But what do you do when maternity leave starts...???

[tostaky]

Last week at work and im worried i'll be bored at home all day, waiting for the baby and then bored at home with a screaming baby..

so what do you do... tell me a typical day?

[2point4kids]

Well before baby is born you must sleep lots, watch all thr crap day time tv you love but never get to see normally (Jeremy Kyle!), meet friends for lunch, go baby shopping, have nice long baths etc.

When baby is born you wont havre time to be bored!! When baby sleeps you will be sleeping too and the rest of the time you will either be feeding, changing or staring in wonder at your perfect little person!

[littleducks]

ok, pre baby: sleep, eat, sleep, eat hot food while its still hot

and if you have a bit of time go to cinema, art gallery, whatever you enjoy that would be logistically harder with a child

if you have lotsa of time, batch cook meals and freeze, clean house properly, was floors skirtimg boards etc. (gets baby in good position too)

[PavlovtheWitchesCat]

Worried you will be bored . Really?

There is sooooo mch to do on maternity leave!!!

1. Sleep
2. Visit friends who have children/don't work for whatever reason
3. Sleep
4. Tidy house/prepare nursery
5. Sleep
6. Read books
7. Sleep
8. Go shopping for las minute baby things
9. Sleep

10. Mumsnet
11. Sleep
12. Cook lot of meals

When baby is here

Much of the above
plus
13. Stare at baby in wonder
14. Sleep
15. Change nappies
16. Sleep
17. Feed
18. Clean house
19. Sleep
20. Sleep

[HolidaysQueen]

I had 6 weeks, thought I would be bored, and wasn't at all!

As littleducks says, enjoy eating hot food while it's hot. That also applies to cups of tea. You won't get another hot cuppa for about 18 years

I took up swimming! Went a couple of times a week, including on my due date. It was lovely to go to the pool when there were no screaming kids, and then to treat myself to a cup of tea and chocolate brownie before heading home for a snooze.

I definitely recommend making nice meals for the freezer - it makes you feel so much better post birth to have homecooked meals that you don't need to think about rather than take outs or hastily thrown together odds and end from the fridge! And you feel ever so smug about how domesticated and organised you are.

In fact, if you do like to cook, I also recommend cooking elaborate breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Try out fancy new recipes, spend ages shopping for ingredients etc. You'll never have the time to do that post-baby. One day, I made homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast and had a leisurely brunch with the newspapers and a pot of tea before heading back to bed for a nap. I look back fondly on days like that

[georgiemum]

Hah! I was due to go on maternity... then it all kicked off 2 1/2 weeks early.

So I got home from work, went to ante natal class, had dinner, settled down to watch newsnight.... then the waters broke! DH had to ring my boss the next morning to say 'you know the 9.30 manager meeting... she'll be about 6 months late!'.

[vonsudenfed]

All of the above is true!

But I would say, read as many books as you can, as you won't for ages (or substitute any activity you like a lot that requires concentration). I sobbed when DD was about 8 weeks old, because DH was reading a book in bed and I felt as though I would Never Ever Read Again. It's come back a bit, but not much.

And make meals for the freezer, as many as you can. Or go to the shops and buy them. Cooking will seem impossible for the next few months, and I was so relieved to be heating up stews from the freezer (or rather that DH was!)

[Mercy]

Totally agree with thehedgewitch!

[Bluebutterfly]

Indulge yourself,

Get your legs waxed, have a facial, prepare meals to freeze in advance, rest, listen to the uninterrupted sound of silence (you will probably miss it), go swimming, go to the cinema, visit your favourite museums, cafes, art galleries and other places that you may be harder to visit in few weeks! Go to the shops and ogle at baby clothes.

Buy an album and put your ultrasound pictures, and any other photos taken during your pregnancy into it, all ready to have baby photos added!

Do yoga or other relaxation techniques, enjoy time to yourself - you will miss it when you have the demands of a baby all day every day!

Soak in bubble baths, spend time with your partner.

Get used to slowing down a bit. Being prepared for a slower pace of life may help you adapt to the first months of your baby's life with greater ease, especially if you are used to a busy, social and working life. Write a diary - start to make or organise birth announcements if you are going to send them out. Just prepare yourself as if you are going to enter a very gentle, slow-paced cocoon with your baby in a few weeeks time, a cocoon that might last a few weeks or even months, but will enable you to get enough sleep and to be alone with your baby without feeling too deprived of your former life!

[imaginewittynamehere]

IME - breathe a huge sigh of relief & chill out. Agree with everyone else - I think Pavlov put it very well

[notyummy]

Relax! Go to cinema/out for dinner every night with dh if funds allow, as you will not be for a while.

If you want to be organised, cook meals/buy birthday cards and pressies for people in advance, plus Xmas presents. Prep thank you cards and birth announcement cards if you are going to use them. Get all the info for Child Trust Funds, so you know which one you will select, and fill out the forms. See if there are any house/car insurance that need sorting out in the next 3 months and do them now.

Get hair cut. Have pedicure/massage. Go swimming/do yoga/walking/cross trainer in the gym.

Sit in starbucks with coffee/tea/cake and papers.

Basically, spilt your time between doing some preparation that will be really useful after the birth with relaxing and doing the things you wont get the chance to. I had 2 weeks off and I am relly pleased that I got lots of little jobs out of the way!

[funtimewincies]

Sit and marvel at a completely silent house .

Sleep, eat, read lots, mumsnet lots (surprisingly difficult to do one-handed with a newborn), when your partner goes to work, GO BACK TO BED as your body has a lot of hard work coming up.

I just wish that I'd listed to my own advice !

[tostaky]

why is it difficult to read with a newborn? Surely when he sleeps or eats (bf) you can read?
And they sleep for like 17-20 hours a day, arent they?

[CS7]

Hee hee hee at tostaky
Not in a bad way but just funny..
If that was the case, all the new mums i know wouldn't have been sooooooooo tired.
I think there's more to it than that

[LadyG]

Aaah bless tostaky-I too thought the same...I would do as much catching up with friends as possible, shop for some nice (forgiving) post bump winter clothes, have a meal with partner in a lovely restaurant and get my hair done.
Oh and stock up on face and hair essentials-the other day I spent half an hour in Boots getting nappies etc and came home without any hair conditioner. If you look better you feel better even if you haven't slept for months. And yes reading while breastfeeding perfectly possible although tendency to dumb down due to fog of sleep deprivation-no Booker shortlisted novels here, more Grazia.

[MrsMattie]

I faffed around a lot during my last pregnancy, shopping and getting things ready. To be honest, I wish I'd relaxed more! (said in retrospect, now I am heavily pregnant again and have a toddler to loom after!)

Treat it like a holiday. Sleep loads, see friends, read, watch DVDs, do the things you like doing, pamper yourself,do some yoga or go for a swim... and have a few 'dates' with your DH. Do stuff that will make you feel relaxed and happy.

[Bramshott]

Actually, you might be bored - when I had just DD1 at home I was VERY bored. I had few friends around, stopping work was a shock, and she slept an awful lot (she was prem). Sooo, I would say you should have a few plans of things you want to do, but not worry if you don't actually get round to doing them. Anything you want to sort out (photos? recipies? in-tray?), or shop for? Plans for the garden? Things you can do in small sections while your baby sleeps are good. You will adapt, but it will take time. One of the best things you can do is make friends with other mums - see if your NCT has a bumps and babies group, or ante-natal swimming classes or something. The more people you can meet, the more chance you have of both filling your time, and of finding a few people you can ring up at 5pm and say "talk to me, the baby has been crying all day!".

[notcitrus]

Personally, slept loads, read Mumsnet and other net social sites, and sorted out our finances, updating insurance, utility bills, etc - basically anything needing doing in the next few months.
Although I was in pain and housebound and off my face on codiene, so a bit different - I was ordering stuff online and sleeping and that was it!

In retrospect,lining up firm commitments from more people to come help out afterwards would have been useful.

[fircone]

I looked forward to six weeks of pre-baby peace.

Ds was born the next day.

Moral: have that hospital bag ready!

[PerkinWarbeck]

I only had a weekend of mat leave before having DD (not planned that way but there you go!). With hindsight it would have been better to have time at home simply to adjust to the slower pace of life that having a newborn entails. Even though you might be bored at first, I think it would probably be beneficial just to take the time to adjust to being more home-based, especially if your work was quite busy and demanding, as mine was.

[2Helenback]

I went to a charity shop and bought loads of books. I seemed to accidentally find lots with gory births and horrible things happening to small children, which was a bit odd. The book I was reading when dd arrived is still unfinished. Dh brought it to the hosp for me, but I decided I'd rather gaze at dd in her plastic fish bowl instead!

[rempy]

Go and get your hair cut, if youre anything like me it will be 8 months before you go again.

Look about the house and start those projects that you have been meaning to do for ages - so sort photos into an album, or recipes into a folder, or make that pair of curtains.

You will never have time to do these things again. Until your lovely baby leaves home.

[jlh69]

I too was looking forward to having 5 weeks of maternity leave doing nothing except maybe packing my hospital bag. Hadn't even managed that when DD was born one week into maternity leave

[CookieMonster2]

Sleep, sleep, sleep.
In rare moments when I wasn't completely exhausted I cooked meals for the freezer and did odd jobs around the house. Left it as long as I dared to get my hair cut really short, and ended up going into hospital that night!
Something I wished I had done more of was doing nothing except enjoying complete silence. I don't get too much of that these days.

[funtimewincies]

It wasn't that I didn't have the time to read as such tostaky, more that I couldn't concentrate on anything as I was so whacked. I kept reading the same line over and over again and this is from a women whose dh once asked her to start taking drugs as it was probably a cheaper habit than my book one!