Leo was born at 5am on the 20th May, at home (this was an accident but the experience has made me extremely homebirth-pilled). Before that, I was on the minimally-neurotic side when it came to expecting mothers: we purchased a bare minimum of baby stuff (diapers, baby wipes, a changing mat, hybrid car seat/stroller, baby bath, a few clothes), I didn’t do any parenting classes, I hadn’t even held a baby before. I’m pretty sure the youngest child I have had a prolonged interaction with besides Leo was two. I did read a couple books about babies so I wasn’t going in totally clueless (Cribsheet by Emily Oster, and The Science of Mom by Alice Callahan). I have never been that interested in other people’s babies or young children but I correctly predicted that I’d be enchanted by my own baby (though naturally I can’t wait for him to grow up and acquire the ability to talk, read, and be my husband’s bughouse chess partner). Like a lazy student cramming outside the exam room door, I consumed way more baby-related content over his first weeks of life, which was much easier to internalize when I had a real-life specimen in front of me. My first takeaway was that this was fine. You don’t really need to prepare to have a baby! You can just produce one and wing it! Of course, parenting involves a lot of learning (which you can do as you go along), and it goes without that saying that all babies and children are different so what works will vary. Nevertheless, babies do have a lot in common with each other (they like to be held, they are often hungry, they can’t solve second-order partial differential equations). Instagram reels about other people’s babies often appear relatable to me. I will try to summarize what I’ve learned so far in this post. Perhaps this will be of interest to an expecting-parent reader. And if you already have kids, you can tell me what I’m missing! Stuff I ended up buying and liking * Baby changing table * We quickly figured out that leaning over