15 Postpartum Essentials You Need in Your Recovery Kit

If there is one thing you can never be overly prepared for, it’s those first few postpartum weeks after your baby is born. Everything you see on social media is about getting the nursery ready and packing your hospital bag But not on what you are going to need as far as postpartum essentials. While all of these things are important, it is much more important to take care of yourself and prepare for what YOU will need. Because you are going to have a brand new baby who is going to depend on you 100%. 

Not to let you down, but those first few weeks are TOUGH. Lots of moms have never been in a hospital before, let alone having surgery/delivery and leaving with a newborn! Even if you have, it is still hard and uncomfortable. There are lots of unexpected things that can happen during and after your delivery. However, there are lots of things to help make it much more tolerable that you CAN plan for. 

When I had my first son, I spent hours scouring the internet and watching Youtube videos to try and see what I actually needed and what I didn’t. Even after all of that, I was unimaginably unprepared and was overnight Amazon ordering and instacarting all day long. I wish I had prepared more for my own postpartum essentials.

In this post, I will be sharing the top 21 postpartum essentials that you need in your recovery kit after learning the hard way!

This essentials kit saved me. While they give you everything you need at the hospital, you are going to quickly run out when you get home. And, the things in this kit are a lot better than what they have at the hospital. 

For example, the perennial bottle that they had at the hospital was not angled. You have to move into really uncomfortable positions to use it and that is the last thing you need when you are already in so much pain. The hospital also gives you disposable underwear. I HATED these. The frida mom ones were so much better and really made me feel like they were secure and holding me in. 

The ice pads in this kit give so much relief when you are in pain and are worth it. There are so many articles on how to make the pads at home and freeze them, but I didn’t want a pad in my freezer….. So, if you’re like me, opt to buy the Frida Mom ice pads. 

This entire kit is your postpartum best friend.

Like I said earlier, this is just one of those things that you are going to need and use and wish you had. I used this postpartum for weeks and it helped when using the bathroom and in the shower. You don’t think about it too much before the baby comes, but you are going to be sore and stitched-up down there. Any comfort that you can get to relieve that pain will be 100% worth it.

#3 Prenatal/Postnatal Vitamins

Even when you are postpartum, it’s recommended to continue taking your prenatal vitamins or a postnatal vitamin. When I was pregnant, I put these on a subscription, and I didn’t stop taking them until almost a year after having my baby. Fortunately, this helped me avoid hair loss, vitamin deficiencies and I am sure much more. 

When breastfeeding, there are also a lot of different supplements you can take to help boost your milk supply. I was taking 5-6 breastfeeding supplements a day as well as my prenatal and iron supplement, but I had an amazing milk supply so it was definitely worth it.

#4 Pads/Underwear

When you get home, you will want to have lots of extra pads/disposable underwear to wear for a few weeks while you are recovering. It is normal to continue to bleed while you are healing and you will want to be prepared for that. There are many different recommendations online of people who prefer the diapers to the pads and vice versa so I opted to get both and I actually used and liked them both. It’s best to stock up on a package of each, but I wouldn’t recommend overbuying as you will be stuck with a bunch that you might end up not having a use for.

When you are just coming home from the hospital, your main priority is your baby. (and it should be healing too) I found that what I wanted most was convenience and less things to clean up. Having a caddy or storage holder for all of your postpartum essentials is a great way to guarantee you don’t have a bunch of mess laying around your bathroom that is overstimulating. 

There are many different options. You can go with a caddy that you can carry or bring around with you, or you can opt in for a rolling cart. For my first pregnancy, I had two caddies, one for each bathroom. And this time around I am planning on doing the same.

These tucks pads are a lifesaver when you come home from the hospital. Lots of moms suffer from hemorrhoids and lots of pain down there after their delivery. This is definitely a postpartum essential that creates a lot of relief and makes things more manageable. You can put these medicated liners on top of your pad and it will give you a lot of relief. Even if you are like me and didn’t have hemorrhoids, it still provided a lot of relief down there to all of the pain that I was feeling.

A postpartum belly band is extremely helpful when you are ready for it. There are many moms who begin to wear belly bands as soon as they are able to. I will be very honest with you, after you give birth, it doesn’t just all go back to the way it was before. There is lots of swelling, your skin is looser and it felt like I had a stomach that was made of jelly. A postpartum belly band will help a lot with tummy support. It is not comfortable at first and definitely takes some getting used to, but once you start, you will definitely be able to feel a difference and be happy that you did.

The #1 postpartum essentials item that someone else recommended to me was actually a heated blanket, and let me tell you, I was so glad that I got one when I did. I actually brought it to the hospital. Not only was the hospital freezing, but after delivery, my body couldn’t stop shaking. As soon as the heated blanket was turned on and I started using it, my body warmed up and the shaking stopped. It was such a relief and helped me sleep so much better in the hospital.  

After we got home, I used this every single night. It helped me go to sleep so much faster and was comfortable when I was nursing at night. I have always been a really warm person, so I was not expecting to be freezing postpartum, but I definitely was. I would 100% recommend getting a heated blanket. 

I am sure I am not the only mom out there who thought that babies knew how to breastfeed and it was human nature that would come so naturally…. Well, now I know that is NOT the case. I didn’t realize that it would be really painful in the beginning and hard to get the hang of. I had to supplement with pumping, and I did not have the right flange sizes for my pump. This caused a lot of discomfort, pain, cracking, bleeding etc… Having a really good nipple cream can really help avoid all of those downsides and can assist in latching. This is a postpartum essentials must-have. 

#10 Multiple Flange Sizes

Another thing I would have NEVER thought of was to get different flange sizes for my pump. I was prepared to only pump as a last resort and honestly wasn’t planning on it at all. Little did I know that I wouldn’t be able to get my son to latch and I would have to start pumping right away… I didn’t even know that there were multiple sizes of flanges. 

Well, mine didn’t fit and I also didn’t know that until my nipples were cracking and bleeding and I was scouring the internet and mom blogs all night to see what was wrong with me and how to handle it so I could feed my baby. I ended up ordering a bunch of flange sizes to test them all out and eventually found the one that was right for me. It would have been a lot easier to have them on hand instead of those few painful days I had to wait to get them shipped to me.

#11 Comfortable Lounge Sets

This one sounds really obvious. I had plenty of pajamas and things that were comfortable, but I was used to wearing really tight pajamas or ones that were a little bit see-through. And then, next thing you know, my house was full of people for days, and I also had family members who came to visit in the hospital. 

The pajamas that I had made me feel really self-conscious or were so frumpy that I didn’t feel like I was comfortable or presentable. You are already going through so much. Treat yourself to some cute lounge sets that will make you feel more human and put together those first few postpartum weeks. You will thank yourself later.

When you first start nursing and your supply comes in, you leak A LOT. I actually already had reusable nursing pads that I was using, but it was just one more thing to worry about when it was time for laundry. Last-minute, I ended up buying a gigantic box of nursing pads that I kept for the first year or so that I was pumping. You can just throw them in your purse or diaper bag and keep them with you at all times. So, if you spring a leak, you’re covered.

If you are planning on breastfeeding or pumping, you are going to need a lot more nursing and pumping bras than you are expecting to need. Regularly, I only have 2-3 really good bras, so I thought I would need 1-2 nursing bras. But, that was far from the case. 

When you are full of milk, you can’t go without a bra. Or you will just continuously leak. I did not know this and was used to not wearing a bra all the time. But, you will need to wear a bra pretty much all the time. Also, you will be leaking and needing to wash your bras very often, so make sure that you have enough unless you want to do laundry every single day. I would recommend getting a few different kinds rather than all the same kind so you can try them out and see which one is best. I tried out really expensive ones and really cheap ones, and these were my favorites:

This is one of those things that you see and think “that’s definitely not essential.” But, to tell you the truth, I used this every single day for a year. I had a really good milk supply and would get painful, clogged ducts. But, it was really important for me to continue to breastfeed. A friend recommended this lactation massager and I thought it was too expensive. I went through two other ones before I finally got this one, and this was the best and lasted the longest.

The heat helps break up the clumps and lumps and soothe and the vibration is stimulating and would give me the best let-downs. It would have been so much better to have this from the start, so I would definitely recommend this massager as a postpartum essential. 

Once I went to the hospital to have our baby, I was not expecting to use my pregnancy pillow at all, but I ended up really needing it postpartum. Being sore and recovering from the delivery, the only way that I could fall asleep was by using the body pillow and propping it between my legs. This really helps take any pressure off and make sleeping so much more comfortable.