Lottie Ryan is beginning to prep the spare room in her apartment as a nursery ahead of the arrival of her first child – but admits she needs some help.
The RTE 2FM presenter is expecting a little bundle of joy this summer with her husband Fabio Aprile, and wants to start organising their house as soon as possible.
While looking up baby products online, Lottie quickly found herself overwhelmed by all the options and has turned to fellow parents for advice.
“I am nesting is that what it’s called? Basically I am obsessively dissecting my spare room, planning a nursery,” she said on social media.
“I’ve been doing so for the past couple of days. I’ve been been on Pinterest and every other possible website you can imagine and I’m feeling overwhelmed by how many products are out there and not knowing what is essential.
“I’ve come looking for a little bit of advice from other parents because parents know best who’ve been through this before.”
As she lives in a apartment with her hubby, space is limited and they only want to buy what they absolutely need.
“I live in a two-bedroom apartment, I do not live in a huge family home so I need to be very selective and very careful with the items that I am choosing,” she said.
“I don’t want crap everywhere, I want the essentials. I want to know what are the one two or max three must-have essential items for a first time parent.
“No extras, no it’s-cute-to-have this. I just don’t have the space to have million of things everywhere.
“I also need to know what lasts. I don’t want to be throwing stuff out and buying new things. Any and all advice welcome when it comes to these types of things.”
Lottie and Fabio learned of her pregnancy late last year, and couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the positive result on the test.
“Our journey was an unusual one. It all started when I went to freeze my eggs,” she told Jennifer Zamparelli on RTE 2FM.
“I knew I was of a certain age and I had all these ideas. I said listen, we better freeze them because I’m on a rollercoaster of wanting to perform so we went to the clinic and started a conversation with the doctors.
“He said to me if we were to start trying now, it would take about a year. I said i better come off the pill so we can check everything and be prepared and three weeks later, I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom surrounded by tests.”
She continued, “I said to Fabio go get another one there’s something wrong with this one as well. When I say we got a rake a tests, I mean Fabio must have emptied every chemist in the area.
“We both eventually went, I don’t think they’re all wrong. I don’t think anything can prepare you for seeing that positive mark on the test.”
Due to restrictions surrounding Covid-19, Fabio hasn’t been able to attend every scan and appointment with Lottie, which is something they’ve struggled with.
“I was really nervous so we went privately initially to have a scan and I was able to bring him into that,” Lottie said.
“But since then I’ve been to hospital twice and he hasn’t been able to come with me. It’s been emotionally difficult.
“It’s not great not being able to have him in there but the doctors and nurses and midwives are just so incredibly gentle and caring and they understand that it’s sh*t. We’re getting on with it.”