Today I’m going to share about how to survive a road trip with toddlers. We had 4 kids in 5 years, and always lived out of state from one side of our extended family. We love to visit them, and we sure as heck aren’t going to load a baby, a toddler and 2 preschoolers onto …
23 Best Tips to Survive a Family Road Trip with Toddlers & Preschoolers Read More »
Becoming a parent can be hard on your marriage. There’s a big learning curve, trying to figure out your new roles as parents, and how to communicate with each other. You don’t want to talk about your kids all the time, but when you finally get a quiet moment alone, you kinda can’t help it. …
Marriage & Motherhood: 6 Practical Tips for Enjoying Marriage After Babies Read More »
Today I’m going to outline a very effective plan for consistent 1 year old discipline for you to use with your toddler. From our experience of having 4 kids in 5 years, it’s never too early to start setting expectations and training your little ones. 1 year olds understand WAY more than we realize. It might …
4 Simple Phrases To Help You With 1 Year Old Discipline Read More »
Let’s be honest. The title of this post is ridiculous. Nothing could ever totally help you with preparing for baby. But, should you find yourself expecting a baby (or hoping for, adopting, or fostering a baby), there are a few things that might make the transition to mommy life just a tad bit easier. 1. Find …
7 Top Things to Do When You’re Preparing for Baby for First Time Read More »
In this post, you’ll learn the exact laundry system I figured out to the laundry overwhelm for a big family with several small children. I used to be drowning in laundry. With 4 kids under 7, there were clothes everywhere all the time. Dressup play = clean clothes all over the bedroom floor. Outside play …
Easy Peasy Laundry: 3 Step System to Eliminate Laundry Overwhelm Read More »
Whether your food budget is $100 per month or $1,000 per month, if you want to stick to the food budget you’ve decided on, you have to know how to track your grocery spending. After all, if you have a budget, but don’t know how much you’re spending, then do you really have a budget? …
4 Easy Ways to Track Your Grocery Spending [SPREADSHEET] Read More »
I originally wrote this post several years ago after we got our first two babies sleeping through the night by 12 weeks. Since then, we’ve done the same thing with two more babies and thousands upon thousands of people have read and shared this post. I’ve also written a more detailed infant sleep guide that …
Infant Sleep Training: A New Mom’s Guide to Newborn Sleep! Read More »
Before I had children, back when I was a perfect mother, I subconsciously imagined that our mornings would be slow and cozy… I thought it would be fun to have the kids come crawl into bed with me, and we’d all wake up slowly together. There were also unicorns jumping through rainbows in this figment of my imagination. But here’s the …
Morning Routine for a Stay-at-Home-Work-at-Home-Homeschooling Mom Read More »
First of all, if you are a new parent, CONGRATS! Kids are an awesome gift and you will sleep again. I promise!! This post is designed to help you understand the eat play sleep schedule you might have heard about. We’ve had 4 babies of varying sleep personalities and used this schedule with each one …
There is an infamous 4 month sleep regression that happens sometime around when a baby is 4 months old. Coupled with typical postpartum exhaustion and/ or depression, it can be exhausting and overwhelming for even the seasoned mama. You can help your baby through this sleep regression and I plan to offer some explanation and …
Everything You Need to Know About the 4 Month Sleep Regression Read More »
Confession: I’ve use to think Aldi was gross. I thought that you would only shop at Aldi if you had to. And if you could possibly afford to shop anywhere else, you obviously would, because ew, Aldi. I don’t know why I thought that, and seeing as how I’ve done most of my grocery shopping …
70 Aldi Products, Features, Warnings & Hacks: A Complete Aldi Review Read More »
Our zero-degree-freeze-the-snot-inside-your-nose midwestern winters are in full swing, and we are officially hibernating. I bought 3 months worth of food and we’re not leaving the house until April. The freezing months of winter here cause us to get a little bit creative with our indoor activities. And by creative, I mean, my kids play with our …
21 Easy DIY Toddler Toys & Activities from Stuff You Have at Home Read More »
If naptime has gone CRAZY at your house, you’re in the right spot! In this post, you will learn: When do babies drop to one nap and how do you know if your baby is ready? What nap transitions look like and some nap transition tips The 2 to 1 nap transition & dropping the …
When Do Babies Drop to One Nap? The Best Method for Nap Transitions Read More »
There’s an ongoing poll in my mom-friend circles about which transition is the hardest: Having your first kid, going from 1 to 2 kids, 2 to 3 kids or adding more kids after 3. Each transition is different but going from 1 to 2 kids is REALLY REALLY HARD! If the first child is a …
11 Tips for Helping Older Siblings Cope with the New Baby (from a Mom of 4) Read More »
After having 4 babies with totally different personalities and varying levels of “easy baby” to “hard baby,” (is that a spectrum??) I’m convinced you can get almost any healthy baby trained to sleep through the night and on a predictable schedule during the first few months (even weeks)… if you want to. I’m also convinced …
4 Simple Reasons Why Creating a Baby Schedule is Life Changing Read More »
In this post, you will learn 31 tricks and tips for coping with a toddler and newborn. We had 4 kids in 5 years, and the hardest part of every newborn (after the first) was always the toddler. The clingy, confused, barely verbal, highly active toddler who does not understand why it takes you 45 …
31 Awesome Ideas for How to Entertain Toddler with a Newborn Read More »
In this post, you will get all the details on each baby item and whether or not it’s a “must have” for your baby registry. Creating a baby registry is understandably overwhelming because, well, you’ve never had a baby before! It’s so hard to know what you’re really going to need or want. Plus, it’s …
100 Minimalist Baby Registry Must Haves [Printable Checklist] Read More »
In this post, you’ll get sample baby schedules for various ages from your baby’s first year since it’s helpful to see what most babies need. And I’ll help you think through how to get your baby on a schedule… and ASAP! You can truly start our method from the very beginning. We start with the basics of …
How to Get Baby On a Schedule… ASAP! (Plus sample schedules for the whole first year!) Read More »
I googled “simplify your life mom” as I was writing this, and got over a million results. So why one more post about simplifying life? Because, I read a few, and they weren’t simple! The top result had 72 tips to simplify your life… 72! 72 isn’t simple. Here’s the hard truth. You might have …
Simplify Your Life: 9 Tips for Eliminating Errands, Notifications, Clutter and More! Read More »
There are a million articles, books, and blog posts about sleep training on the internet. With a million different thoughts and opinions. Much of parenting boils down to personal preference, and our personal preference has been to sleep train our 4 kids from birth. We recommend sleep training your newborn! (Good thing we did… because …
10 Surprising Reasons to Start Sleep Training Your Newborn ASAP Read More »