Where Do I Put All Of This Sh*t?: The Anxious Mom's Guide to Baby Storage and Organization4/19/2020 I’ve been doing a lot of heavy thinking and writing over the last few weeks of quarantine, so I’m ready to lighten things up a little bit and talk about something that makes me feel good: organization. This probably started with my sneaky type-A tendencies disguised in a chill person’s body, but ever since I became pregnant I felt the need to color-code, categorize and sort my life. I will say I am by no means an expert, nor do I abide by this 100% of the time. This was also something I needed to do for myself to help cope with the prenatal anxiety I was feeling. Somehow, if I had all. the. things. (and appropriate places to organize them all), my mental perspective surrounding becoming a mom would be better. Ha! Well, turns out that’s not the Golden Ticket to happiness, but it sure helped me a little bit. Here’s some of my best practices... Bottle & Breastpump PartsRaise your hand if you severely underestimated the amount of small plastic pieces that come with the territory of feeding a baby... my hand is all the way up. I used three different breast pumps through throughout my breastfeeding journey: the Elvie, Medela Symphony and Ameda Finesse. Each one seemed to have pieces that only fit with that particular pump, and if you lost the tiny pieces—that's it! No pumping occurring. If you have some counter space you can dedicate to this for at least a year, please do! Here are my go-tos:
Breastfeeding Cart/Bin If you are breastfeeding, pumping... it would behoove you to have a bin and/or cart that you can keep all of your accoutrement in. I utilized both, even though we live in a small space. Very early on, the cart was my best friend. I stocked it with all. the. things... breastpump supplies, hand sanitizer, burp clothes, diaper changing supplies and most importantly, snacks and bottled water! The hubs would leave cute notes for me once in a while. Once the acute breastpumping phase was over and my son moved to solids, I could no longer justify a private cart of snacks following me around. I moved the essentials over to a cheap cloth bin I kept near my coffee table.
Diaper CartHere's the magic utility cart reincarnated! It now houses all of our diaper supplies. Our dresser doubles as our changing table (small space probz). It's easy enough to reach over and have all of this ready at a moment's notice! Our diapering favorites:
Blanket/Swaddle StorageI am a self-described swaddle whore. Give me all the cute patterns and fabrics—I don't care if I barely use some of them. I also inherited a couple of crocheted blankets my late grandmother made for me, which obviously were quite special and I wasn't super keen on putting them in harms way (aka baby bodily functions). I initially had rolled each one and kept them in a basket next to my glider, but found there were some that got stuck near the bottom that I never used. I started thinking that a blanket ladder might be a good way to display them. And then I thought... babies get in to stuff, right? I found this wall-mounted towel and/or blanket holder on Amazon and it has been a perfect practical addition to the nursery that allows me to feel like I didn't waste all that money on swaddles.
Toy/Book StorageMuch like I am a swaddle whore, I am also a book whore. I love classic kids books and also love to frequent the local library used book sales to get some gems for less than $1 (!!). I store books in the wooden wall-mounted organizer, and also the white bins with the letters on them. These books are easy for him to pull out and play with on his own.
Not pictured as well are the two other Amazon bins I have. The tall one houses all of the "stuffed" things. Thankfully, we haven't yet gotten too into stuffed animals, but I know that day will come. The other bin is for toys (which, as pictured, are typically scattered across the floor instead of filed away neatly). I will only put out what I can throw in that bin at the end of the day. Any other toys that have been gifted to us are living in his closet for a rainy day!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorHi! I'm Laura, a 30-something first-time mom raising her little dude in southern California. It's been quite a first year, and this is my way to try to make sense of it all. This is a safe space for all moms to get some laughs, recommendations and feel like they are not alone. Archives
July 2020
Categories
All
|