What to Know Before Your Baby Arrives: You Don’t Need to Know Everything
What to know before your baby arrives, from birth and feeding to newborn care, postpartum and the support you need
Finding out you’re pregnant can be one of the most exciting moments of your life. But once the excitement settles, another feeling can start to appear.
“Am I supposed to know more by now?”
There are books to read, podcasts to listen to, Instagram posts to save, antenatal classes to take and advice coming from family, friends, doctors and midwives. And sometimes, instead of feeling prepared, you end up feeling completely overwhelmed.
If you’re wondering what to know before your baby arrives, I want you to know something important.
You don’t need to know everything.
You need a foundation. You need to understand your choices, know what is normal, know when to ask for help and know where to turn when you don’t have the answer.
What to Know Before Your Baby Arrives: Where Should You Start?
When you start thinking about what to know before your baby arrives, it can be tempting to prepare for every possible scenario.
But preparation isn’t about becoming an expert in birth, breastfeeding, newborn sleep and parenting before your baby is born.
There are a few important areas that are worth understanding:
Birth and your options
Feeding and breastfeeding
Newborn behaviour and sleep
Your postpartum recovery
When to ask for help
Building your support network
Knowing where to find support when you need it
These things can give you a solid foundation without making you feel like you need to have every answer.
1. What Should I Know About Birth Before My Baby Arrives?
You can prepare for birth without knowing exactly how your birth will happen.
You might imagine a water birth, an unmedicated birth or an epidural. You might have certain preferences about how you would like your labour to unfold.
And then things might change.
That is why I don’t think birth preparation should be about learning how to make your birth happen exactly according to plan.
It is about understanding your options.
You can learn about different forms of pain relief, what might happen if labour progresses differently, what questions you can ask and what your hospital’s protocols are.
You can have preferences while also remaining flexible.
Because confidence doesn’t mean:
“I know exactly what is going to happen.”
It means:
“I know enough to make decisions as things unfold.”
What can you prepare?
You can start thinking about:
✔ Your birth preferences
✔ Different pain relief options
✔ Where you are giving birth
✔ What happens when labour begins
✔ How your partner can support you
✔ Breathing and relaxation
✔ Questions you may want to ask your healthcare team
You can also prepare your partner.
They don’t need to become an expert in birth, but they can understand what helps you feel safe, support your breathing, offer massage or touch, create a calm environment and advocate for you when you are tired or overwhelmed.
2. What Should I Know About Feeding My Baby?
You don’t need to become a breastfeeding expert before your baby arrives.
And there is no special preparation you need to do to your breasts to make them ready for breastfeeding.
But if you are planning to breastfeed, understanding the basics can be incredibly useful.
You can learn:
What a good latch looks like
How often a newborn might feed
What those first feeds can look like
How to recognise effective milk transfer
What might indicate that your baby isn’t feeding effectively
What to do if breastfeeding is painful
When to ask for support
Sometimes we wait because we think:
“Maybe this is normal.”
“Maybe I just need to get used to it.”
But ongoing pain, ineffective feeding or concerns about your baby’s weight gain are reasons to seek support.
And I want to remind you of something that I wish every mother knew.
How you feed your baby does not determine what kind of mother you are.
Asking for help isn’t failing.
You deserve information and support, whatever your feeding journey looks like.
3. What Should I Know About Newborn Sleep and Behaviour?
Then your baby arrives.
Suddenly it’s three in the morning and you have a tiny person crying beside you.
And you might be wondering:
Are they hungry?
Are they tired?
Are they uncomfortable?
Do they need a nappy change?
Are they overstimulated?
Do they need to be held?
Do they need to sleep?
Or are they actually asleep and simply making those strange newborn noises?
There can be so many possibilities.
You don’t need to know the answer immediately.
But learning about newborn care before your baby arrives can help you understand what you are seeing.
You can learn about hunger cues, tired signs, newborn sleep and those short periods of wakefulness.
You can also learn that holding, feeding, rocking and cuddling your newborn are normal ways of supporting them.
You don’t need a perfect routine from day one.
And you don’t need to worry that every cuddle is creating a bad habit.
Your newborn is learning how to exist outside your body.
And you are learning how to understand your baby.
It is a relationship, and like every relationship, it takes time to get to know each other.
4. How Do I Prepare for Postpartum?
We spend so much time preparing for the baby.
The pram.
The car seat.
The clothes.
The cot.
The bottles.
The nappies.
And then we bring the baby home and somehow expect Mum to be fine.
But you have just given birth.
Your body is recovering. Your hormones are changing. You are learning to feed and care for a newborn, and you may not be sleeping much.
You may also be recovering from stitches or a caesarean, caring for older children or simply feeling overwhelmed.
This is why postpartum preparation matters too.
Before your baby arrives, think about:
✔ Who will cook?
✔ Who can help with shopping?
✔ Who can clean?
✔ Who can help with older children?
✔ Who can support you if breastfeeding isn’t going well?
✔ Who can come over and actually help rather than expecting you to host them?
✔ Who can you message at two in the morning when you are wondering, “Is this normal?”
Your home doesn’t need to be perfect.
Your laundry can wait.
Your meals don’t need to be Instagram worthy.
Part of preparing for your baby is preparing for you.
5. Who Will Support Me After My Baby Arrives?
This is one of the most important questions you can ask yourself before your baby arrives.
And if you’re having your baby abroad, it can become even more important.
Maybe you’re living in Spain while your parents are in another country.
Maybe your friends are back home.
Or maybe you have recently moved and haven’t had the chance to build your community yet.
Having a baby can be wonderful, but it can also be incredibly intense.
And sometimes you don’t need someone to solve the problem.
You just need someone to say:
“Mine did that too.”
When I was pregnant with my first baby in London, my husband and I joined an NCT antenatal group. We were all pregnant at roughly the same time, and then one by one, we had our babies.
We would meet for coffee and talk about feeding, weight gain, sleep and what had happened during the night.
Someone would ask:
“Did your baby do this?”
And someone else would say:
“Yes. Mine does that too.”
It sounds simple, but it made such a difference.
Because suddenly, you felt a little less alone.
That is one of the reasons I love antenatal groups so much.
You’re not only preparing for birth.
You’re starting to build your village before your baby arrives.
You Don’t Need to Have Everything Figured Out
You don’t need to know exactly what kind of parent you are going to be.
You don’t need to know how your baby will sleep.
You don’t need to know exactly how feeding will go.
You don’t need to prepare for every possible scenario.
Parenting is something you grow into.
You learn your baby.
You learn yourself.
You learn what works for your family.
And things change.
What works at two weeks may not work at three months. What works for one baby might not work for another.
And that’s okay.
The goal of preparing for your baby isn’t to become an expert.
It is to have enough knowledge to recognise when you need more support.
Sometimes the hardest thing isn’t not knowing everything.
It’s not knowing what you don’t know.
What to Know Before Your Baby Arrives: Start Somewhere
If you’re pregnant right now and thinking, “There’s so much I need to know,” take a breath.
You don’t need to know everything before your baby arrives.
Start somewhere.
Understand your choices.
Learn what is normal.
Think about how you would like to be supported.
Know where you can get help.
And start building your support network.
The more informed and supported you feel, the easier it can be to navigate those moments when you suddenly think:
“Okay… what do I do now?”
Need Support Preparing for Birth and Baby?
✨ If you’re pregnant and want to feel more informed and prepared for birth, feeding, newborn life and those first weeks with your baby, I’d love to support you.
I’m hosting a free online Masterclass where I’ll be sharing the five essential areas every expectant parent should prepare before welcoming their baby in Spain.
Free Masterclass: Birth & Baby - Online - Autumn 2026: A four-week antenatal workshop for expat couples across Spain.
Tuesday, 13 October 202613:00 – 14:00 CEST
Online
With love,
Anna
Doula · Lactation Consultant · Gentle Sleep Coach
Supporting Expat Families in Spain
