at the hospital. it will work out much cheaper than paying each time DH comes to visit and he can lend it out to others. (a midwife only told us this when we had one day left before we went home)!!! and they didnt advertise it.
For my first I took 2 bags. One for labour (which was opened once to get a tissue) and one for the ward. The ward bag was a suitcase. It wasn't full but pretty darn close. I still sent dirty clothes etc home on a daily basis and my lovely mother and nan brought the clean replacements when they came in.
I expect to do the same for this one. Oh, and I haven't packed it yet but don't tell DH. I still have 6 days until my EDD. Um, maybe I should pack it.
Registered User
Hospital Bag
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks