Parenting

Mom With a Plan

2024 is almost here! What are your goals for the new year and how are you going to make those happen? Here are some helpful tools that will help you organize your thoughts and create plans to achieve all that you can in the year ahead.

Weekly Desk Pad

Prefer to see the week at a glance and have space to jot notes? This adorable floral print desk pad might be the perfect item for you. With plenty of space, you can write out meal plans, appointments, baby activity tracking, and more! As a bonus, it’s undated so you can start, stop, and restart without wasting any pages!

Planner Pack

Already have your planner for 2024? How about these fun accessories to complement it? With dot stickers for color coding, a pouch for pen storage, a bookmark, and more, this set will bring color and fun to any planner!

Postpartum Journal

Are you welcoming a new baby in 2024? This postpartum journal will give you prompts and help guide your postpartum journey through the highs and lows of baby’s first year! Discover ways to increase your self-compassion, stay connected to your feelings, and learn from the many therapy tips included.

Digital Planner Download

Have you gone digital with your planner yet? This fun planner template download from CreateHeartWork comes with several versions to allow for customization tailored to your needs. With weekly, daily, and monthly views, you will love the colorful and fun designs while planning throughout the new year!

With so much to look forward to in the new year, make sure you have a plan to achieve your goals and dreams.

Non-Food Halloween Treats

by Gugu Guru Leave a Comment

Not every child is able to enjoy a candy feast from a good Trick-or-Treat haul. Whether you are hoping to bring more inclusivity to your Halloween treat bowl for the children in your neighborhood, or you need alternatives for your own kiddos, check out these great products available on Audenticity. For creators, these would be great items to share in a round-up style static post or TikTok/reel video!

Halloween Scavenger Hunt (Digital Download)

As an alternative to Trick-or-Treating, try a Halloween Night scavenger hunt. This adorable digital download is ready for printing when purchased. Print one for each child and race around the neighborhood to find all the items on the list! You can even pair it with an instant camera and create a scrapbook at the end of the hunt! A fun alternative that can still include costumes and all the fun! Plus, no shipping required!

Stickers

If you are looking to add some fun non-food items to your treat bowl for trick-or-treaters, these stickers are a great option! These stickers are fun, decorative, and there’s a good amount of space on the sticker sheet to allow you to cut the stickers out into individual stickers, perfect for popping in the trick-or-treat bag!

Spider Rings

Who doesn’t need an extra accessory for trick-or-treating? These spider rings are adorable and a perfect non-food item for your treat bowl, Halloween party favors, and more! Grab a few to fill your treat bowl!

Temporary Tattoos

Want your Halloween treat bowl to be the hit of the neighborhood? These temporary tattoos will make your home the jackpot for trick-or-treaters. Set out a pack of water-based wipes for easy and instant application! We love these monster designs and these adorable ghosts!

If you have other ideas for Halloween treats that are non-food items, we would love to have you leave us a comment and share with our community! Happy Halloween!

Feeding Tips from our Mom Creators

by Abby Ludwig Leave a Comment

Whether you’re feeding a newborn, a toddler, or your entire family, our experienced Mom Creators have the best advice. Our creators are real moms (like you!) who are sharing their advice on products they have used with their own kids. Check out some excellent tips and tricks straight from our network of experienced moms. We’ve been there mama, and we got you!

Breastfeeding

If you’re going to breastfeed your little one, it is so important to have a great feeding pillow. They will give baby extra support, lifting your little love closer to nurse. In turn, you will save your lower back from the added pain of leaning forward during mealtime. A favorite for many of our Mom Creators is the nursing pillow by bbhugme. It is customizable to your size and shape, making it great for moms of all sizes. Plus it works well for bottle-fed babies and has a great carrying case for travel.

Pumping

Pumping can feel like a full-time job, so it’s great to make things a little easier with an excellent pump and some pump-friendly clothing. Our Mom Creators are constantly raving about the items from Kindred Bravely. Comfortable bras, joggers, and pajamas that will always answer the question, “What does a new mom wear?”

Bottle Feeding

Bottles should be easy to use, easy to clean, and easy to put together. Whether they are glass, plastic, or silicone, find a bottle you love to use and it’s likely your little one will fall in suit. Our Mom Creators are in love with the silicone nanobébé bottles. They have a vented nipple to help your little one with gas issues and are great if you’re going between breast and bottle. Check here for even more reviews on nanobébé.

Introducing Solids

Your little one’s not so little anymore and you’re ready to introduce solids. Where to start and what products might I need? We love the whole line from Green Sprouts baby – from burp cloths, to silicone first foods feeder, to bibs, they have so many excellent eco-friendly basics. They even have an entire line of cups that have been made out of plants! Their products grow with your little ones and you will use them over and over with every single stage.

Our Mom Creators have been there and done that. See more products our Mom Creators have tried and loved with their little ones.

Join our Mom Creator community by signing up for our email list and receive paid and gifted opportunities with your favorite baby and kid brands in your inbox weekly!

Interested in becoming a mom content creator or influencer but don’t know where to start? Join our monthly coaching membership specifically designed for mom creators.

Must-Have Parenting Apps

by Christine Swearingen Leave a Comment

A search in your app store for parenting apps brings an overwhelming list of options. Which are the best? More important, which are free, or worth the price? We’re bringing you the scoop on the most popular parenting apps that we believe are truly worth it!

Qeepsake: This app is like a baby book on-the-go. It’s the easiest way we’ve found to capture everyday memories with your kids. Qeepsake texts or notifies you with questions about your child or pregnancy that you can respond to with text and photos. Have a special memory to upload? You can do that too. When you’re ready, you can order a book with all of your memories.

Tinybeans: We love this app for securely and privately storing and sharing memories with your closest family and friends. You can even track baby’s developmental milestones. It’s full of resources for all things parenting – from parenting advice to activity ideas.

Wonder Weeks: Of all the parenting apps we are sharing here, this is the one that will save your sanity the most! If you haven’t heard of “leaps” yet, a period of intense mental development for a baby that can cause increased fussiness, lack of sleep, and more. This app will give you a heads up when a leap is coming, tell you what to expect, and offer points to help both you and baby transition through a leap.

Huckleberry: We are all about sleep, and getting more of it. That’s where Huckleberry can help. Using AI and pediatric sleep experts, Huckleberry creates a custom sleep plan just for your family. We love all the tracking features of this app too – from sleep to feeding to growth and more. Definitely one you’ll want to check out!

Mindful Mamas: Our favorite app for mama. Focused on self-care and mindfulness for mama, this lovely app supports moms at every stage of the journey. From full guided meditations, to brief 5 minute “sips” of mindfulness practices, to gentle notifications of encouragement – this app has all you need to bring a little more peace and calm to your motherhood journey.

Baby Connect: If you have multiples, or frequent caregivers, whether a nanny, grandma, or daycare staff, this is an app you NEED. Not only does it have the ability to track feedings, sleep, diapers, mood, and more, but it immediately and securely synchronizes across authorized users. The app also allows you to easily exchange messages and photos right in the app.

Simplify your Life with Kids? 3 Common Mistakes

by Abby Ludwig Leave a Comment

We all have the best of intentions when trying to simplify. We want to clear our minds, our homes, and our drawers of all the junk. Come on in minimalism, and help me parent! The truth is, though, that it’s really common to make some simple mistakes when trying to simplify your life with littles.

Purging Everything

It happened. You stepped on a Lego and start screaming about “getting rid of every toy in this house.” We’ve been there. We’ve done it. We’re embarrassed too. The fact is, that you don’t have to purge everything to simplify your life. Instead, take it easy and take it slow. Start with one toy bin. Every weekend, pick 3 bins to go through and sort the items into 3 categories; Keep Out, Store Away, and Donate. Rotate through your toys/games/books instead of leaving all toys accessible. By rotating your toys, your little ones will actually play more creatively with the toys on the shelf.

If you purge everything too quickly, it’s more likely that you’ll end up purchasing items to replace. Donate the items that your little ones have grown out of and store away things that they may still use. Bring these items out on playdates or days off of school. If they still aren’t used, then it’s a good time to donate!

Hours of Research

You want to get started, but you have no idea where to start. Of course, you reach for your phone and google “How do I simplify my life with kids?” 3 hours later, your little one is awake from his nap and your head is spinning with ideas. Repeat after me – start small. You don’t need to have a whole plan in place when you begin simplifying. We live in a world where it has to look ‘perfect’ or it isn’t complete. This isn’t true!

Instead of scrolling for the perfect solutions, just get started. If you have a toddler, put away the soft infant toys. Once you have a preschooler, you can safely put away the activity table that she no longer sits in. Let your little one be part of the process and just get started. You’ll thank us later!

Organization Overload

We’ve all seen the accounts on Instagram. The perfectly organized playroom or color-coded drawers. Yes, I binged the whole season of The Home Edit immediately after it was released. I spent weeks (ok… months) trying to find the perfect storage bins for our play area and the perfect organizational tools for my kitchen. As I got started organizing these spaces, I realized that while the containers were great for my space, they weren’t great for my brain. Take a step back and think about what actually makes sense for your daily needs. Do snacks need to be easily accessible? Should certain toys be stored out of sight?

I realized pretty quickly that having the right items accessible for my kids simplified a great deal of my life. Even something as simple as putting my toddlers’ socks in the bottom dresser drawer, so they could pick out socks (a daily struggle with my twins) changed our mornings. Work smarter, not harder!

Starting from Scratch?

Everything you need for a Minimalist Nursery
Minimalist Baby Registry Must-Haves

Simplistic Parenting Tips

by Jenna Hatfield Leave a Comment

Choosing to live a minimalist parenting lifestyle may feel impossible at times. Everywhere you turn, people and brands tell you that you need more of this, more of that—more, more, more. Is it possible to provide what your baby needs while still living out your simplistic parenting dreams?

Yes.

It requires a little extra research, a lot of organization, and some willingness to try again when you find that something doesn’t work for you, your baby, or your family. More over, being yourself will also help you navigate your way through your parenting journey. We’ve put together some tips for each of those concepts to help you attain the minimalist family life you desire.

A Little Extra Research

The maximalist version of a baby registry involves walking through a store and scanning things to your heart’s content. Or, the pandemic version might involve clicking all the boxes on every website. When you’re wanting to live that simplistic parenting lifestyle, you need to slow down and do your research. As an example, a thorough look into the different strollers available will allow you to make one purchase instead of buying two or three for different travel needs or ages and stages.

Using sites like Gugu Guru can help you decide which gear you need and which items might better serve another family. The Gugu Guide video reviews can really help you make those decisions as they offer real experiences from real parents. From that point, you can make some lists (pros and cons, items for each room, or a total inventory of what you think will work for you) before you create your registry or start purchasing items on your own.

Need a little more one-on-one guidance? You can also work with one of our product experts, who will best help you simplify decisions on strollers, car seats, and feeding necessities.

A Lot of Organization

One key component of living a simplistic parenting experience is organization. Minimalist parenting isn’t about your child having one toy and one toy only. Instead, the focus is on having age-appropriate toys which can be put away with ease. Baskets, bins, and other containers in which you can store toys will pay out in dividends when it comes to the peace a clean room brings you each evening.

When everything has a place, your ability to be present and available in the moment with your child will feel just right. Likewise, organizing your time is part of simplistic parenting. Creating a plan to stay organized in the space you have will also benefit the entire family. A list of chores that must be done by the adults in the home will keep everything running smoothly. Include both daily tasks like dishes and cleaning up the general daily clutter as well as the weekly and monthly tasks like trash, recycling, laundry, and grocery shopping.

Try, Try Again

Even with the most thorough research and a perfectly organized plan, some things won’t work for you, your baby, or your household. It could be something as simple as the fact that your baby does not enjoy strollers and prefers to cuddle close to you in a baby carrier. It could also be a bit more complex, like your organizational bins just don’t work well with the toys you’ve chosen or your task schedule stops working when your baby’s nap schedule changes. Whatever the case, the point is to try and try again. You can find what works best for your family by making small adjustments.

Additionally, your baby is going to grow and change. Yes, their nap and feeding schedule will change. They will outgrow their initial toys as they hit milestones. You will learn to adapt to their changes, changing right along with them at each and every stage. When something doesn’t align with your simplistic parenting point of view and their new phase, try something else. You can and will find something that works for you.

Be Yourself

There’s no one right way to a parent. You can read all of the guidebooks and blog posts. You can research all of the newest gear. Your home can look like something straight out of a minimalist magazine. But if you’re not being true to yourself, it won’t feel right. Take all of the advice, both from friends and family as well as from the internet, with a grain of salt. If something doesn’t work for you, it’s not a bad thing. Simply refer back to “try, try again” and find what works for you.

You should never feel like a bad parent because one item in your simplistic parenting toolbox worked for everyone else—except you. You and your baby are unique. The goal is not to be the most perfect minimalist style parent. The goal is for you and your baby to be both healthy and happy. By being yourself and finding what works best for you, you are setting an excellent example for your child to follow as they grow.