A new kid changes three things about existing coverage, and one of them has a deadline.
The amount is the obvious one. A household with a newborn has an eighteen-year obligation that didn't exist last month, plus whatever college looks like after that. Running a needs analysis again is a twenty-minute conversation, and the number usually moves more than people expect.
The stay-at-home parent needs coverage too, and this is where households underinsure most reliably. If that parent isn't there, someone is paying for childcare, and full-time infant care in the Portland area runs well past $1,500 a month. That's a real expense a death benefit has to cover, even though no paycheck disappeared.
Beneficiary structure is the part with a trap in it. Naming a minor child as beneficiary means the money can't go to them directly. A court appoints a conservator, the funds sit under court supervision, and the child receives the entire remaining balance at 18 or 21 depending on the state. That's rarely what anyone intended. The usual fix is naming the surviving spouse as primary and a trust as contingent, so there's an adult managing it and a schedule attached.
Then the deadline item. Most group life plans at work and many individual policies have a window, often 30 or 60 days from birth, to add a child rider or update dependent coverage without underwriting. Miss it and you're waiting for open enrollment or answering health questions. Handle it in the first month while you're already doing paperwork for the Social Security number.
Guardianship goes in the will, not on any insurance form. No beneficiary designation can name who raises your kid, and that's the document new parents put off longest. It belongs with an estate attorney in your state.