Baby gadgets. There are 18 trillion different kinds of baby gadgets that promise to not only make your life better as a parent, but they also threaten for your (and your baby's) world to actually implode if you don't hop in your car, run over a few elderly pedestrians, and sprint through your nearest super store to purchase them. I'll admit that in the first few weeks, I was both supremely naive and terrified that if I didn't buy said super life saving gadgets, something terrible would happen. News flash: Selah is now 19 months old and so far, there have been no imploding worlds due to my negligence in buying these gadgets. That being said, there are a few gadgets that I've bought that are complete life savers and do in fact make our lives a little easier and keep those pesky imploding worlds at bay.
1) When it came time to give the bottles the heave ho, I spent a small fortune trying to find a sippy cup that Selah would actually drink out of. There were a few that she actually gave eye rolls to. Lady, please. Of course there were the $20 sippy cups that in addition to curing cancer, they also hydrated your child. $20 to hydrate my kid??? I'll take 5! So on one of my what seemed like daily trips to our local grocery store, I decided to cruise down the kiddo aisle and found the aforementioned flip top straw cups. I bought one and gave it a try the next morning and wouldntchaknow it...she loved it! I went back and bought 2 more before God forbid, they discontinued them and I was back to square one. I love that the straw just flips closed and is small enough to fit into the side pouch of the diaper bag. And best part...you can buy 2 for under $10. Double score.
2) We've been using these great kiddo utensils for months. Right around Selah's 1st birthday, she and I ventured down to our local Ikea. It's a good thing it's on the complete opposite end of the city as us, otherwise I'd be bankrupting us. Love Ikea. I was beginning to toy with the idea of getting her some big girl utensils when the Ikea fairies just happened to shine this glorious light on a huge bin of their Kalas flatwear set. They're the perfect size, in cool vibrant colors and, hold onto your shorts, you get 18 pieces for $1.99. You're welcome.
3) If I had a dollar for every time I sang the praises of the NoseFrida, I'd be livin' large. I remember calling Selah's pediatrician up in a cold sweat the first time she got a cold at 3 weeks and gagging at the thought of this 'snot sucker' he highly recommended. Someone tells you you're going to be literally sucking the snot out of your kid's nose and you'll be gagging too. But at that point, I didn't care. I had tried the battery operated snot sucker (it did absolutely nothing and smelled like it was going to catch on fire at any second) and the blue hospital bulb gave her a bloody nose. This thing arrived and any mama who's used one will tell you they've never been so excited to see snot. I had to use it recently on Selah when she had a bad cold and hasn't quite mastered the nose blowing. Lemme tell ya though, using this on a newborn and then on an 18 month old is a whole 'nother ball game. Think greased pig wrestling. Still awesome now though.
4) Piggybacking off the NoseFrida and cold gadgets is this Eucalyptus essential oil from Aura Cacia. I originally bought this bottle for myself pre-kiddo for a nasty sinus infection I had. Skip forward to Selah having a cold and this stuff works wonders in so many ways! My favorite is to put drops of it in her humidifier whenever she was sleeping. Awesome sauce.
5) I'm kinda anal when it comes to keeping my vehicle clean and I swore up and down that once I had a baby, I wouldn't have a car that looked like a garbage dump. I didn't want to have trash and dried up months old food everywhere. I'm sure moms everywhere were not-so-quietly laughing whenever I'd say this but guess what, I still keep a clean car. That's just me and it makes me happier to have a clean vehicle. I'm sure this pleases my OCD hubby to no end as well. So when Selah got to snacking-in-the-car age, I was once again in my favorite bank account sucking store and found the Munchkin Snack Catcher. I swear, that company has some of the coolest stuff for kids and they're super affordable. We were given another snack catching gadget that you can supposedly fling around and nothing flies out; which it does what it says it will. It does not, however, guarantee against small toddlers setting the gadget on the floor and emptying fist fulls of snacks out onto the floor. Purpose defeated.
If you pick up at least one of these bad boys, I guarantee you'll smile just a little :)
*This post is not sponsored in any way. These are just products I've purchased on my own that I love.*
