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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Babies arrive early: the plan is done at T-4 weeks, not T-0; late-pregnancy items are luxuries, not dependencies.