40 Weeks +: The Essential Pregnancy Organizer (The Essential Organizers)
40 Weeks +: The Essential Pregnancy Organizer (The Essential Organizers)
Finally! A well designed, well researched, easy-to-use organizer for every stage of pregnancy. Forget ducks and bunny rabbits–this clean, sophisticated organizer is designed for modern parents-to-be.
An essential addition to your pregnancy library, this handy tool simplifies the process of preparing for a baby. Tabs provide quick access to checklists, forms, and questionnaires that help manage the details of pregnancy and baby’s first weeks at home.
This journal-sized organizer fits perfectly in a handbag, making it the ideal companion for the many travels between nightstand, desk, and practitioner s office. With space to answer questions about pregnancy and baby’s birth, 40 Weeks + ultimately becomes a record of the amazing journey into parenthood!
The contents include:
* Detailed timeline and pregnancy calendar
* Interview questions for obstetricians, midwives, pediatricians, nannies, and day care centers
* Questions to formulate a birth plan
* Prenatal check-up pages
* Practical baby shopping list for parents
* Gift tracker
* Tips on saving time around the house
* Coach’s preparations and contact lists
* Feeding and diapering records
* Helpful resources
* Pocket for paperwork or keepsakes
* and much more
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars My lifesaver!
When I first became pregnant, it was my first child and I felt overwhelmed with things I needed to do, lists to make and everything that goes along with being pregnant (and soon a mom). I was a loyal user of Martha Stewart’s wedding planner so I knew I needed something to get my life in order during pregnancy. I looked for an organizer and bought this one based on high reviews. And thank goodness I did…I ABSOLUTELY loved it! It was my “bible” for my pregnancy and went everywhere I did, including the hospital when I delivered. In fact my husband started to refer to it as “that book”.
What a remarkable thing to document and record thoughts, appointment notes, to-do’s, baby gifts, etc. and have it all in one place.
The only suggestion I’d make for improvement in the next edition is to provide some blank and/or journaling pages. I found that I wanted space to write down how my pregnancy went overall - something for my daughter to read later and know what her mom went through. My mother died when I was 14 and so I had no information about her pregnancy with me (my dad doesn’t remember) - no reference for what to expect with mine - and I want to be able to give my daughter all kinds of information! Other than that, this thing is a God-send and amazingly helpful. Kudos!
Also, I recently recommended “40 Weeks+” to a pregnant friend and she, too, purchased the book.
3 Stars Too Detailed
I found the organiser very good with suggestion and lots of space for interviewing doctors, obstetrician, midwife, care givers and not enough room for the actual 40 weeks calendar to record your personal journey. I realise it is a organser and not a journal however a little extra in this section would of been better.
5 Stars very cool!
I sure wish I had had the “Essential Organizer: 40 Weeks +” about 40 weeks ago! Even though I’ve now been through three pregnancies, each one has been filled with different experiences, so this book would have still been great for helping me to keep track of everything that was happening and needed to be done before Logan’s arrival. However, this book did come at a wonderful time for somebody else… A friend of mine recently announced that he & his wife were expecting their first baby, but had absolutely no idea as to what they needed to do. I passed along this organizer to his wife, along with my OB’s number. I can’t wait to hear about all of their new experiences as they enter parenthood, and I hope this Essential Organizer is as helpful for them as the Birth to One Year Essential Organizer has been for me!
5 Stars A must have.
I also wished I’d had this one from the get-go. It really does help you organzie everything and really helps you remember what things are happening as they are happening. It’s just a great organzier and I will be buying this for future pregnant friends. Also recommend The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy.
5 Stars A must have for any organized mom-to-be!
I was lucky enough to come across this organizer very early on in my pregnancy and have since recommended it to all my preggo friends and co-workers. Not only is it chock full of wonderful features, it is also nice to look at. Mind you, this is not one of those pregnancy journals with blank pages to record thoughts/feelings about your pregnancy and pictures of other people’s babies - this is a simple, elegant and extremely useful ORGANIZER. Just wanted to make that clear so folks are not disappointed if they are expecting something else.
I am a pretty organized person to begin with, but I truly believe in “pregnancy brain” - so this organizer was a godsend when often times I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was! It is divided into 6 sections: intro, healthy start, prep for baby, prep for childbirth, at home w/ baby and resources.
Intro - my favorite features of the organizer are in this section: the checklist and the calendar. I can’t tell you how many times I referenced this section! The checklist is a to-do list in a timeline format split out by the weeks of your pregnancy, it helps to keep track of things like when you should sign up for childbirth classes, etc. The calendar was a great place to keep track of all my appointments, classes, tours and when to take my belly photos. 
A healthy start - the features I used most in this section were the pages for pre-natal visits and the weight gain chart. The pages for the pre-natal visits have lines to note your questions for your care provider. This was great, particularly in the earlier part of my pregnancy when my visits were 4 weeks apart. If a question came to me randomly, I would jot it down and by the time my next appt came around, I had a whole list of questions for my provider. It really helped me make the most of those visits. The weight gain chart let me check at a glance whether I was on-track. I just make a little star next to the measurements that were taken on the medical scale vs. one at home, since there was some variation.
Prep for baby - I used the shopping list and thank you notes list the most. I also got Baby Bargains, 8th Edition: Secrets to Saving 20% to 50% on Baby Furniture, Gear, Clothes, Toys, Maternity Wear and Much, Much More! (another wonderful resource) to decide what to put on the registry, then recorded details about each item in this organizer. It was so helpful when I was in the store on on the website adding items, since everything was right there.
Prep for childbirth - the pages set aside for taking notes in childbirth prep class were really helpful, since I was able to keep all my pregnancy-related info in one place. The packing checklist was comprehensive and I had everything I needed in my hospital bag. There is a part called Childbirth Memories - a tip - definitely jot down as much as you can as soon as you can because you’ll be amazed at how fuzzy your memory gets with all that sleep deprivation.
At home with baby - I purchased the companion organizer by these authors - The Essential Baby Organizer: Birth to One Year (The Essential Organizers)- so I haven’t used this section as much since the other one is so comprehensive.
Resources - A ton of great websites and books are listed in this section, I also jotted down other websites in the margins as I came across them. There is also a handy plastic pocket inside the back cover, I used it to keep information that my provider would give me at visits.
The organizer is a good size, small enough to fit in my work tote (and could stash a pen in the spiral binding). The binding also allows you to flip the cover all the way open. Seems like a small point, but when you use it as much as I did, I found that to be essential. And it doesn’t look like a frilly baby book, so I could pull it out while I was at work and it just looked like a cool notebook!
I highly recommend this organizer to anyone who is, plans to be, or knows someone who is pregnant. There is a lot that will be happening during your pregnancy - this organizer can store it all so you don’t have to keep it in your head!
Filed under: Parenting Advice Book Reviews