NOW CLOSED Take part in a survey about preparing for having a newborn at home and win a £200 JL voucher

[NewGirlHelenMumsnet]

We have been asked to find out your views on and experiences of the preparation you may do before you have a baby and about those first few months with a baby.

The survey is open to all Mumsnetters in the UK who have had a baby in the last three years. Everyone who takes part will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will receive a £200 John Lewis voucher.

If you have had more than one baby in the past three years, please think about your most recent baby when completing the survey, as we want to hear about your most recent experiences.

Please click here to complete the survey.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

Unusual indeed. I had a winter baby but never thought about any of that. Had heating put in the November before he was born but only because I was having the floors done and needed the heating installed first. General renovations, not for a baby.

done

All done!

Done.

I prepared for ds2 by breaking my ankle and having a couple of nights in hospital to have surgery on it.

I think the heating was the last thing on my mind!!

Done

Done. Didn't check any of this, and don't think I should have. I'm with the poster who said 'it either works or it doesn't'. In my particular case, DS was born in April and our house is just 2 years old, so I was unconcerned. We did used to have regular power cuts, but they seem to have stopped now - DS is BF anyway, so hot water not necessary and we cold water sterilise bottles etc.

yes, i found these strange. It's kind of something you don't think about unless you have areason to, especially if you live in a newish house. Did I "test the hot water" - I washed my hands and would ahve noticed if it hadn't heated up as quickly as it usually does (which in fairness is a snail's pace) - does that count as checking the hot water?

Done

done - but as we've got a homecare agreement which means someone comes out and fixes any problems straight away I'm not particularly worried about this. Bit worried that this is aimed at giving pregnant women yet another thing they need to worry about needlessly

Done

Done but all very odd, i service the bolier and hot water, having a baby didn't impact on that, and given DS was 11 weeks early I definitely had other things to think about, like him living, and later the fact i didn't have a cot etc

Done. This was a concern for us as we moved into our flat in September and the boiler was completely broken and leaking gas so had to replace the whole thing. DD was born in early November so we needed it to work! Sadly had to use all our furniture budget to do this so I spent the last couple of months of my pregnancy sleeping on a mattress on the floor and having to sit on it to eat dinner too until we could afford a bed and a sofa!

Hhmm... suspect that this is going to be used as an advertising campaign to bully encourage new parents to sign up to gas/heating repair services like HomeCare as yet more nonsense to spend money on as part of "preparing for a new baby".

Strongly agree with tablefor3.
I suspect that some advertising agency has recognised that new mums are paranoid about a million and one things, and are very suseptible to spending money on things 'for the good of the baby'.

Feels really exploitative and grubby to me (but then I would have my boiler serviced relatively regularly anyway, as no heating or hot water is horrible whether you have a baby or not).

Very odd concerns! I was more worried about the whole giving birth/looking after a newborn thing personally. Hot water was way down on the list, well not on it at all frankly. I suppose it would have been pretty stressful if it had broken but so would it have been if anything went wrong. Some of the time it was pretty stressful to find I'd run out of biscuits.

We did most of those checks because in preparation for the spawn we bought a house! It needed a bit of work done to it so everything had to be looked at.

Done. Having no hot water for a week with a toddler is interesting but not the end of the world (electric kettles FTW!)

Done - I await the new advert

Done

Done.

We has an annual "service" as we were signed up with British Gas at the time and this doesn't seem to be covered by the survey as an option.

Never again though as they were unbelievably useless with so many call outs for the same problem until DH googled the boiler and told the "experts" they sent round what was wrong with it and how to fix it. They seem to take an "infinite monkey" approach to boiler repair and I think that the monkeys were a bit preoccupied with producing the works of Shakespeare. Apologies to any BG technicians out there, I am sure the system is responsible rather than the staff.

Done, but you really should specify that the survey is for homeowners only.

I am not going to be checking the lagging on the pipes or servicing the boiler, I am going to insist that the landlord does that.

Done, we were in rented but we did manage to run out of oil in the middle of the freezing cold bit of the winter...oops...cue all three of us asleep in the front room with the fire going all night!

i only remembered 1/2 way through the survey that when i was 6months pregnant with my last dc we were living in a different house and the water pipes froze so we came back to a house with no heating or water and a ton of snow outside, at 8pm on sunday night. fairly stressful? poor dh then had burst pipes to deal with when he defrosted them.