Turn the pre-baby chaos into a staged logistics plan — leave paperwork, insurance deadlines, the hospital-bag/home-setup checklists, and the first-two-weeks operating plan with named owners. Use when asked help me prepare for a baby, what do I need to do before my due date, set up our parental leave plan, or newborn logistics checklist. Produces the countdown timeline by trimester-week, the deadline-driven paperwork list, and the week-1–2 operating plan both partners can run exhausted.
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Use new-parent-logistics to create a deadline-first baby-preparation plan from [due date and household shape], [each parent’s employment and leave details], and [insurance and constraints], with named owners, a T-12-to-T-2 timeline, paperwork ledger, and weeks 1–2 operating plan; flag plan-specific rules for verification.
Required inputs
[due date and household shape]
[each parent’s employment and leave details]
[insurance and constraints]
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SKILL.md
name: new-parent-logisticsdescription: "Turn the pre-baby chaos into a staged logistics plan — leave paperwork, insurance deadlines, the hospital-bag/home-setup checklists, and the first-two-weeks operating plan with named owners. Use when asked help me prepare for a baby, what do I need to do before my due date, set up our parental leave plan, or newborn logistics checklist. Produces the countdown timeline by trimester-week, the deadline-driven paperwork list, and the week-1–2 operating plan both partners can run exhausted."
New Parent Logistics Skill
The baby-prep industry sells product lists; what new parents actually get wrong are deadlines and decision-making-while-exhausted. The insurance enrollment window (often just 30 days after birth), the leave paperwork that HR needs weeks in advance, the pediatrician who needs booking before the birth — these have real cutoffs, unlike the fifteenth swaddle. This skill builds the plan backwards from the due date and forward through the first two weeks, on the assumption that after the birth nobody is reading anything longer than a checklist.
What This Skill Produces
The countdown timeline — what happens at T-12, T-8, T-4, T-2 weeks, deadline items first
The paperwork ledger — leave forms, insurance addition, birth certificate, benefits changes, each with its real window
The week-1–2 operating plan — shifts, meals, visitors policy, who calls whom — written for exhausted people
The decide-now list — decisions (pediatrician, name spellings, emergency contacts) that get worse when deferred to the sleepless period
Required Inputs
Ask for these if not provided:
Due date and household shape — partner? nearby family? other kids?
Employment/leave situation for each parent — employer leave policy if known, or flag it as the first to-do
Insurance setup — whose plan the baby joins; note the add-the-baby window is typically 30–60 days and jurisdiction/plan-specific
Constraints — budget, space, a move or job change colliding with the due date
Framework: The Deadline-First Rules
Sort by cutoff, not by aisle: insurance windows, leave-notice periods, and registration deadlines outrank all shopping. A missed enrollment window is a real financial event; a missing bottle warmer is a Tuesday errand.
Assume week 0 competence is zero: anything requiring judgment, comparison, or a phone tree gets done before the birth or assigned to a helper — the plan's reader is someone on 3 hours of sleep.
Babies arrive early: the plan is done at T-4 weeks, not T-0; late-pregnancy items are luxuries, not dependencies.
Named owner or it doesn't exist: every line gets one name (parent A, parent B, grandma, "hire it") — "we'll handle it" is how deadlines die.
The visitor policy is logistics: decide the visitors/help policy before the hormones and the in-laws arrive simultaneously; write it down as a united front.
Night shifts: [split] · Meals: [plan] · Visitors: [policy, verbatim] · Escalation: [pediatrician #, nurse line, when-to-call rules posted on the fridge]
Decide Now
[The judgment calls made while still sleeping]
Leave entitlements and insurance windows vary by country, state, and employer — verify each deadline with HR and the insurer; this checklist is a scaffold, not a legal reference.
Quality Checks
Every deadline item shows its actual window, marked verify-with-source
Plan is complete at T-4 weeks — early arrival breaks nothing
Week-1–2 plan is runnable by an exhausted stranger — no judgment calls left in it
Every line has exactly one named owner
The verify-with-HR/insurer line appears
Anti-Patterns
Do not lead with shopping — products are the least deadline-bound part
Do not leave leave-paperwork as "look into leave" — name the form, the notice period, the owner
Do not schedule judgment-heavy tasks after the birth
Do not write "both parents" as an owner — that's zero owners
Do not state insurance or leave rules as fact — windows vary; flag every one for verification