What would've helped you?

[SPR1107]

My friend has just had a baby (unplanned c section), her house is middle of renovations and on the first week of Jan she is having to move in with her Mum for the job to be finished off.

I would like to do something (inexpensive), to help or take any pressure off.

I could cook a meal for them and drop it off - but what can either be frozen or reheated and still taste good?

I pooped in today, and done some washing up whilst I was there, and offered to go to the shop for them.

I just keep thinking back to when I had DS, and we didn't have a single day where we didn't have a visitor until he was over 6 weeks old, and as nice as it is that everyone wants to see baby... it would have been nice to have someone offer a hand with something (grandparents excluded as they were excellent).

Popped... definitely didn't poop!

Making me a stir fry and a back up meal was one of the nicest things someone did for me. :)

I'm sure she'd appreciate any food at all which she hasn't had to cook whilst looking after a newborn.

Pop in, give her food and leave, unless she wants some adult conversation. Making a cup of tea for her would probably be much appreciated too.

Offer to look after little one for a bit so she can have a shower perhaps.

Anything like shepherds pie, lasagne, moussaka, macaroni cheese, pasta bake, etc would be fine to be frozen and then reheated.

Agree with making her a drink and holding the baby if she would like you to. Take biscuits as well!

^^ good food ideas above, and/or a takeaway she likes and can’t get to for now. And short visits! I’d always offer to take the baby for a walk so she can snooze too.

I’ll forever remember a friend coming and making dinner. She also took the baby out for a walk so I could wash my hair. Then we just sat and had a cup of tea and she left after being there a couple of hours. She did also offer to stick a wash on, although I declined that. It was so incredibly helpful of her.

I forgot. My friend also have the baby a bath for me and tidied up the bedrooms. I imagine some people would find this intrusive but I really appreciated it.

Its hard to do nice things for people though, because if she'd asked me I would have said don't do anything (me being polite) She didn't ask, she just did it. I liked that, but maybe someone else would have felt their space was invaded.

My mother in law held DS for me when he was a few weeks old so that I could shower, wash my hair, brush my teeth and tie my hair back all in one go, which was appreciated as it meant I didn't have to keep peeking round the shower curtain to check on him lying on the mat then end up cluster feeding between showering and teeth cleaning etc!
My mum also watched a film holding DS, rocking, patting etc through colic so I could get an extra hour or two of sleep.
Friend used to come round and put the kettle on for us to have a good natter rather than expecting to be served tea!