As a new mama, you’ll need all the help you can get. These 8 mom hacks could make your life easier by either leveling up your efficiency or eliminating task steps. Go on and try them, super mama!
1. Multitask.
This is an especially useful hack for the mama without househelp. Wash a few of the dirty dishes in the sink when you wash your hands. Talk to your baby during their daily massage sesh (muscle-building and brain development FTW). Work on self-love and take a nap while the baby naps. Return messages while feeding the baby. There are always tasks you can merge to make your day more efficient.
2. Stock the laundry room and kitchen with the right cleaning essentials.
With a new baby in the house, you will probably spend a lot of your time in the kitchen and the laundry room. You’ll have a much easier time if you stock up with baby-proof cleaning products—they clean and keep your baby safe from harsh chemicals. Gentle Mama has a hypoallergenic Essential Cleaning Kit that is prepared specially for babies. In the kit is a liquid detergent with orange essential oil, fabric conditioner with lavender essential oil, disinfectant with eucalyptus essential oil, and dishwashing liquid with lemon essential oil.
3. Cook ahead.
When you have extra time, prepare big batches of meals that you can divide into single servings and store in the freezer. That way, you can just reheat complete meals when necessary. You don’t have to sacrifice a balanced dinner for more time with your baby.
4. Organize your home before the baby comes.
When your baby’s home, things will be more hectic, pushing less urgent tasks—such as organizing and decluttering—to the back burner. So do a Kondo run through your clutter. Also, set up an efficient diaper-changing station—make sure there are enough diapers within reach, as well as cotton balls, wet and dry wipes, onesies, creams, a hand sanitizer, and of course, the dirty diaper bin.
5. Forget onesies at bedtime. Use newborn nightgowns instead.
You won’t want to wrestle with stubborn snaps on onesies when you have to change a diaper in the middle of the night. With a newborn nightgown—essentially a onesie with an open bottom—you can just push the bottom out of the way to change the diaper.
6. Use a waterproof bed protector.
To make sure that your baby is always on dry and clean beddings, place a waterproof Mellow Kids bed protector on top of the crib mattress and under the bedsheet (although a bedsheet is not necessary since the bed protector already has a soft cotton and polyester top fabric). A dry baby is a happy baby.
7. Have several baby command centers.
If you live in a home that has more than one floor, set up a diaper-changing station on each level. Stock these stations equally with the essentials—a changing table, diapers, Baby Moby wipes and cotton balls, a waterproof changing mat. That way, you won’t have to keep going up or down just to change a diaper.
8. Wash socks in a mesh bag.
Baby socks are tiny, which means losing them (or worse, just half of a pair) is much more likely than losing grown-up socks. So on laundry day, toss the socks (make sure each one has a pair) into a mesh bag before throwing them into the washing machine.