Congratulations!
You just brought your precious new baby home from the hospital! It is hard to believe that after nine long months of growing this brand new person, your little one is now sleeping soundly in the nursery for the moment, that is!
To say that the next weeks will be an exciting and sleep-deprived blur is probably an understatement. Fortunately, there are a number of tips to try that will help make the daily challenges of taking care of an infant to go a bit smoother. Check out the following three new parent hacks:
Turn to Technology to Help with Your Calendar
It is amazing how the smallest member of your home can have such a full calendar. From well-baby checks and photo shoots to keeping tabs of when grandma and grandpa are coming to visit, keeping a well-organized calendar will help you to feel on top of things. To make this as easy as possible, turn to your phone for help. If it’s been some time since you have upgraded your smartphone, you may want to head over to T-Mobile with your napping baby to check out their selection of affordable phones; look for one that features a virtual assistant for quickly adding and organizing your calendar. A virtual assistant, like the iPhone’s Siri, can also help you with your grocery lists and keep tabs on your daily to do list. When you are snuggling a sleeping infant, it will be much easier to quietly say “Siri, add diapers to the grocery list” instead of trying to juggle a pencil, baby and your little bundle of joy.
Use the Neck Hole of a Onesie as an Escape Hatch
You probably have a pretty decent stack of onesies for your infant; the cotton outfits are comfy, easy to put on your infant and wash up well. As Pop Sugar notes, they also feature a huge neck hole and shoulder flaps that are designed to do more than fit over your infant’s bobble head. If and when your baby has a massive diaper blow out, the head opening was designed so that you can slip it down off of your baby’s body, thus avoiding getting any poo where you don’t want it to go.
Invest in a Car Seat Cooler
As you have probably already noticed, car seats can get really hot, especially those metal clips and the buckles that hold your infant safely in place. In order to help keep the car seat as cool as possible, you can purchase a car seat cover; Amazon sells the Mommy’s Helper Car Seat Shade for around seven bucks; place the cover over the seat when you are back home and at the store or mall; it should help reduce how much heat the seat absorbs. If you live in a really warm climate, there’s also the COOLTECH Car Seat Cooler that works like a giant ice pack. Keep the car seat cooler in the freezer when not in use and then around 10 minutes before you head out, place it on the empty car seat; in the time it takes you to gather up your baby, the diaper bag and put your shoes on, the car seat will be cooled down. Remove the cooler before placing your baby in the seat; you can fold up the cover and bring it with you in the diaper bag.