The Conversations To have Before Your Baby Arrives

Most couples preparing for their baby want to do it together, but you're not entirely sure what you should be discussing. You know you need to get on the same page, but what does that actually mean? Which decisions need to happen before the baby arrives, and which can wait?

Most preparation resources give you information to absorb individually, not conversations to have together. They tell you what you need to know, but not what you need to discuss. And without those conversations, many couples end up making assumptions about how things will work, only to discover in those exhausting first weeks that you had very different expectations.

These conversations matter because talking through your expectations, your concerns, and your approaches means fewer surprises when your baby is here. It means understanding how each of you thinks about preparation and where you might need to find middle ground. You won't have perfect answers for everything, and your plans will likely evolve once the baby arrives. But starting from understanding rather than assumption makes those early weeks significantly easier to navigate together.

The Six Areas: How Hello Baby Organizes Baby Preparation

When you're trying to figure out what to discuss before your baby arrives, the overwhelm often comes from feeling like you need to talk about "everything." Where do you even start?

We created The Six Areas to organize baby preparation differently. Instead of endless product lists or trying to prepare for every possible scenario, we break preparation into six areas that match the actual daily realities of life with a newborn: Sleep, Feeding, Daily Care, Clothing, Outings, and Development.

Sleep includes where your baby will sleep, what your night routine might look like, and how you'll both handle the exhaustion that comes with frequent night wakings.

Feeding covers everything related to how your baby eats, whether you're breastfeeding, bottle feeding, or combining both, and what each parent's role looks like. This is also where many couples discover they didn't realize what to expect about the intensity and frequency of newborn feeding.

Daily Care includes nappy changes, bathing, soothing, and all the small moments of care your baby needs throughout the day.

Clothing is about dressing your baby practically for different situations and keeping things simple.

Outings covers leaving the house with your baby and what your first outings might look like.

Development includes understanding what's normal for newborns, recognizing milestones, and knowing when something needs attention.

These six areas give you a structure for your preparation conversations. Instead of "we should talk about baby stuff," you can say "let's talk about our feeding approach" or "we need to discuss sleep logistics." That specificity makes conversations actually happen. You might start with feeding because that feels most urgent, sleep because you've heard it's challenging, or daily care because you want to think through division of tasks together. We explored The Six Areas in depth here.

The Feeding Conversation

Of all the conversations worth having before your baby arrives, feeding is one where couples often discover they didn't realize what to expect. And it's also where many have different assumptions about involvement that are worth discussing.

Here's what makes feeding conversations especially important: newborns feed frequently. We're talking 8-12 times in 24 hours in those early weeks, sometimes more. They cluster feed, which means several feeds close together. Your routine is still forming, and feeding becomes a significant part of your day and night. Many new parents didn't realize how constant feeding would be, and that surprise can make those first weeks harder than they need to be. Preparing for it means you can actually enjoy this time together more instead of being caught off guard.

Partner Involvement in Feeding

This question sounds straightforward, but it has layers: How will you both be involved in feeding?

If you're planning to breastfeed

The parent who's breastfeeding is doing the physical work of feeding, but that doesn't mean the other parent's role is just "being supportive" in some vague way. So what does involvement actually look like?

Your partner's involvement might look like handling everything around the feed itself. Bringing water, setting up pillows, changing the nappy beforehand, settling the baby afterward. Some couples find a system where one parent handles the feeding and the other does all the burping and settling. Others prefer the breastfeeding parent to handle the entire feed while their partner focuses on different aspects of care throughout the day.

It might also mean discussing what good support looks like during feeds. Not hovering, but being available. Knowing when to step in and when to give space. Understanding that sometimes the most helpful thing is taking care of other tasks so your partner can focus entirely on the baby.

There's also the practical question of night feeds. If you're breastfeeding, what does your partner do when the baby wakes at 2am? Some couples find it works for the breastfeeding parent to handle night feeds while their partner handles different responsibilities during the day. Others prefer both of you to be involved in some way during night feeds, even if only one can physically feed.

What's worth discussing is how each of you imagines this working. You might picture very different scenarios: one of you expecting to be involved in every feed while the other imagines handling most feeds independently, or having different assumptions about night time feeds and everything around it. These aren't incompatible expectations necessarily, but they're worth knowing about each other.

If you're planning to bottle feed

The question becomes more about division. Bottle feeding involves its own rhythm and tasks, just in a different way than breastfeeding. You're handling preparation, cleaning, warming bottles, often several times a night.

Some couples alternate feeds completely. Others split the 24 hours into shifts so each person has a block of uninterrupted sleep, and others find it works to have one person handle all night feeds while the other takes the morning shift. There's no universally right approach. What matters is discussing what sounds manageable to both of you.

If your feeding plan changes

The other piece worth discussing is what happens if your feeding plan changes. If you're planning to breastfeed but it doesn't work out as expected, how will you both feel about moving to formula? If you plan to exclusively bottle feed, are you both comfortable with that decision? Many parents find their feeding approach evolves in those first weeks, and talking through your feelings about flexibility helps.

Making the Feeding Decision

Before you can even discuss how you'll both be involved in feeding, there's an earlier question: what are you starting with initially? Breastfeeding, bottle feeding, or planning to see how things go?

This isn't a simple yes-or-no decision. Research consistently shows that breastfeeding offers health benefits for both baby and mother, from immune support to reduced risk of certain conditions. Major health organizations like the WHO and AAP recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months when possible. That's the evidence-based starting point, and understanding these benefits is important.

But the decision about what's right for your family involves more than just knowing what research recommends and why. It involves thinking through what feels realistic for your situation, what support you'll have, and what happens if it's harder than you expected or if your situation suddenly changes.

Here's what we recommend: before making this decision, really understand how each approach works. The information in this blog isn't enough to base your decision on. You'd want to educate yourselves more thoroughly about what both breastfeeding and bottle feeding actually involve, the benefits, the practical realities, the challenges you might face, and what support looks like for each approach.

Questions to discuss together:

How do you both feel about breastfeeding? How do you actually feel about it? What are your hopes? What are your concerns?

What do you know about what breastfeeding or bottle feeding actually involves in those first weeks? The frequency, the time it takes, the physical demands? And for bottle feeding the preparation, the cleaning, the logistics? Both approaches have their own realities worth understanding.

What support will you have? Feeding can be challenging initially, and sometimes the challenge is with the baby learning to feed rather than the method itself. Whether you're breastfeeding or bottle feeding, having access to support matters. Do you know about lactation consultants if you're breastfeeding? What about pediatric support if your baby is having difficulty feeding regardless of the method? Does your hospital or birthing center offer feeding support for both approaches? Having this information before you need it matters because immediate access to the right support can make the difference in those early days.

What if it doesn't work as planned? This is worth discussing not because you're expecting it to fail, but because knowing you've talked through possibilities means you can be flexible without feeling like you've failed.

If you're considering bottle feeding from the start, what's influencing that decision? Is it a clear preference, a practical consideration, or something else? Understanding your own reasoning helps you feel confident in your decision.

These are deeply personal questions that involve considerations specific to your situation, your body, your family dynamics, and your values.

For a deeper exploration of feeding approaches, what's involved in breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, how to prepare for either, and how to make decisions that work for your family, our First Feeds workshop walks through everything from breastfeeding basics to bottle feeding logistics, with space for all your questions. We cover what to expect in those first weeks, how to set yourselves up for success regardless of which approach you choose, and how to navigate challenges when they come up.

Moving Forward with Your Conversations

The Six Areas give you a way to organize your preparation without feeling overwhelmed. This blog explored feeding in depth because it's one area where preparation genuinely helps: understanding what to expect, discussing involvement, educating yourselves about the options.

But feeding is just one of the six areas. Sleep, daily care, clothing, outings, and development each have their own questions worth discussing, their own decisions to think through, their own ways of preparing together.

Our complete guide provides the full conversation structure for all six areas, with questions designed to help couples get on the same page about each aspect of preparation. If you've found this approach to thinking about feeding helpful, the guide extends this same depth with questions to every area, giving you a structured way to prepare together.

The conversations you have now shape how you navigate those first weeks. The goal is understanding each other's thinking, knowing what to expect, and feeling prepared together for what's coming.