What to actually bring to the hospital (and what to leave home)

Everyone sends you a hospital bag checklist. Most of them are forty items long and half the items are things the hospital already has. Here’s mine, split the only way that’s useful: what I actually used, and what I’d leave home.

Leave it home

Your own hospital gown. I know the cute ones are everywhere. It’s going to get dirty — genuinely, unpleasantly dirty — and the hospital’s are free and they’ll swap them as many times as you need.

The Frida Mom kit. The hospital has everything in it. The peri bottle, the pads, the mesh underwear, the ice packs. Ask and they’ll send you home with extras. Save the money.

Bring it

A nursing pillow. Nursing pillow The lactation consultant will use it with you in the first hour, and having your own from day one meant we were already used to it when we got home.

Slides, not gym shoes or slippers. Hospital floors get gross. You want something you can rinse off and slip on without bending over.

A robe. Ekouaer robe You’ll be up and down all night. A robe over the hospital gown is the difference between feeling like a patient and feeling like a person.

A stroller fan. Clip-on stroller fan Postpartum rooms run hot and you can’t control the thermostat. A little clip-on fan was the most-used thing in the bag.

Electrolyte packets. Electrolyte packets You’ll be told to drink water constantly. Something in the water makes that a lot easier.

Silverettes. Silverettes If you’re planning to nurse, these go in the bag before anything else. Start using them on day one, not after there’s a problem.

Button-up pajamas. Button-up pajamas Anything that opens in the front. You will be feeding a baby every two to three hours and you don’t want to pull a shirt over your head to do it.

Two outfits for the baby, two sizes. One newborn, one 0–3 months. You don’t know how big your baby is going to be, and there’s nothing worse than trying to fit a nine-pound kid into a newborn onesie for the going-home photo.

That’s it. Everything else the hospital has, or you won’t have the energy to use.