Free answer
Adding your baby to health insurance
This is the most expensive thing on this list to get wrong, and the easiest to avoid. A birth qualifies you to add your newborn outside the normal enrollment period, but only for a limited time. Coverage is normally backdated to the date of birth once you enroll, which matters because newborn care in those first days is expensive.
There’s a clock on this. A birth opens a limited enrollment window. On the federal Marketplace it is 60 days; employer plans differ and some states have changed theirs recently.
What people get wrong
- A newborn is often covered under the mother's policy for a short period after birth. That is not the same as being enrolled, and it runs out.
- Missing the window can mean waiting for the next open enrollment, with a gap in between.
- If you have coverage through two parents' plans, check which is primary before the bills arrive.
This one differs by state
Employer-plan windows are set by a mix of federal rules, state law and the plan itself, and states do change them — Texas extended its newborn enrollment window from 31 to 60 days for plans issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2026. Do not assume your state matches the 60-day Marketplace figure, in either direction.
Where this comes from
Checked against these sources on 2026-10-12. Rules change — if a deadline matters to you, confirm it with the authority rather than with us.
Knowing it and doing it are different jobs
That’s the answer, in full, and it costs nothing. FIRST YEAR, FIGURED OUT. is the part that remembers it for you: this and 6 other admin topics as an ordered checklist, built around your due date, ticked off as you go, alongside the roadmap, the tracker and the 3 a.m. guides.