Welcoming a baby into our homes can be easy and quick if you plan in advance. Besides getting the necessary baby equipment, you should also focus on buying items that can help you take care of a newborn baby. This article will give you four pointers to prioritize to make your home more welcoming and better prepared for a new bundle of joy.
SCHEDULE A SAFETY ASSESSMENT FOR YOUR HOUSE
For starters, make some time to spot possible hazards in your house. Doing so with that goal in mind will allow you to hone in on some of the more obvious renovation musts.
Can a baby who can already crawl accidentally open cabinets filled with toxic cleaning chemicals? Are there exposed electrical cables that a baby might play with? You might think you don’t have to worry about these for at least some time, but many experienced parents will disagree with you. Babies basically learn to wander around overnight.
It’s a whole lot easier to worry about these things now so that you can still get as much sleep as you can. The usual things that you have to worry about are cleaning products, medicine, and other chemicals that should not be within reach of babies.
It’s nice if you store these things in unreachable or locked cabinets and drawers. If not, then there are plenty of installable simple locking mechanisms, such as magnet locks, available for you.
Next, check your fire and carbon monoxide detectors. Are they still working? Do they need repairs? Are there enough of them placed in key spots around your house?
MINIMIZE NOISE
Newborn babies already spend a lot of time crying instead of sleeping, so it’s a good idea to make their rooms as silent as possible.
To make a room noise proof, invest in a door with a solid core. It makes sense for many interior doors to be hollow and made from thin materials, unlike thick and sturdy front doors. But, this won’t be ideal for a room with a newborn baby.
A door free from air leaks makes a room silent. To check, simply stand inside the room and shut the door. Turn the lights off and check if outside light can come into the room from the outside. If you don’t see any light peeking through, then your door is secured from noise.
Windows should naturally also be soundproofed as one side is exposed to the outside environment. To do this, you can opt for an acoustical sealant. Doing so can also help your window become more resistant to weather elements like rain and wind. It is also an easy way for soundproofing doors that you can’t replace for any reason.
The next thing to minimize are impact noises, especially the ones that we make when we walk around the room. Installing a carpet on the floor is often enough to mask the noise from footsteps. You don’t need to buy an expensive fur carpet for this. Just choose anything that you can walk on silently.
The final thing that you should consider is buying silent appliances. We are often so used to the noise that appliances make that it just fades away into background noise. But for newborn babies, this can be a big deal. The rest of your household will also benefit from silent appliances, which makes them a good investment. You can head over to Silent Home Hub for soundproofing tips and info about silent appliances and gadgets of different categories.
DECLUTTER NOW, MAKKE CLEAN-UP EASIER IN THE FUTURE
Look at the kitchen space that you have with a critical eye. Does your counter have too much stuff that you rarely use? Decide what you’d be needing on a regular basis, and store away things that are just used on occasion. You would probably be better off by making space for a bottle rack or for jars of baby food. Clean out your drawers to make room for baby spoons, bowls, and cleaning tools.
Aside from having a more organized home, the saved space would eventually be occupied by toys and other baby equipment — more than the ones that you already probably have. That’s why it is wise to declutter your home even before the baby arrives.
You might also consider investing in better, more efficient storage options to house the new toys and equipment coming your way. There are plenty of storage boxes that are designed to make as much room for equipment while occupying the least space possible.
It’s best to practice your new organizing now so that cleaning up would be a lot easier in the future. There are a lot of ways to keep your place orderly easier than it should be. This will save you precious time and energy that you will need to take care of your baby. Plus, you’d be making your home looking nicer despite being stuffed with more equipment.
PREPPING YOUR KITCHEN
The next thing you have to worry about is making sure that you have prepared your kitchen well. Prepping the kitchen area deserves a new category by itself, as this is where you’ll be storing your baby needs: from reserved breast milk to baby formula and all the tasty food that your friends and family will be sending you.
To start:
- Take a look at your fridge just before your monthly trip to the grocery store or whenever it is as close to empty as possible.
- Take a look at all the items there, and proceed with discarding expired or nearly expired food.
- Wipe down all the fridge shelves with warm water using a sponge or a piece of cloth. Ideally, scrub them clean using ordinary white vinegar diluted with water.
If possible, use paper towels to line the space in your fridge that gets spilled on the most. This will give you an easier time the next time you have to clean your fridge.
It would help if you also looked towards getting non-toxic cleaning solutions. You won’t be needing much, as you would be using these mainly for the sink or the refrigerator. Using these, you can be sure that your kitchen remains free from bacteria without risking getting any toxic chemicals in your baby equipment.
