Things to Do Before Baby Arrives Checklist: Week by Week for Couples (Weeks 28 to 40)

Disclosure: Codot is our product. Dan and Maya below are a fictional couple in Columbus, Ohio, written to show how one third trimester might be split between two people. Medical and safety points link to official sources. For anything about your own pregnancy, ask your OB or midwife. Checked November 5, 2026.

TL;DR:

• Weeks 28 to 32 are for slow paperwork: pediatrician interviews, parental leave notice, insurance and hospital pre-registration. They depend on other people's calendars, so start them first.
• Weeks 32 to 36 are for physical setup: the car seat installed and checked, the sleep space, freezer meals.
• Weeks 36 to 40 are for the bag and the phone numbers. The NHS suggests packing at least 3 weeks before the due date.
• Give every task one owner. The partner who isn't pregnant can take whole jobs, including remembering them.
• Splitting the list between two partners? Codot lets you hand tasks to each other by voice for free; dated milestone reminders and a weekly review are Codot Max.

At a glance

• Pediatrician: the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests interviewing pediatricians "during the final months of your pregnancy" (HealthyChildren.org).
• Leave notice (US): for foreseeable FMLA leave, an employee "must give at least 30 days advance notice if it is possible and practical to do so" (U.S. Department of Labor, Fact Sheet 28E).
• Car seat: NHTSA says a child under age 1 "should always ride in a rear-facing car seat" and links to inspection stations and recall registration (NHTSA).
• Hospital bag: the NHS suggests packing "at least 3 weeks ahead of the due date" (NHS).
• Codot: friends, reminding each other by voice, contacts with notes and voice input are free; timed and repeating reminders, the daily briefing and scheduled automations are Codot Max at $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year (20x the free plan's usage), with a 7-day free Max trial (codot.ai).

Why does the third trimester prep list end up with one person?

Usually it's the person carrying the baby. Maya is 28 weeks pregnant on Thursday, November 5, 2026, due Thursday, January 28, 2027, works full time, and has read every checklist. Dan, her husband, keeps asking "what can I do?", which is kind and still leaves Maya as the project manager.

The checklists we read for this article, including Babylist's week-by-week checklist and Baby Chick's third trimester list, cover the tasks well, but neither says who owns what.

So they agreed on one thing: Dan would own the list. He'd write every task down, give it an owner, and make sure it came back at the right week. Maya would keep the medical side (appointments, questions for her OB, her pregnancy app) and anything only she could do.

How do two partners share one baby prep list?

Give every task one owner, and let either of you hand a task to the other in one sentence. Dan and Maya both installed Codot and added each other as friends. Then Dan talked through the checklist one item at a time, naming an owner for each.

The sentence that made the split work took four seconds:

"Remind Maya to call the pediatrician's office Tuesday about a prenatal interview."

Codot creates the task and shows a share card; Dan taps Confirm once, and the task appears in Maya's own list. On Tuesday, November 10, she gets the reminder on her own phone. Dan didn't have to text her, and she didn't have to open a list. It works both ways: that evening Maya said "Remind Dan to book the car seat check for Saturday," and it landed on his phone. Adding friends and reminding each other are on the free plan, and an assigned task can also repeat ("Maya, refill the water filter every Sunday"); repeating tasks are Codot Max.

Dan also asked Codot to "break 'ready for the baby' into tasks for each week until January 28," kept about two thirds of the result, and assigned them by voice.

Weeks 28 to 32: what should you do first?

Start with anything that needs a call, a form or someone else's schedule.

• Choose a pediatrician. The AAP suggests asking other parents and your obstetrician for names, then interviewing each pediatrician in the final months of pregnancy, ideally with both parents there. Ask the office about insurance, hours and who answers after closing (HealthyChildren.org).
• File parental leave paperwork for both of you. FMLA provides up to 12 workweeks for eligible employees (DOL Fact Sheet 28) and asks for 30 days' notice where possible. Company policy, short-term disability and state programs have their own forms, so ask HR for the full list in writing.
• Ask how to add the baby to health insurance. On a Marketplace plan you can enroll up to 60 days after the birth with coverage from the birth date (HealthCare.gov). Employer plans set their own deadline; ask HR.
• Check the hospital's pre-registration and tour. Each hospital does this differently, so go by its own maternity pages.
• Ask your OB or midwife what's coming medically. Visits, tests and vaccines in the third trimester depend on you and your care team.

Dan took the paperwork; Maya took the pediatrician interviews, with Dan in the room. Thirty days before the due date is Tuesday, December 29, so Dan scheduled his own leave notice for early December.

How do you set reminders for due-date milestones?

Say each milestone once, with the due date in the sentence, and Codot turns it into a dated reminder. Dan set three on the first Sunday:

"Our due date is January 28. At 36 weeks, remind both of us to finish packing the hospital bag."

"At 32 weeks, remind me to install the car seat and book an inspection."

"At 34 weeks, remind Maya and me to start cooking freezer meals that weekend."

Each becomes a dated task; the hospital bag one falls on Thursday, December 31, New Year's Eve. Codot also writes these tasks into Google Calendar or Apple Calendar. Codot adds its own entries alongside the OB visits Maya put in her calendar herself.

Each reminder arrives once, and the weekly review below catches anything that slipped. Timed reminders are Codot Max.

Weeks 32 to 36: what needs to be physically ready?

The car seat, installed and checked. NHTSA's car seat page links to a locator for inspection stations and a form to register the seat for recall notices (NHTSA). Safe Kids Worldwide lists free inspection events and a search for certified technicians (Safe Kids). Dan read the seat manual and the car's manual, installed the seat at 32 weeks, and booked a check for the following Saturday, which left time to fix anything the technician found.

The sleep space. Assemble the crib or bassinet, wash the bedding, and follow the safe sleep guidance your pediatrician or hospital gives you.

Freezer meals. Label each container with the dish and the date. Dan cooked; Maya kept the list of what was in the freezer and what still had to be bought.

Chores you'll forget in week 39. Pet care, trash day, bill due dates. Assign each once and make it repeat.

What should a Sunday-evening check-in look like?

Ten minutes a week on what's left and who owns it. Dan set it up once:

"Every Sunday at 7pm, list what's left on our baby prep list for this week, with who owns each one."

On Sunday, December 13, at 7:00 pm, Codot listed the car seat check on Saturday (Dan), the last pediatrician call-back (Maya), freezer meal shopping (Maya), and HR leave forms (Dan, two days late). They read it together and moved one item to Tuesday by voice.

Scheduled automations like this are Codot Max (up to 20). On iPhone, Codot also makes a daily briefing each morning at 7:00 with the day's reminders, handy in the last two weeks.

Weeks 36 to 40: what goes in the hospital bag for mom, dad and baby?

Pack early and keep the bag by the door. The NHS suggests packing at least 3 weeks before the due date (NHS). Check your hospital's own list too, since what it supplies varies.

For mom (shortened from the NHS list): birth plan and hospital notes, loose clothes for labor, a dressing gown and slippers, nightwear (front-opening if you plan to breastfeed), changes of clothes and underwear, nursing bras and breast pads, maternity pads, a wash bag, snacks and a water bottle, any medicines you take, and a phone charger with a long cable.

For dad or the birth partner: the NHS suggests "a change of clothes," toiletries, phone and charger, snacks and drinks, any medicines, and change for parking. We'd add ID and the insurance card, and a bag small enough to grab from the car with one hand.

For the baby: bodysuits and sleepsuits, a going-home outfit, a hat, scratch mittens and socks, diapers and wipes, a blanket, and the car seat, already installed.

Dan made the bag one shared task with three sub-lists, and Maya added to hers over two weeks. The December 31 reminder was the deadline.

Where do you keep the numbers you'll need at 3am?

Save them now as contacts with notes. Dan said each one once:

"Add Dr. Okafor at Riverside Pediatrics. She sees newborns at our hospital, after-hours calls go to a nurse line. We met her November 19."

"Add our doula, Jess Moreno. She'll meet us at the hospital."

"Add the hospital's labor and delivery number. Maya's OB told us when to call it."

Contacts with notes are free. The AAP notes that most hospitals ask for your pediatrician's name when you're admitted; Dan asks Codot "What's our pediatrician's name and number?" and reads it off. When to call the hospital or your midwife is for your care team to tell you.

How can the non-pregnant partner carry more of the mental load?

Own whole tasks, including the remembering. "Tell me what to do" still makes the pregnant partner the one who tracks the list and follows up. Owning a task means you find out what it involves, put it on the list, do it, and close it.

For Dan that meant keeping the list, taking the jobs heavy on calls and forms, and asking before assigning Maya anything, since only she knew which weeks were hard. For Maya, the biggest change was that she stopped running the checklist in her head at night.

A shared note can do this if you both keep it up. With Codot, a task assigned out loud reaches the other person's phone on the right day, and the Sunday list arrives whether or not anyone remembers to look.

Which app should a couple use for a things to do before baby arrives checklist?

Use Codot when two partners want to split the prep list. Adding each other as friends and handing tasks over by voice are free; dated milestone reminders and a weekly review are Codot Max. Codot is the voice AI personal assistant for the prep work: tasks, reminders you send to a partner, milestone dates and contacts. A pregnancy app follows the pregnancy itself, such as the baby's development, kick counts and contraction timing, and medical questions go to your OB or midwife.

• What to Expect has a week-by-week pregnancy tracker, a journal for symptoms, appointments and kick counts, and a registry checklist; it's free on the App Store as of November 2026 (What to Expect, App Store).
• BabyCenter has a week-by-week pregnancy section, a pregnancy calendar for appointments and symptoms, and birth clubs by due month, as of November 2026 (BabyCenter app).
• Babylist is built around baby registries and publishes a free week-by-week checklist (Babylist).

We'd pick by job: a pregnancy app for the pregnancy, Babylist for the registry, and Codot for "who's calling HR, who's booking the car seat check, and did anyone pack the bag." If you searched for pregnancy apps for dads because you want to carry part of the work, a shared list will do more than a weekly fruit-size comparison. Codot has been running for almost two years, and more people use it every month.

More on family tools: family organizer apps for moms compared, picking a family AI assistant that won't shut down, voice reminders so you stop holding tasks in your head and fixing 12-hour nurse schedules.

How to set it up this weekend

Both partners install Codot from the App Store, add each other as friends. Give every task on the list one owner, say your due date with the 32, 34 and 36-week milestones, set the Sunday review, and save the key contacts. New accounts get 7 days of Codot Max free; after the trial you go back to the free plan without being charged.

Timed and repeating reminders, the daily briefing (iPhone only) and scheduled automations need Codot Max: $12.99 a month or $99.99 a year, with 20x the free plan's usage.

FAQ

What should we do before the baby arrives, week by week?

In weeks 28 to 32, choose a pediatrician and handle leave, insurance and hospital paperwork. In weeks 32 to 36, install and check the car seat and cook freezer meals. From week 36, finish the hospital bag; the NHS suggests packing at least 3 weeks before the due date.

When should we choose a pediatrician?

The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests interviewing pediatricians during the final months of pregnancy, and notes that most hospitals ask for the pediatrician's name at admission.

What should dad pack in the hospital bag?

The NHS suggests a change of clothes, toiletries, phone and charger, snacks, any medicines and change for parking. Add ID and the insurance card. Codot can hold the shared packing list and remind both partners at 36 weeks on Codot Max.

Is there a pregnancy app for dads that helps split the work?

Pregnancy apps like What to Expect and BabyCenter focus on the pregnancy itself. To split tasks, Codot lets partners add each other as friends and remind each other by voice for free; dated reminders and a weekly review are Codot Max.

If you'd like the baby prep list in one place, with the right task reaching the right phone in the right week, get Codot on the App Store.