5x what you need to do if your girlfriend is pregnant

I heard myself say it. “No way, you don’t need to take a breastfeeding course, it will all come naturally.” Friend E is going on leave and just mentioned all the things she still has to do in the coming weeks. Breastfeeding course, washing baby clothes (with pH-neutral detergent of course), reading up, and so on. “Breastfeeding course! What nonsense. It either works or it doesn’t, a course won’t change that.” The next morning I woke up with a bad feeling. Who was I to have an opinion about her breastfeeding course? As if I, just because I happened to have given birth three times, had the sole right to decide what is possible and what is not? Therefore: here are 5 things you need to do if your girlfriend is pregnant.

1. Be happy

Even if you feel a bit jealous (she does, you don’t) and are afraid of the future because your lives are going to change drastically and you might lose each other a bit: be especially happy for her. This is life-defining and life-changing for her. The last thing she needs is a grumpy friend. And you know, if you are super enthusiastic, she will also feel safe to share her doubts with you and you will see that you are not that far apart.

2. Together on the Shirley Temple

If you keep going on as usual, it will get a bit tricky in your friendship. Make super tasty non-alcoholic cocktails or take her to the Amstel Hotel where they have the best non-alcoholic champagne. I seriously inquired about ordering bottles there, but it had to be by the pallet and I was already at the end of my pregnancy, but otherwise, I would have definitely done it.

3. Come up with names together

I found this the most fun with my girlfriends and female colleagues. Going through all the titles and searching for all the names of models (which often aren’t their real names, but anyway) on models.com looking for the coolest name. And oh yes, you shouldn’t mind if she wants to keep the final name a secret from her and her husband. That’s a thing with pregnant women.

4. ‘Just cross’

Not literally, but figuratively yes. My best friend, who is nine years older than I am and already had kids at a young age, advised me when another friend of mine got pregnant to adopt the two-year formula. For two years, women really do some strange things when they are pregnant and giving birth. Suddenly talking about themselves in the third person, bringing their baby along when you go for a drink (you will understand this later because where do you go with your child? But now you find it so silly) and saying they can’t have lunch because ‘the little one’ is sleeping and so on. So for two years you do ‘just cross’ in your friendship and then you will see that you have such a cool friend that it all turns out fine.

5. Don’t advise anything

Unless your girlfriend asks for it. Every person is different, every pregnancy too. Just because you had a nice home birth doesn’t mean your girlfriend wants that. Everyone should follow their gut feeling. Moreover, you feel so unique when you are pregnant that you really don’t want all those ‘been there, done that’ advices from other mothers. So keep your advice to yourself.

Returning to my slip-up: I called E the next day to apologize for the negative breastfeeding advice. And what did she say: that I really had to stop that. That she asked all the women who had a child what they had done and would definitely draw her own conclusions. “But if you want to take a breastfeeding course, you should definitely take that breastfeeding course. But looking at your breasts…” “Then it’s all good,” she added. And then we both had to laugh really hard.