The paperwork awaits

How is your baby growing?

Slowly, the space is becoming cramped for your baby, which is why your little one's kicks and movements are slower. At 32 weeks pregnant, your baby continues to practice breathing in and out with the amniotic fluid, which may cause hiccups in your lower abdomen. 

How is your belly growing?

At 32 weeks pregnant, your baby may have already turned. If so, you may feel its little feet on your diaphragm. Your little one's kicks may cause short-term shortness of breath. Therefore, rest periods are a good idea for you.  

What makes you grow as a family?

Now there are only 8 weeks left until your expected delivery date. This is a good time to gather all important documents and prepare or send in various applications.

What you should already submit or what you can take care of:

• Maternity allowance. No later than 7 weeks before the birth, you will receive the 'Certificate of expected date of birth' from your gynecologist or midwife. With this certificate, you can apply for maternity allowance from your insurance company if you are insured under the public system, or from the Federal Social Insurance Office if you are privately insured. Important to know: After the birth of your baby, you must submit the birth certificate.  
• If your partner wishes to take parental leave after the birth of your baby, they must submit an application now at the latest. This is because, as a rule, a simple application must be submitted to the employer seven weeks before the start of parental leave. You can find a template for this notification.

There are various government benefits during pregnancy and after childbirth, such as parental care allowance and child allowance. Here you can find a complete >summary.
However, you can only apply for parental allowance and child allowance after giving birth.  

• Since parental allowance is paid retroactively for a maximum period of 3 months, it is best to submit your application within the first 3 months of your baby's life. To see how high your parental leave allowance might be, there is an official parental allowance calculator >parental allowance calculator to see how much the parental allowance can be.
• About child benefit: After your baby is born, you will receive a tax identification number (Steuer-IdNr.) for your child from the Federal Central Tax Office. A few days later, you will automatically receive a welcome letter from your family benefits office with your personal access code for applying for child benefit. It is best to wait for the letter and then use the access code to apply for child benefit, as most of the information on the application form will already be filled in for you. Here is the application for child benefit.

However you imagine and plan your family life, Mom Viola has this advice for you:

Keep your ideas to yourself. Everything will turn out differently. In fact, I didn't want to breastfeed my child for very long or carry her in a baby carrier, and of course I wanted her to sleep alone in her own bed as early as possible. When she was born, I realized that my daughter had a great need for closeness and drank only breast milk. So now I am one of those mothers who breastfed their child for 14 months, carried them around most of the time, and even at the age of 3, they often sleep with mom and dad. Simply because it's best for her and, consequently, for me and my partner. But my friends and family kept asking me, with the slogan: this is exactly what you didn't want back then... What can I say, children are not programmable.