At home with a new baby for the first time, a new mother can feel overwhelmed by domestic chores. Where once she might have been able to get dressed, do the dishes and be out of the house to do the grocery shopping first thing in the morning, the addition of one small bundle to the household has turned it upside down.
It can now take all morning just to get dressed and the thought of getting the baby fed, changed and ready to go out, braving a bustling grocery store and making it home in time for the next feed can seem an impossible task. If this is the second baby and there is a toddler in the equation it is even more daunting.
I have memories, etched on my memory for all time, of shopping in a huge supermarket with one new baby and a toddler, just out of nappies; the toddler urgently needing the toilet just when we'd reached the far end of the store, our trolley piled high; the baby crying because it was already time for her next feed and 'helpful' shoppers stopping me to coo sympathetically at the baby while the toddler was about to wet his pants; hair-raising journeys to make it home before another wee-stop is required and the dilemma of whether I'd unload the shopping from the car, change the toddler's wet pants or feed the baby first on arrival home! Very often I'd collapse on the sofa with both children howling and feel like howling myself too!
This is where family and close friends can show their heroic colors! As soon as dad's paternity leave is over and your new mother is home alone with the baby, a helping hand with the grocery shopping could be a life saver for her.
How you go about it depends on each individual person's shopping style and preferences, so here are a few suggestions and you can pick one that seems to suit.
1. You can turn up to visit loaded with bags of groceries as a surprise. This will work if you know her tastes fairly well, or can guess what she likes, but would be counter-productive if you ended up buying food that she is allergic to, for example. This approach should also be presented as a gift. Handing over the bill and expecting to be paid back rather ruins the gesture!
Combine basics like milk, fresh bread, fruit and vegetables with special treats that you know she loves. Include a few ready meals to go in the freezer and ingredients for a simple, fresh meal that you can cook for her when you arrive. Some flowers or chocolates, a pack of cute baby vests that you couldn't resist and a small toy for the toddler thrown in, make it into a fun gift rather than a run-of the mill grocery shop.
If you don't feel comfortable doing a big shop, just a mini survival grocery bag with a pint of milk, a crusty loaf of bread, fresh fruit and some cold meat or cheese for a picnic lunch would be a thoughtful thing to take round when you pop in to admire the new arrival.
2. You can plan ahead with her that you will come by and pick up her grocery list and do the shopping for her. This will give her enough time to sort out a list for you, think of all the odd things she has run out of, give detailed instructions of brands and the things she prefers. She will be in control of the list and will expect to pay for it, but will be eternally grateful not to have to get dressed or leave the house. You will end up getting her exactly what is needed and can add in a few treats as gifts if you like.
3. Sometimes it's just too much hard work compiling a shopping list that someone else will be able to make sense of, especially when your brain is addled from lack of sleep and a baby keeps distracting you. Besides some people shop by feel and impulse rather than from a list and only remember what they need as they go down the relevant supermarket aisle.
If your friend is this sort of shopper, or if she just wants to shop herself but can't quite get it together with baby in tow, you can still be a big help. Offer to drive her to the store with the baby, then free her up to do her shopping by taking the baby round yourself, either in another trolley with baby seat, a sling or a pram, whatever is most convenient. Just having an extra person there to hold the baby makes it so much easier to cope with shopping.
If the baby goes to sleep in the car (as all too often happens, leaving the mother with the dilemma of waking it to go into the store and facing a crying baby that wants feeding the whole way round, or waiting till it wakes naturally and then finding it wants feeding anyway) you can just sit in the car with it (as long as it's not a hot day), and then when it wakes find a shady place to walk around with it in the pram. It may be crying by then too, but the mother will at least have had time to get some shopping done and you can cope with five or ten minutes of a crying baby can't you!
With a toddler in the picture the ideal solution would be a store with an outside play area close by, then you can push the baby in a pram at the same time as keeping the toddler happy and out of the sweets and toy aisle, so saving mom the stress of a whiny child. Whatever you do make sure you've arranged a meeting point and time though, there's nothing more anxious-making for a new mother than being out of reach of her baby when the next feeding time comes along!
Whichever shopping option you decide on, when you get the bags back to her house finish the job off in style. Carry on through to the putting away of the groceries, if you know the kitchen well enough. If not just stow all the perishables in the refrigerator and stack the rest on the counter, out of reach of the toddler, then put on the kettle for you both to have a cup of coffee to accompany the luscious pastries or chocolate cookies that you bought as a treat. You've all earned it!
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