Money & life admin
The admin nobody mentions
Registering the birth, adding your name, and the paperwork that has actual deadlines attached.
Boring and time-limited. Do it in the first fortnight while you are off, because doing it later while working is considerably worse.
Registering the birth
In England and Wales you generally have 42 days. Scotland is 21. It is done at a register office, usually by appointment, and many hospitals will point you at the local one.
The bit that matters if you are not married or in a civil partnership: you do not automatically have parental responsibility. If you both attend the registration and your name goes on the certificate, you get it. If you do not, you do not, and fixing it later means a formal agreement or a court order.
This is not a technicality. Parental responsibility is what lets you consent to medical treatment, deal with schools and travel with your child. Go to the appointment.
The rest of it, roughly in order
- Child Benefit. Claim it. There is a time limit on backdating. Even if your income means it gets clawed back, claiming protects National Insurance credits for whoever is at home, which affects their state pension. People miss this constantly.
- Add the baby to your GP surgery. Usually done at registration or with a simple form.
- Tax-Free Childcare or Universal Credit childcare if relevant. Worth checking eligibility early, not when you need nursery.
- Update your own paperwork. Life insurance, pension beneficiaries, and a will. If you have no will and you are not married, the default outcomes are often not what you would choose.
- Passport, if you plan to travel in the first year. It takes longer than you think and needs the birth certificate.
Two things worth doing while you are at it
- Life insurance and income protection. Unglamorous. This is the year it starts to matter, and it is cheapest when you are young and well.
- A separate savings pot, however small, set up on a standing order. Not for anything specific. Just so it exists.
None of this is urgent in a way that feels urgent, which is exactly why it slips. One afternoon in week two covers nearly all of it.