How to save for a new baby in nine months

Most big costs arrive without warning. A baby gives you about nine months' notice, and a fairly clear list of what's coming. The general way to protect money for a purpose is on how to lock your money. This page is about turning those nine months into a plan.

Why a new baby puts pressure on the money

Health costs are mostly paid out of pocket in Nigeria. In 2023, out-of-pocket payments made up 71.9% of the country's current health expenditure.^[1] For most families, antenatal care and delivery are paid from their own money, often in the same weeks that baby items are being bought.

Few families have a cushion for it. EFInA's 2026 survey found that 62% of Nigerian adults would find emergency money very difficult to raise.^[2] Without money set aside, a delivery bill quickly becomes a loan.

The good news is the deadline. Nine months of paydays is enough time to spread a large cost into manageable pieces, if the money is held apart from the start.

The costs, by stage

An illustration of how to plan, not a price list. Use quotes from your own hospital and shops.

Stage	What it covers	When the money is needed
Antenatal care	Registration, check-ups, scans, tests, supplements	Month by month through the pregnancy
Delivery	The hospital's delivery package, and a buffer if care changes	The last weeks of the pregnancy
Baby items	Clothes, cot or basket, bath items, first diapers	From about month seven
The first months	Diapers, feeding, clinic visits, help at home	Every month after the birth

How to plan it, with or without Delight

1. Get real quotes. Ask your hospital for its antenatal and delivery packages and what each covers. Ask what happens to the price if care changes.
2. Add a buffer to delivery. Care doesn't always go to plan, and a buffer is cheaper than a loan.
3. Divide by the paydays you have. If delivery and baby items come to ₦600,000 and you have eight paydays before your savings date, that's ₦75,000 a payday. (An illustration.)
4. Keep antenatal money reachable month by month, and keep delivery money protected, so check-ups can't slowly eat the delivery fund. A protected place matters: in Kenya, simply giving people a safe place to keep money raised their health savings by 66%.^[3]
5. Set the savings date early, two to four weeks before the expected date, in case the baby comes early.
6. Plan the first months now, so they start funded instead of starting from zero.

When family and friends send money for the baby, move it straight into the baby budgets. Money that arrives for a purpose is easiest to keep when it has somewhere to go.

Set it up in Delight

1. Create a Baby budget that repeats monthly, keep it near the top of Funding priority, and check that Auto-fund is enabled.
2. Add a Stack to it for delivery and baby items. Set the target to your total with the buffer, and the due date two to four weeks before the expected date.
3. Choose Yes, but a limited amount, so you can take out a set amount for antenatal visits while the rest stays protected. If you'd rather keep antenatal money fully separate, give it its own small monthly budget and choose No, lock until due for the Stack instead.
4. Mind the 7-day window. On the due date the Stack unlocks, and its money stays spendable for 7 days; after that, anything left moves to the Baby budget's surplus, where it's still yours to use.
5. Pay hospitals and shops from the Baby budget by bank transfer. The standard bank charge applies.
6. After the birth, keep the Baby budget going for the monthly costs. Put a weekly drip on it if diapers and small buys tend to run out before payday.