Organized New Mom Tip #35: Enter Pedi Visit Info Straight into the Baby Book

When you bring your baby home, you have the best of intentions to document every little milestone. The big problem with that logic is that you have just brought your baby home.  Newborns have a knack for sucking all of that lovely scrap booking energy right out of your body.

Some of the most important information I’m sure you’ll want to keep is your little one’s progress as documented from his/her pedi visits. That stuff is gold to new parents, right?

Don’t tell yourself you’ll do it later. You won’t. Don’t put it in a special pile in a special place and tell yourself you’ll just spend a weekend assembling it all at once. You won’t.

The only way you’re going to keepsake this whole mess of memories is to walk straight through the door, fresh home from the doctor’s office, straight to your baby book and enter Baby’s progress right then and there. It takes just a couple of minutes to do it, and over time you’ll have documented all the juicy medical stuff that your teenager will be embarrassed about when you show his prom date.

Organized New Mom Tip #34: If you have a dog, buy them a dog tag silencer

If you have a dog, I PROMISE you will experience this situation:

You FINALLY get the baby to sleep. You gingerly place him in the crib. You creep ever so quietly out the door. You silently close the nursery door. Then the dog, who is right outside the door because she follows you around like you’re a rock star ever since you brought your bundle of joy home from the hospital, decides this would be the perfect time to shake and scratch profusely, causing the tags on her collar to jingle like it’s the frickin’ North Pole at Santa’s workshop. After shushing the dog, you wring your hands and wait. You listen. Then you hear that dreaded cry on the other side of the door that says, “Congrats, Mom. You just earned yourself a repeat of the last 60 minutes.”

Some would say that this is not a problem. Some would say to just take off the collar and bypass the noise altogether.  These people do not have a border collie who on a whim decides to jump the fence to go exploring*. These people also must be perfect and always remember to put the dog collar back on the dog before letting the dog out. I am not one of these people, and was getting tired of picking up my loveable canine at the shelter (thank God she has a chip).

Get a dog tag silencer**, new Mommies. Get one now. You will thank me.   

*We have since fixed the fence so she can’t get out. Happy endings, yay!

**Our dog tag silencer is so very appropriately named “Peace Tags”, from a company called Paws and Tails. Here’s their website:  http://www.paws-and-tails.com/peacetags-tagsilencer.aspx  (This is so not a paid endorsement).

Our wonderful dog, Arwen, whom we love (much more now that we she wears a dog tag silencer)

 

Organized New Mom Tip #33: Don’t Overbuy Oversized Baby Items

Registering for your baby shower can be overwhelming when you consider all of the gizmos and gadgets on the baby market today. I’ll let you in on a little secret: you don’t need it all. This isn’t a blog entry listing the most important baby essentials. Heck, just go on Pinterest or Amazon and you can get that info within seconds. I’m just here to remind you to not blindly purchase every big baby item that looks cool.

For example, do you really need a pack n’ play…and a crib…and a co-sleeper? Do you really need a bouncer…and a baby swing…and a floor mat? The answer is probably not, and you’ll be grateful for the space you save by not having oversized baby stuff cluttering every inch of your house.

So how do you know what you’ll really need? Here’s what I did:

•  Ask other moms-They’re the best resource!

• Read product reviews-So many times a baby gadget looks so freakin’ awesome, but when you   read the reviews you really learn whether or not parents actually found it useful.

• Wait until Baby is born-Sometimes you need to find out your little one’s personality before learning what he or she will use. When it comes to big baby stuff, all you really need is a car seat and a place for Baby to sleep before the big birth day arrives. 

My son Will's favorite big baby toy by far was his floor activity gym

Organized New Mom Tip #32: Baby second-hand = Mommy’s best friend

I am blessed with tons of family and great friends who supplied me with everything I need to take care of a newborn baby. After enjoying the initial baby shower plethora of gifts, I slowly began to realize something: people don’t keep sending you replacement outfits for the ones your baby outgrows! Nuts. I also quickly discovered it was not so economical for us (like most families) to buy everything new. Double nuts.

Of course I knew my guy would grow, but I was just too wrapped up in the here-and-now to think about what came next.  I remember my first trip to the baby second-hand store in my neighborhood, and my jaw dropped. Near perfect outfits and toys at a margin of retail were suddenly at my fingertips. I started paying attention to garage sales and online listings like Craigslist for baby merchandise and found the same thing. That’s the thing about babies: they grow fast and go through toys quickly. Yay for me!

Some tips:

• Find out where ALL the baby second-hand stores are in your neighborhood. I guarantee you there’s more than one, and they tend to lurk in strange places like old strip malls or residential homes.
• Build a relationship with the owner of your favorite store. You’ll soon realize you need a place to give back all of the outgrown baby items you bought! J
• Go EARLY to garage sales that advertise big item baby things like activity gyms and strollers. Those buggers get picked over at the crack of dawn.
• Join some sort of “mommy” online community group in your neighborhood. Not only is it nice to have the company, these classifieds are rich in hard-to-find baby second-hand items.
• This is probably a no-brainer, but don’t buy everything you need for Baby second-hand. I’d stick to new car seats and new breast pumps. (Eww.)

Of course, where's the fun in NEVER buying something new?

Pumpkin Baby Beanie
http://www.justdelivered.net/Pumpkin-Baby-Beanie_p_808.html



Organized New Mom Tip #31: Use Resealable Canisters for Baby Cereal

Once your little one is old enough to try baby cereal, you’ll quickly understand true frustration when it comes to measuring out the right amount from that little “convenient” spout they add into the side of the cereal box. When you pour the baby cereal grains, there’s always a bit that gets stuck in the top corner of the box, and when you set the box back down, that small trapped amount is liberated to settle quietly like new-fallen snow over every surface of your kitchen.

Use large air-tight canisters for your baby grains and skip this inevitable curse, and don’t forget to label them if you buy more than one type of baby cereal. Those little suckers all look exactly alike.

Note: I just spent 3 days trying to upload a video of my son trying baby cereal for the first time. Alas, my efforts were fruitless.  It was adorable and cute. Instead, I’ve included a link to some useful baby bibs that are essential when you feed your baby his grains for the first time. These bibs, while awesome, are not as adorable or cute as the video. Sorry.

Click Here for Awesome Baby Bibs for Feeding Your Little One Baby Cereal

Organized New Mom Tip #30: Create a Playlist for Baby

If you’re not using Pandora by now (or something similar) it’s time. While CDs and yes, even tape cassettes, will always have a place in my home, even I have moved onto handheld devices for my everyday music. Why shouldn’t your baby too?

Here’s how it keeps you a more organized mommy:

·  It’s portable (Duh)

·  If you have a newer car, just plug your playlist or radio stream into your speakers and Baby enjoys music on the go

·  No blaring or inappropriate ads-some streams require a paid upgrade for this, which I highly recommend

·  Easy to Add/Remove or Like/Unlike a song-Tired of hearing “The Wheels on the Bus” for the umpteenth time? Get rid of it!

·  Easy to mix genres-my son’s mix has everything from classical to Reggae to lullabies

Organized New Mom Tip #29: Change “Make Room for Baby” into “Camouflage your Baby Storage”

With a new baby comes stuff. Lots and lots and lots of stuff. If you have a “cozy” home like I do, this can create a division between your before-baby self who wants a hip, modern space to hang and your after- baby self who wants your little one to have everything she needs.

Being creative about how to store your baby’s big items is a nice compromise between your old and new lives. Don’t be fooled-your living space is going to change. There’s no way to hide that ridiculously enormous Jumperoo unless you happen to have an extra walk-in closet just aching to be filled. There are some things you can do to make your home look less like a baby shower threw up all over it. Being a new mom, you deal with enough spit-up as it is.

Some quick easy tips for de-babifying your home:

·         Buy Baby Gadgets that do Double or Triple Duty-This ensures you have everything you need, but you’re saving valuable floor space.

·         Buy Baby Gear that Folds up Easily-If it lays flat it’s much easier to store under the sofa or in the closet.

·         Ditch Your Hard-Cornered Coffee Table for a Cushy Large Storage Ottoman-It can be expensive, but it’s worth it, and it’s the quickest way to access and hide baby toys. When it’s closed, it functions as another mobile seat in the room, and even works well for quick diaper changes.

·         Avoid Cutesy Baby Themes and Use More Sophisticated Storage Bins-You can’t tell what’s in them when they’re tucked away neatly. We still store my son’s books in a set of 3 elegant woven bins under our kitchen buffet.

·         Use Closed Door Cabinets Instead of Open Shelving-Out of sight, out of mind.

·         Clean out the Hall Closet-Do you really need 10 coats or your husband’s skateboard from high school taking up room there, or would this valuable storage space be better served hiding the bouncer away?

·         Designate a Play Space for Baby-You’re not going to be able to hide everything, and when you have a small play area already set up, you’re more likely to keep it neat, tidy, and manageable.

·         Rotate Baby’s Toys into the Play Space-You don’t need the play mat, the bouncer, the swing, and the saucer out at the same time. Take turns bringing them into your child’s environment, and they will always be new to him.

Organized New Mom Tip #28: Set up a Shutterfly account

Every new parent loves to photograph their newborn like they’re the latest and greatest runway phenomenon, and you’ll be no exception. I literally wore my camera around my neck during the day in fear of missing some new milestone, and quickly found myself with a new fear: where do I store all of these baby pictures safely?

Your answer is (ta-da) Shutterfly! This is not a paid endorsement of the website; in fact, if you can find a more awesome way to store, edit or buy photo products, let me know and I’ll drop them like yesterday’s diaper trash. What’s most important is that you set up an account on any photo website, but my preference by far is www.shutterfly.com.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s why setting up an account makes you an Organized New Mom:

·         Free Backup Storage: I always store all of my baby pictures and videos on my computer, but downloading them to Shutterfly guarantees I’ll still have them in case I accidentally set my hard drive on fire. You can save as many photos as you want, but if you want to save more than a few videos, be prepared to pay an annual fee.

·         Organize Your Baby Pics by Album: I save most of mine by month and year. This way, if I’m looking for, say, an adorable old Christmas baby picture, I know to look back around the December months. It’s easiest to set a monthly date on your calendar to empty your camera of your photos so you don’t lose track of when your pictures were taken.

·         Set up a Share Site: Shutterfly allows you to create a “Share Site” (don’t worry, it’s easy and also free) so you can share your baby pics with your family/friends to ooh and ahh over. They in turn, can save them to their own accounts or even purchase them. These Share sites are only viewed by people of your choice, which for me felt much safer than posting them on Facebook or other social networks for anyone to see.

·         Use your Baby Pictures to Create Photo Gifts: Every year, my sisters and I create a photo calendar of all of the grandkids to give to my parents for Christmas. It’s almost too easy to just go on each other’s share sites, pick our favorite pictures, and create the calendar, all on the same site. I do the same thing for our holiday cards and it usually takes me about 30-40 minutes to assemble the card and purchase copies.

·         Discounts on Ordering: Shutterfly loves to email their customers with special coupon codes for shipping, photo packages, and photo merchandise. I’ve taken advantage of screamin’ deals, especially right before big holidays.

Organized New Mom Tip #27: Place a Lighted Clock within Eyesight of Where you Nurse/Feed/Rock your Baby

It’s not like you won’t figure this one out pretty quickly on your own, but I’d thought I’d spare you the hassle of that disorienting middle of the night feeding when you’re sitting in the dark wondering if you’ve been rocking your little one for  10 minutes or 2 hours.

This tip is also very helpful if you prefer to nurse your baby on a set schedule and for a certain amount of time. Don’t bother with a watch; too often you’ll dislocate your shoulder pivoting your arm just enough so you can simultaneously check the time and not wake your baby or disrupt him from nursing.

Organized New Mom Tip #26: Choose a Convenient Nursery Hamper

There are tons of adorable little fu-fu nursery hampers out there, but don’t be quick to just pick up the hamper that coordinates with your nursery set. With as much quality time as you’ll be spending with your baby’s laundry, it’s essential to find a hamper that you’ll hit it off with from the start.  I find the following qualities in my son’s nursery hamper irresistible:

·  Lightweight-This way you can just lug the whole hamper to the laundry instead of dragging dirty burp cloths and onesies behind you in your wake.

·  Handles-for the same reason as above

·  Vinyl or Easy-Clean Lining-You’ll want to give it a quick wipe-down and Lysol spray every now and then.

·  Fits Where you Need it to-Mine nestles perfectly and secretly in my son’s closet.

·  Cheap-There’s so much selection it isn’t hard to save a few bucks.

·  Neutral Color-That baby blue hamper with clouds and stars isn’t going to grow well with Baby. Do you really want to buy a new hamper every time your child’s bedroom décor changes?





 My perfect nursery hamper-not much to look at, but it does the job



Organized New Mom Tip #25: Sort the Nursery Closet by Size

Baby clothing size is confusing enough, and if you have a steady stash of growing sizes coming your way from a generous neighbor or relative*, those adorable onesies are never going to stop coming. You might as well get some organization now before you and your well-dressed baby are overcome.

If you’re reading this while your baby is still cooking, I congratulate you on your luck, because now is the best time to get the closet ready. After the baby arrives is still fine, of course, but you’ll be in “New Baby Mode”, and at that point you’ll probably be ready to trade your best nursing bra for 30 minutes of sleep.

After all of the baby showers and well-wishing, I plopped my 8 months pregnant bottom in my son’s nursery and got organized. Here’s the plan that I still use to this day:

1.       Separate those 0-3 month cutie-patootie outfits and hang them first in a convenient location in the closet.

2.       Put up a closet divider tab and then hang the 3-6 month sizes, and if you have enough room, do the same with the 6-9 month sizes. Bonus points if you have adorable hangers and custom closet tab dividers.

3.       KEEP ALL SIZES SORTED AND IN THEIR PLACE!

4.       Place an empty storage bin at the bottom of Baby’s closet. When you find an outfit is too small, just toss it into the empty bin.

5.       When most of one size is in the bin, it’s time to take that entire size out of Baby’s closet and move on to the next size. I know that some outfits are almost too unbearably cute and filled with such wonderful memories that it’ll be emotionally distressing to put them away. BE STRONG! J You’ll be thankful for the closet space.

6.       Decide if you’re going to keep or pass on the outgrown clothes. If you’re keeping them, remove the stained, torn, or just plain tired garments and get rid of them so you don’t have to sort them out later. If you’re letting them go, I know many moms who are into the whole consignment scene. I just put them in a box and give them to ARC. No muss, no fuss, nice write-off. (Of course I keep the outfits I can’t part with. I’m not insane…)

7.       If you have bigger clothes in storage, grab the next biggest size, give them a gentle wash, and hang those in the closet. If you come across an outfit that you don’t think your baby will wear, just get rid of it and don’t feel guilty about it. In my experience, it’s better to let another family enjoy it instead of it sitting in your closet unused, sad and lonely.

8.       Repeat the process as Baby grows, or in my case, every 2 weeks.

*Thanks to my sisters, Lara and Jill for all of the wonderful hand-me-downs. Just because I jest doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate being drowned in baby socks, bibs, and an unreasonable amount of CU and CSU baby outfits. J