After the baby is born, this will be your time to establish those all-important bonds – enjoy your maternity and paternity leave. With a new baby, you will need to:

• Decide on post-natal care ensuring that the baby has regular check-ups and that you follow the vaccination schedules
• Make sure that your child has National Identification Card, Birth Certificate and Passport Your child’s national registration number will be important when you file for income tax refunds
• Find suitable daycare for your child, if you intend to go back to work – whether this is in the form of a family member, nanny or day-care centre
• Prepare for your child’s future – it is not too early to start planning for your child’s education.
• Decide who will take care of your child, if both parents die at the same time

Note that we do not recommend the purchase of insurance on the life of your child, as we believe that there are more effective ways of saving for university and surely, you are not relying on the proceeds from your child’s death to replace an income.

Any money spent on insurance is better spent ensuring that you have sufficient life insurance coverage and that you have critical illness and disability income insurance.

Your greatest chance of losing family income is if you or your spouse should become disabled, so having disability insurance a must. This coverage should be enough replace at least 60% of your income. The most inexpensive way is to purchase coverage through your company’s group policy, if this is available. If this isn’t an option, consider purchasing individual disability insurance.

With a new baby, it will be important to look updating your will, if you have one, or put one in place now. As noted above, it is especially important now to draw up a will designating a guardian for your child should you and your spouse die together. You can also use your will to create a trust for your child’s inheritance. The trust allows you to specify how you want the money to be used (such as university education) and who will administer these funds.