A Few Tips For Moms!

I know that having a baby is a lot of hard work, especially for us stay at home moms. We don't get a break! It's taken me some time to figure things out, but I am getting there slowly. I figured I would share some of my tips, maybe another mom out there could find some of them useful!

During the day it's sometimes hard to shower, eat lunch, or even go to the bathroom. A lot of moms wait until their little one is napping to do stuff. I recently started taking a shower with my son. He is almost 7 months old. Obviously you probably can't do this with a newborn, but once your baby has some good head control and can be on their tummy this is great! I turn the shower on, get myself and baby undressed and make sure the water is positioned closer to the back, then I put Elijah in the shower on his tummy with a few bath toys. He usually stays pretty occupied while I get to wash my hair and body. Once I am done washing up I will sit down on the tub floor with him and play and wash him up. So, not only do you get a shower, but so does your little one, and it's easy to keep an eye on them since they are right in front of you.

Babywearing is also a wonderful thing. Not only is it comforting for your baby to be close to you, but you can actually do stuff. The ERGObaby carrier that I just reviewed is wonderful because of all the different positions you can wear it in, so you can do more stuff like laundry!

I really need to start doing this more often, but preparing snack items for quick eating is important. When you have some free time when someone else is with your baby you can cut up some cracker sized pieces of cheese, make some hummus, guacamole, or dip. Make a large salad so you can just put a portion into a bowl to eat and you don't have to cut up veggies, make something for sandwiches to store in a bowl in the fridge such as egg salad, or "chicken" salad (garbanzo beans, celery, mayo, salt & pepper! If you're not vegetarian you can obviously make real chicken salad). Cook an entire bag of spaghetti so you can just throw some in the microwave with some sauce. I try to always have a variety of crackers on hand because you can eat everything with crackers. Stock up on quick items of food like yogurt and carrot sticks.

The best piece of advice I can give is try not to stress about cleaning. Do what you can if you have time, but remember that you and baby come first. If you have to choose between eating and vacuuming, eat!