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WHEN IT COMES to being pregnant, or parenting a newborn, everyone’s just figuring things out as they go. That’s why it can be so helpful to hear how other people are getting through the mess of it all, from the first nappy change to the countless sleepless nights.
Our Newborn and Baby Parents Panel is made up of parents and parents-to-be, all raising little ones aged up to 24 months.
Most maternity hospitals and pregnancy resources offer a hospital bag checklist. But aside from the basics, what are the items that’ll make your hospital experience just a little bit simpler? This week we asked the panel:
What was the most useful thing in your maternity hospital bag?
Here are a selection of the best responses…
A ziploc bag (seriously): I got a great tip from a friend of mine. Take a ziploc bag and put a babygro and nappy into it for whoever is dressing your baby after delivery. Show it to your birthing partner too! That way, when baby arrives, there’s no stressing over trying to find nappy, babygro and hat while you’re trying to gather yourself in the immediate aftermath. The little ziploc bag can just be handed over.
- Niamh Scanlan
Big knickers, at *least* three sizes up: While every hospital bag checklist tells you to bring big dark knickers that you can throw away, I can’t emphasise the importance of them enough. I had packed some one-size-up underwear, but after an unplanned C-section, they were just too tight around my belly. Once I got some bigger knickers (three sizes up, thanks to my husband’s shopping expedition) I was fine. My wound was covered, there was no rubbing or pinching and it made me a little bit more comfy. You won’t win any style awards or feel particularly sexy but trust me, go large.
- Kathryn Walsh
Not just big knickers, but breathable ones: One essential is a few sets of disposable gauze underwear. Not the showercap kind you can buy in most pharmacies – think the most unattractive shorts you’ve ever seen [like these]. They are large, breathable, soft and rewashable. My birth ended in an emergency C-section and I wore these bad boys for weeks afterwards!
– Mairead McHugh
Really nice shower gel to make you feel like a human again: Besides the basic stuff, I had a pack of miniature Molten Brown shower gels and lotions (a gift) that made my showers afterwards so much more pleasant. Treat yourself, you’ve just brought a baby into the world.
- Valerie Murray
My pregnancy pillow came with me: I used a Dreamgenii pillow for more comfortable sleep while pregnant, but it doubles as a breastfeeding support after birth – and it helped to alleviate the incredible discomfort of the hospital bed.
- Sarah McGinley
Get yourself a light dressing gown – in a dark colour: I’d have been lost without a light dressing gown. If you’re giving feeding a go, it’s invaluable for covering your modesty – which will feel important when breastfeeding is new to you, and you’re trying it in a maternity ward with people constantly coming and going!
Even if you’re not feeding, it’s still a godsend as hospital wards are roasting and you sweat buckets after the birth (which no one told me). Oh, and get one dark in colour…
- Aisling Finn
And multiple pairs of PJs (for you, not just for baby):
I had packed my bag carefully with approximately 100 washed, ironed and perfectly folded baby grows and vests for baby. The baby could have had an hourly outfit change. Meanwhile, I had bundled in one or two sets of old PJs for myself. I had not envisaged that in fact I would be the one requiring hourly outfit changes due to the seeping of bodily fluids from every orifice after giving birth!
– Orlaith Hogan
Your hospital PJs need to be light in material and dark in colour… very dark! My mum sorted my pjs for me, lots of lovely whites and light pinks. She has had four children herself so I don’t know what she was thinking. Maybe time really does make you forget what childbirth was like…
– Aisling Fitzgerald
A notebook for recording feeding times (and questions): I didn’t use half of what I packed the first time around, so I travelled light on my second! One essential was a notebook and pen. Not only can you make a note of when you last fed but you can also jot down any questions that you might have for the midwives/doctors – a lifesaver with my first baby. You can feel like you don’t even remember your own name sometimes so it’s good to write things down.
- Amy Molyneaux
My €10 mini fan helped me sleep: My baby boy was born in June 2018 in the height of last year’s heatwave. I had a mini fan with me – it cost me a tenner and it saved my life [find a similar one here]. In the public wards there are 10 women per room, and mine had two windows at one end. I’d just turn on my fan and put my face right into the cool air. And the white noise from the whirring helped me sleep better.
- Brianan Nolan
My phone and headphones were a godsend: My second night in the maternity hospital, I was all alone in an eight-bed room, so being able to listen to music got me through the night. It was a great distraction from the pain, and given the empty room I even let myself sing along. Having a phone charged up meant I could text my partner at 4 in the morning when I was feeling scared and sore and alone.
– Martha Mernagh
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Does anyone really give a fiddlers about Stormont ? Its a failed entity, probably designed to fail, a bit like Cyprus this will never end, groundhog day for the last 20 years, parties are just drawing their money, its like signing on the dole but with extra benefits for them. The Brits should just withdraw all funding, our crowd the same and let them off, they won’t be long talking then.
@zippo: Its a circus alright but extremely entertaining. Nordies exist purely for r ouentertainment, they never disappoint LOL
@frank murphy: that is not true. N.I is at the frontline between two conflicting states. The Irish Catholic one and the British Protestant one. The people are caught in the middle.
N.I people are talented and hard working and they will sort out their differences.
Two protest parties treating responsibilty like a hot potato.
@Cheeky Bums: Ah the ‘they’re as bad as eachother’ line. An easy one to trot out but it does demonstrate a shockingly gross misunderstanding of the reasons for the collapse of Stormont.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Which, obviously, are all the fault of the DUP according to you.
@Tyrone Brit: The only thing as bad as the shinners is the DUP. It’s a perfect marriage and beautifully entertaining. Never have two cults deserved each other more.
@Brendan O’Brien: Ah if if it isn’t my little shadow.
To answer your question: Primarily, yes. Unless SF also reneged on what they promised to do in commitments made as preconditions to power sharing, back at St Andrews? And unless SF is also refusing to enact a Bill of Rights as was agreed in 1998 in the GFA? And unless SF is blocking sex marriage, despite the majority of MLAs being in support of it? And unless SF also took £500m of tax payers money and burned in in wood pellet boilers and then refused to see their leader, who oversaw this scheme, to take responsibility for it and resign?
@Tír Eoghain Gael: foreign country, thankfully :)
Good article. The assembly is unstable by design.
@Shane Gleeson: but very funny
April 10 is the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. And it’s going to look very silly indeed without the Stormont Assembly restored.
@Mick Tobin: i think it should be renamed to something more suitable like ‘The Pancake Tuesday Agreement’ LOL
The voters were sold a pup for the GFA. All the side deals to appease the paramilitaries were never included in the agreement put to the electorate. SF, what is basically a Northern party, are in the South trying to tell us how the govern and at the same time avoiding their responsibility to the Northern electorate.
@Sam Alexander: Have you nothing to say about the side deals which saw the security forces receive an almost blanket amnesty for their murders throughout the entire 40 year conflict?
@Sam Alexander: The DUP are PUP’s
I’ve met plenty working in Dublin over the years.
At first all smug and cocky, after they realise nobody gives a damn about them the embarrassment creeps over them when they realise nobody entertains their baby like attitude in the canteen. Seen it first hand
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Yes but many IRA murderers got amnesty out if this deal too. Personally I think anybody who pulled a trigger during the troubles needs to face a jury.
@phil: The thing is, Phil, you are not exactly comparing like with like. Approximately 25,000 republicans spent over 100,000 cumulative years in prison during the conflict. Care to guess how many British Soldiers saw the inside of a cell for murders committed during the entire 40 years? To give you a clue, you won’t need all of the fingers on one hand to count them. People talk about the so-called ‘comfort letters’ sent to OTRs as though Republicans got some sort of blanket amnesty. I demonstrated above how utter fantasy talk. The only blanket amnesty of the troubles was decided upon in July 1972. That year, 79 Irish people were shot dead by the British Army. The vast majority of these were civilians. That July, a strategic government and security meeting at Stormont Castle was held, involving the Secretary for State William Whitelaw MP, the North’s most senior British Army officer the General Officer Commanding (GOC) General Ford, the Deputy Chief Constable of the RUC, plus Lord Windlesham the British government’s representative in the House of Lords, British MP’s, and senior civil servants from the NIO. Relatives for Justice unearthed a document from this meeting. One of line from the minutes states that: “The (British) Army should not be inhibited in its campaign by the threat of prosecution”. As mentioned, that year 79 people were shot by the British Army. The meeting took place in July. That month the British Army killed 20 innocent civilians. Not one British soldier faced a conviction for ANY of these killings throughout 1972.
@Tyrone Brit: i herd all those british soldiers got medals. How does that make you feel :D
Did you know any of the 8 terrorists that Baron Adams set up in tyrone? excellent work by the british agent LOL
@Sam Alexander: Soon be all the 1 Sam, no more worries then.
Yawn yawn yawn.
@nelly: Did you not know the article was about a subject that didn’t interest you when you read the headline and opened it?
@Tír Eoghain Gael: the subject is laughing at nordies…. as always :D
The DUP and SF are too similar. They both think their side is in the right. The DUP are bigots there is no doubt about that. SF do not want to govern. The DUP will not move on LGBT rights. SF know this so instead of looking for compromise they will hold the whole thing up.
They say they want equality but by not including Ulster Scots in a Language Act they are anything but.
What is the problem with an all encompassing language act for the north ? Where the two languages are protected ?
@phil: Ulster Scots is not a language.
@phil:
“SF do not want to govern”
An odd claim given that that SF have been governing for the best part of the last two decades.
“The DUP will not move on LGBT rights. SF know this so instead of looking for compromise they will hold the whole thing up.”
Bearing in mind that the SF position is shared by a majority of the MLA’s in the assembly, exactly what compromise should they make on equality for the LGBT community?
“They say they want equality but by not including Ulster Scots in a Language Act they are anything but.”
SF have stated they have no issue with a dedicated Ulster Scots act. To quote Michelle O’Neill: “Let’s respect everybody’s identity. Let’s bring forward legislation for Ulster Scots alongside legislation for the Irish Language. They can be two pieces of legislation”
“What is the problem with an all encompassing language act for the north ? Where the two languages are protected ?”
See above. SF are happy for legislation for both languages. You conveniently also ignore the little area of trust being required for a mandatory coalition to work, and the DUP are showing they cannot be trusted, as they already committed to an Irish Language Act at St Andrews, then reneged on it once they got their bums in ministerial seats. I suppose that is just SF’s fault too though?
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Still you have not answered the question. Why not one Language act ?
@phil: Because that is not what has previously been agreed. The two parties made a series of compromises during negotiations in 2006 in order to get the assembly up and running again. One of the DUP compromises was a stand a alone Irish language Act. They then reneged on that agreed commitment. That is where the problem lies. What part of that is so hard to comprehend? When two sides make compromises, it is incumbent on those two sides to stick to their compromises. When one doesn’t, it’s a problem. When the two sides are in a post-conflict mandatory coalition, it is a major problem, and the stability of a mandatory coalition relies entirely on both parties showing that they can trust the other.
Aside from that most fundamental reason – even most unionists admit that Ulster Scots is not a language by any accepted definition. So to lump them together as one piece of legislation, would mean that the level of Irish Language protection would be diluted down to the same as required to protect a dialect spoken by almost nobody, or else money would be wasted in trying to give Ulster Scots the same level of rights that the Irish Language needs in an Act. Given that one is a language, and one is a dialect, then the most effective protection, and most cost-effective protection, would be two separate pieces of legislation.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: poor shinner :D
They should leave it as it is. the sectarians on both sides don’t deserve to be in power.
@Sean Conway: Another genius, trotting out the ‘both sides are as bad as eachother’ line. Take your head out of your @r5e and look into why the assembly actually collapsed, like a good man.
@Tír Eoghain Gael: Or could it be that a dyed-in-the-wool tribalist like yourself will always see ‘his’ tribe as being in the right and ‘the other’ tribe as being in the wrong?
Let’s not forget that you are a Provisional IRA supporter who claims that the Provos were far less ‘depraved’ than Loyalist terrorists and the British army, in defiance of all known facts. That is naked tribalism.
@Brendan O’Brien: You haven’t yet replied to my previous comment, challenging the notion that the assembly collapsed cos ‘both sides are as bad as eachother’. So I’ll just copy and past my previous response here and maybe this time you can read it and stick to the topic, instead of raving about the IRA:
To answer your question: Primarily, yes [it is the DUP's fault]. Unless SF also reneged on what they promised to do in commitments made as preconditions to power sharing, back at St Andrews? And unless SF is also refusing to enact a Bill of Rights as was agreed in 1998 in the GFA? And unless SF is blocking sex marriage, despite the majority of MLAs being in support of it? And unless SF also took £500m of tax payers money and burned in in wood pellet boilers and then refused to see their leader, who oversaw this scheme, to take responsibility for it and resign?
@Tír Eoghain Gael: There was never any good reason for an Irish Language Act to be a sticking point. The wood pellet scheme is not a good reason to refuse to form an executive: matters like these could be addressed within an executive. SF have a responsibility to try to make the system work, just as the DUP have. The two worked together for 10 years or so in circumstances that were really not any less challenging. Both sides are letting the people of NI down.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/sinn-f%C3%A9in-has-never-wanted-an-irish-language-act-1.3144266
@Tír Eoghain Gael: SF/DUP is an arranged marriage made in heaven, never have two groups of deplorables deserved each other more.
@Brendan O’Brien:
” There was never any good reason for an Irish Language Act to be a sticking point.”
Except for the small fact that it was a commitment made by the DUP at St Andrews in efforts to get into power, who then reneged on that commitment as soon as they got into power. That despite the fact that an Irish Language Act is backed by 5 parties (and a majority of MLAs), not just SF. That you can’t see how that is not a significant breach of trust in a post conflict, mandatory coalition, says a lot about your understanding of it.
“The wood pellet scheme is not a good reason to refuse to form an executive: matters like these could be addressed within an executive.”
OK, so aside from the fact that to anyone else on the planet, a £500bn burning of tax payers money IS a bit of a major issue and would see the person responsible held to account (resign), the problem was then that the DUP leader, who was responsible for the scheme, refused to resign, was a decision made by her and her party, the DUP. The executive had absolutely ZERO power over DUP party decisions.
“SF have a responsibility to try to make the system work, just as the DUP have”
They have been in government for the best part of the last 20 years trying to make it work. Or did you forget that?
So in your rush to claim that both sides as as bad as eachother, then again tell me, which of these widely accepted reasons for the assembly’s collapse was SF’s fault:
1. The DUP reneging on it’s previous commitment to an Irish Language Act, as supported by the majority of other MLAs and parties
2. The DUP refusing to enact a Bill of Rights as was agreed to in the GFA, and as is supported by a majority of other MLAs and parties
3. The DUP’s denial of equal rights for the LGBT community, by their blocking of equal marriage, as is supported by a majority of other MLAs and parties
4. The refusal to resign from the now DUP leader, for her formation of a scheme which saw £500bn of tax payers money burned into ashes.
5. The ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ decision by DUP minister Paul Givan, to cut the £50,000 Liofa grant scheme for sending children to Gaeltacht courses – which, because of the relatively tiny amount of money, was widely accepted, even amongst basically every unionist political commentator, as a move motivated purely by naked sectarianism.
6. The DUP community Hall grant scheme, which saw the same DUP minister, Paul Givan, decide that of the 90 successful applications, almost all went to Orange Halls, with only two GAA clubs being awarded any grant aid.
So, which of the above were as much SF’s fault as the DUPs?
@Tyrone Brit: your persecution complex is absolutely hilarious
The nationalists of N.I are a bit like the Sudentan Germans and the Palestinians. They are/were on the wrong side in a war- and ended up on the wrong side of a border. I don’t like Southern Unionists and their N.I brethern. Reason, they are self righteous. They have God on their side. LOL
have your say