The 6 smartest things I did before I had my first child

Doing things when you have a baby around is really, really hard. Especially when said things are major projects like painting rooms, building or moving furniture, decorating a nursery, and so forth. Within weeks of learning we were expecting, my wife and I had an architect and contractor working on adding a new master suite to our house so we wouldn't outgrow the place, and the day it was done, we began setting up what had been our room as our son's nursery. We also baby proofed much of the house before he was born (and long before he'd be crawling) because we had the time then and wouldn't later.

I had been running five times a week and working out a couple times weekly for years before our first kid was born, but I knew my schedule would be rocked and my free time slashed as soon as he showed up, so in the weeks before we had our first child, I worked extra hard to get in even better shape hedging against the reduced exercise I'd get for a while.

It was also a great way to alleviate some of the stress and nerves that came with anticipating parenthood, as excited as I was. (And if you don't already exercise regularly, the pre-parenthood days are a good time to start; life is about to change anyway, so you might as well make some personal changes, too.)

Babies come with a surprising amount of paperwork. From hospital forms to social security records to dealing with your insurance company, there are lots of forms to be filled out, signed, submitted, and filed. But you can do much of the work ahead of time.

Contact your insurance company to see what you can do regarding planning coverage before the baby is born and speak to the hospital about pre-registration and which forms you can complete ahead of time. That way, when the labor pains start, you and your partner will have minimized the amount of paperwork to worry about.

Once you have a child, special time between you and your partner is something you won't take for granted for the next decade or two. Instead, it's something you'll have to plan for, and maybe even pay for if you need a baby sitter. So make the most of the time you have together when it's just the two of you.

My wife and I decided to spend a bit of money and take a decent chunk of time and took a trip to Europe knowing it would be our last couples vacation for years if not decades, but even a special weekend or two or more nights out can help you make the most of the last months as a two ship formation.

Weeks before our son was born, I visited several different pediatric practices in our area, attending open houses where there were Q&A sessions with the doctors. This helped me compare a few different offices and allowed us to choose a practice with an approach to medicine that mirrored our own. When our son arrived, we already knew who his primary care doctor would be and had a good hand on the office's protocol.