Top 10 New Mom Hacks
/
Of all the many things you were thinking about while pregnant, how you were going to prevent your baby from licking the stroller wheels was probably not one of them. But here we are. Below are some of my favorite “mom hacks” for getting done things that you thought would be easy or never thought about at all. Feel free to comment with any of your favorite hacks that I haven’t thought of yet!
Organizing the millions of small baby items
Baby items are naturally small, but keeping them organized is no small task. The size and multitude of them can also mean that it’s either easy to lose them or to buy duplicates since you can’t find them anywhere, only to realize later that they were in the bottom of a bin in the back of the closet and you already had 20. There are small containers and drawer organizes that you can purchase to help, but this requires having enough places to put all of your neatly organized containers so they don’t end up in the bottom of said bin. Because if they’re out of sight, whether they’re organized or not, means you will probably forget about them like I do. My favorite hack for keeping these items organized are clear plastic shoe organizers hung on the backs of closet doors. The standard size ones come with 24 pockets and the possibilities of what you can store in them are endless! Let’s brainstorm some:
Coat Closet Door: seasonal items (mittens, hats, sunglasses, sunblock), on-the-go items (stroller clips, baby buddy straps, portable noise machine, metal car seat clips), extra hand sanitizers, etc.
Nursery Closet Door: small clothing accessories (socks, underwear, bandana bibs, swim suits), burp cloths, extra diaper changing needs and toiletries, teethers and small toys, free samples you can’t help but accumulate
Linen Closet Door: all the other small miscellaneous house stuff you don’t know what to do with (batteries, outlet covers, extension cords, command hooks, iPhone chargers, etc.)
Trimming tiny nails on squirmy fingers
This has to be one of my least favorite activities. And not only because of the risk of cutting off the entire tip of my baby’s finger. I loved the electric nail file when my babies were very young, but once they become interested in it like it’s a toy, it’s all over. I was able to keep using it with my daughter until she turned about 1, and then we moved to the teensy tiny nail scissors, which she would hold still enough for if she were distracted. But my son became too squirmy for the electric file by about 9 months (and even before that, it was a struggle), and it’s like he has a sixth sense that I’m going to try to get in there with the scissors because he starts preemptively flailing around his hands and feet.
I’ve figured out a trick that works for his fingers – I trim them while having him face out in the baby carrier on a walk. I don’t know if it’s the distraction of looking around or the fact that he can’t get enough leverage to flail his arms too much and can’t reach over with the other hand to knock it onto the ground, but it works. Toes are a different matter. I tried the carrier trick, even though I have to contort both of us into slightly awkward positions, but he would not let me even snip one of them. I tried while my daughter was watching a TV show and he was slightly distracted, but that didn’t work. I tried in the high chair, which used to work, but he started doing quick feet and I couldn’t get in there. Finally, I strapped him into the changing table and had my husband block me while singing songs and making faces, and I was able to quickly snip all 10 toes – probably just in time before he got an ingrown toenail.
Making a hands-free pumping bra out of an old sports bra
When I had my first, I spent $30 on a fancy hands-free pumping bra that everyone told me I had to get. But I hated it. It was a pain to get on 3x per day and kind of difficult to get the flanges in and out. Then someone showed me how to do a hack with an old sports bra: just cut small slits in it and voilà! A free hands-free pumping bra that was faster and easier to use. So did I learn for my second and stick with the sports bra hack? No I did not. I bought an even more expensive hands-free pumping bra that promised to pump for me, but I still kept coming back to the sports bra because it was just easier and more comfortable.
Storing breast milk smartly in the fridge and freezer
Pumping is such a funny thing. More experienced moms and even many doctors talk about it casually, like you should know exactly what to do, but really this is a completely foreign thing that is suddenly thrust upon new moms – sometimes as early as the hospital immediately after giving birth – and it is not at all intuitive. I could probably write a whole blog just on pumping (starting with how I was too scared to even open my pump for weeks since I had no idea which parts were supposed to be sterilized or how to set it up), but here I’ll stick to two hacks: best ways to store pumped milk in the fridge and in the freezer.
I actually didn’t even think of the fridge one until months after I had my second; I used to transfer pumped milk from bags to storage bottles to keep in the fridge, and then by the time I needed them, I often had to transfer them to bottles, which resulted in my trying to scrape off what I assumed to be the healthy fatty deposits that had solidified on the side of the container to get as much of it as I could into the bottle that my baby would drink. One day I had a small revelation: I could save myself a step AND save those fatty bits by just storing the milk in the bags in the fridge. They stand up fine on their own, and even if they fall over, they won’t spill as long as they’re sealed correctly. Then when you need them, you can just massage the bag a little to reincorporate the solid parts and pour it into the baby’s drinking bottle. That was not only easier, but there was less chance of spillage since you were only making one transfer.
If the milk is going directly into the freezer, the best way to freeze it is flat since it takes up less space. I’m not sure if I would have thought of this one on my own if a more experience pumping mom hadn’t given me that tip. I had purchased a slim plastic bin for storing my bags of milk in the freezer, but it was totally impractical and barely held any bags. So a much better way to do it if you’re trying to build up a freezer stash is to lay the bag flat in your freezer, and once it’s frozen, store in a large Ziplock bag. I labeled mine by month so it was easy to start with the oldest milk first when using up my freezer supply.
Storing pump parts in between use
This is the last breastfeeding-related hack (breastfeeding is so much more complicated than it seems like it should be). If you’re pumping multiple times per day, that’s already super time-consuming – you have to take off your shirt, change your bra, pump for 10-20 minutes, put the milk away, change your bra back, put your shirt back on… Ok, I can’t save you time on any of those parts, but the good news is that you don’t have to wash your pump parts after every single pumping session. Put them, still assembled, into a large Ziplock bag and store them in the fridge. The only downside is that they will be a little cold when you first start pumping, but only having to wash the parts once per day is well worth some chilly nipples. Just note that if your baby has any health issues, it may be advised that you take extra precautions and wash or sterilize pump parts more frequently – you should ask your pediatrician about it. And of course, like anything, if it just makes you feel more comfortable to wash every time, go for it. I was happy to take any time-saving shortcuts that were deemed safe by my doctor, and being able to skip the washing part several additional times per day made pumping just a teensy bit more manageable.
Carrying the essentials while using a baby carrier
One giant advantage of taking out the stroller is that you have ample space to store all the many belongings you may need on an outing with baby. But a downside is that you will bring all of those belongings even if you don’t actually need them. The bottom of my stroller looked at times like I was living out of it. And even though it may be convenient to have everything you could possibly need on an hour-long walk, sometimes you just want to jet out the door quickly to run an errand or get some fresh air. The carrier is great for this – strap it on, throw the baby in, grab your keys and your phone, and you’re off.
For as much as I used the baby carrier with my first, I can’t believe that nearly every time I was struggling with a diaper bag on top of it, no matter where I was going. First, I tried using the over-the-shoulder kind, which kept slipping off and left me lopsided. Then I switched to a backpack, which centered me better, but it put too much weight on my shoulders (which are a mess anyway). I then tried a very small backpack, which was marginally better but never felt very comfortable. I wore my first for 18 months and never mastered this.
After I had my second and was meeting a friend for a drink, who happened to be a professional baby wearer since she lived in a walkup in Harlem but traveled all over the city, she showed me how she just uses a fanny pack with the carrier. It turns out that fanny packs are cool again (yes you are supposed to wear them slung over one shoulder if you’re trying to be very cool – but for a mom carrying a baby, it is perfectly acceptable to strap the fanny pack over the carrier waistband) and this gave me enough space to include my keys, phone, and even a small pack of wipes and one diaper in case of an emergency. Plus it was much easier to access than a backpack that I had to take off every time I needed to grab something.
Preventing your baby from licking the stroller wheels
If you live in a place like NYC and have a new crawler, you probably skipped straight to this one…because EWWWW. Suddenly your baby is extremely interested in the dirtiest thing in your apartment. You don’t even want to think about what those stroller wheels have been through. The good news is that most of our babies have at one time or another licked them and survived to tell the tale – but it is probably not the way we want our babies to build their immune systems.
So instead of constantly playing goalie between your baby and the stroller, which is a nearly impossible task given how quickly they learn to crawl and how much they want to get their little mouths on those wheels, here’s an easy fix: cover them with plastic shower caps. Voila! By the time your baby learns how to take the shower caps off, the hope is that they will have lost interest in the wheels and moved onto other forbidden objects like the dog’s water bowl.
Creating a baby jail they actually like
Like many parents with a good sense of humor, my husband and I refer to the baby playpen as a baby jail. There can be a bit of a stigma with playpens, but I’m not really sure why – there’s nothing cruel about them, as long as you’re not abandoning your baby in one for hours on end. If used correctly, they’re just a safe place to put your baby when you can’t watch them for every second, to make sure they don’t stick their fingers in the electrical sockets, splash around in the dog’s water bowl, or climb to the top of the bookcase. (All three of which they could probably do in the time it would take you to get their afternoon snack together.)
You can also make the playpen a fun and special place to play that’s just for them. I put different types of toys around the perimeter that were engaging for my baby and mixed them up from time to time. And I hung some things from the side that encouraged them to reach up and pull to stand.
My hack was even putting my daughter’s small wooden play kitchen inside, secured to the side of the playpen with a bungee cord so she couldn’t pull it onto herself while she was learning to stand. She loved having that thing in there with her and it would entertain her for a long time. I also bungeed the activity table to the side, which both my kids loved.
Attaching a convertible car seat to the stroller
The infant car seat is so easy if you have to travel somewhere and also want the stroller with you, since it just clips on. Once the baby outgrows it around a year and you need to switch to a convertible car seat, it’s harder to figure out what to do when you need both the car seat and the stroller.
We got the Cosco Scenera Next car seat for cabs and travel, since it’s super lightweight and easy to install using a seatbelt. I had heard that the Mountain Buggy Nano was the only one you could attached a convertible car seat onto, but I hadn’t heard great things about that stroller so I didn’t want to let that one factor decide for me since I wasn’t even sure just how often I would need the car seat and stroller. We ended up getting the Colugo for our travel stroller, which we love (you can save $20 on the Mom Crew deals page), and as it turned out, we rarely needed both the car seat and stroller when we lived in NYC since we walked most places or took the subway. The times we did need it were for airplane travel, since we always purchased a seat for our daughter, which required the car seat, but we obviously needed the stroller on trips too.
Enter the luggage strap hack. You can attach the Cosco car seat to pretty much any stroller just by using a luggage strap – rest the car seat on the stroller seat facing forward, weave the luggage strap through the back where you would weave a seatbelt in a car, and then clip it around the back of the stroller. Pull tight and you have a convertible car seat attached to your stroller. I probably wouldn’t go on a 5-mile walk down a bumpy road this way, but it works great for getting through the airport and walking short distances.
Securing a car seat on the airplane
I had a little trouble at first figuring out the best way to bring our convertible car seat on the airplane. When I faced it backward, like I thought I should for my 1.5-year-old, she was too upright to be able to sleep comfortably (which partly defeats the purpose of having her own seat). Since planes are so tight these days and we aren’t flying first class or even typically upgrading to the extra leg room seats, there wasn’t room to lean her back more, especially if the person in front reclined their seat.
After trying our first flight that way, I read that facing them backward on an airplane isn’t as important as in a car, so I tried forward facing on the next flight. It seemed a lot more comfortable in terms of seat positioning, but the seat belt attached right in the middle of her car seat and dug into her back. Then a mom told me about a trick to weave the seatbelt around the arm rest first, and that worked perfectly – I could still pull it tight to secure the seat, but it placed the buckle outside her seat (which also makes it easier to clip and unclip). The other benefit of facing them forward on the plane is that you can turn the TV on for them and hope that it distracts them just long enough for you to eat a snack and possibly chug a glass of wine.
Got any other favorite mom hacks of your own? Share them in the comments below!