Less Waste: Blueland

This post is sponsored by Blueland. Blueland is created by a fellow mum who wished to reduce the microplastics in our oceans and landfills. When her kids were born, she realized how much these microplastics end up in the food she was feeding her kids. At the time, finding sustainably packaged household products was almost impossible. Hence, she created a company that offers everyday household cleaning items packaged in biodegradable packaging. Blueland is making refillable house products easily accessible and affordable. I partnered with Blueland to try a few of their products for this year’s Earth Day.

I started my less waste journey in 2017. It remember clearly how lost, angry, and helpless I felt after watching the documentary Plastic Oceans on Netflix. I raged on the web about the indecency of plastic products, and sought out eco-conscious companies. This was before sustainability became popularized. Ethical companies were few and far between. I struggled to grocery shop for things without plastic. A lot has changed since then. Thanks to companies such as Blueland, these products are now easily accessible everywhere.

Blueland is offering a one-stop shop for everyday cleaning supplies packaged sans plastic. My two favorite products that they offer are the toilet bowl cleaner and the plastic-less dish pods for the dishwasher. Despite the plethora of sustainably packaged products out there, these two in particular are difficult to find. I love that they come with refillable tins if you don’t already have some at home. These items arrive packaged in paper bags and the online shop makes ordering refills a jiff. I like to store mine in glass jars under the bathroom and kitchen sink.

The Toilet Bowl Cleaner Starter Pack has everything you need to keep your toilet nice and shiny. We clean ours at least once a month per our ultimate cleaning list. Other toilet bowl cleaners on the market are liquid solutions packaged in a squeezable plastic bottle. I love that these are simple tabs that you drop directly into the toilet bowl. It’s crazy to think that there is no bleach or hydrochloric acid in this product, as it does a fabulous job cleaning the toilet! Plus I love the lemony scent. You can easily order the refills here, and if you subscribe, you do save 10%.

Likewise, the dishwasher starter set is equally as amazing. Most dishwasher soaps come as pods packaged in plastic or in a plastic bottle as liquid soap. Occasionally, I see the cheaper, boxed powder version, which is great for the environment but has all these nasty chemicals in it. You can tell from the strong smell of those soaps that they can’t honestly be good for the dishes we eat from. On the contrary, Blueland’s plastic-free tabs feature clean ingredients. There is no petroleum, artificial dyes or fragrances, ammonia, or parabens. As a soon-to-be-mom, these are the things I’ve started to care about. The refill packs can be ordered here and also come with 10% off if you subscribe.

But here’s a sweeter deal!

Not only is April 22nd Earth Day, it’s also Blueland’s anniversary! The home essentials brand launched four years ago this Earth Day to to help eliminate single-use plastic and make it easy for people to make sustainable choices with no-waste, tablet-based refillable products. To celebrate, Blueland is making the first step to a more eco-friendly lifestyle/home easier than ever by offering 20% off sitewide—no minimum purchase needed. This offer lasts 4/21/23 – 4/23/23.

Other Blueland Products I am Excited About

As always, thank you for supporting the companies that support this space.

Questions Expecting Working Moms Should Be Asking Their Significant Other

I am currently reading the book Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life by Joann S. Lublin and it resonates with me really well. The book addresses the pervading dichotomy between mother and father societal expectations when it comes to parenting at home. I am comforted to see gender roles starting to blend more on the homefront, but this traditional “second-shift” still exists in many households and should not go unmentioned.

I, myself, delayed child-rearing after learning that the discrepancy between male and female salaries depend not on your gender, but rather, if you chose to have a child as a woman. A childless female makes comparable career moves up the social ladder but a mother does not. Because I took out a looming student loan, I knew when we married six months out of dental school that I did not want to impede my ability to make money and live my life. Now that we’ve set ourselves up financially and have financial freedom, I feel more ready and able to move forward.

Still, working moms need to have conversations with their significant others about expectations. If anything, as a courtesy to the other person. More importantly, as a team-effort to set both parents up for familial success. You may be surprised to learn that despite awareness around gender equality, the traditional roles are still discreetly embedded in everyday language and thereby everyday thinking. Even now, at a time when parenting roles are at their most equal, I got comments from people such as, “You’re not going to want to come back to work after becoming a mom”, “You’re leaving too early for your maternity leave” (I left 2.5 weeks before my due date), and one boss even cut my work a few weeks earlier than when I originally requested for my time off.

Not that I complained about any of it, because I’ve established financial independence from work either way. And I was quite looking forward to my maternity leave. But that’s kind of exactly my point. We should complain about it. Or at least bring it up with someone, somewhere. I would say, with significant others to start.

Look. You are a power mom. You work a career that you want to move up in. You have your own life, needs, and wants. You can make sacrifices, but in an equal manner. And let’s be totally clear. There is no TRUE equality when it comes to divvying up household responsibilities but at least have peace with what you end up doing. Having these conversations early allows time for adjustment. We started talking about stuff even before we became pregnant. Doing so provides a guideline for how to handle “problems” before they even happen. Both parents will be more prepared for rising challenges. The answers are by no means rigid, but its a starting place.

Questions Expecting Working Moms Should Ask

What roles is each parent responsible for at home? What chores do you like to do? What do you wish you didn’t have to do? Which ones can we divvy up evenly? For example, I love doing dishes, and Mike is great at cooking. His best quality in the kitchen is cutting and dicing, while I am particularly keen on stirring, frying, organizing ingredients and putting things away. He hates folding laundry, and I hate cat litter. He pulls the trashcan out every week, but I usually clean the bathroom stall. Find what you excel at, love to do, and try to volunteer for those first. As for the rest, find a way to share the task or get someone else to do it.
What is one way to organize family life? I bought a monthly calendar for our bedroom so we can keep track of appointments. You can also share a Google Drive which a friend of ours does, but I find that Mike never looks at it and then it’s just wasted effort. At least the monthly calendar in our room is in the hallway between the bed and the bathroom. Plenty of opportunity to pass it by both in the morning and at night. Another thing to consider is using to-doist or some other app to keep track of household chores that need to get done. As a team, make an effort to check off something from the list that could help lighten the load for the other person. A to-doist list could include making doctor appointments for the kids, picking up grocery items, or planning future events with the in-laws.
If the baby is sick, which one of us stays home? We have decided that it will be Mike as he can technically do his work remotely. He has actually been WFH since 2020. Because I see patients at the clinic, canceling my day of dentistry will affect way more people than him working from home. At the same time, we can call on grandparents to help support him while he works from home. As compromise, I promise to try to move patients around my schedule (perhaps skip lunch) so that I could have a shorter day and come home sooner to help him with our sick child. My office is also only 5 miles away, making it easy for me to jet home and help the family out. In comparison, his office is 28 miles away, which would make it more difficult if the roles were reversed.
Who cares about their career more? I think it’s fair to say that the person who cares about their career more should get first dibs on career moves. Mike LOVES his job. I like mine just fine, but I also dabble in other passions such as dog-sitting that I don’t think mine is as important to bend over backwards for. My career also has more flexibility in general, as I can pick up shifts at other offices, work at multiple offices as an associate or even open my own practice. When it comes to risking losing a job, I would give mine up in a heartbeat if it means Mike gets to keep his.
Who can have the most flexible schedule? The person with the more flexible schedule has more opportunity to help at home. It does not meet they have to bear the weight. But acknowledging the flexibility is a great starting point to setting boundaries or limitations to that flexibility.
Can we split time with baby at home? As someone who grew up with one stay-at-home parent and one always-away parent, I was very aware of the inequality of time allocation. My dad actually traveled a lot for work. He was gone a week at a time, meeting with clients in Asia. He also worked multiple jobs and did night and weekend shifts at Staples, Blockbuster, and Robinson’s May. It affected me a lot to always have one missing parent, so even when we got married, I told Mike that I prefer his jobs don’t take him away on travel. Growing up with that, I wanted to try my best to share our time with baby. Not only was it enough that I was home, but I want him to be home too. We are lucky in that we both have work flexibility. He plans to go into the office Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I plan to go into a dental office Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Both of us will be home on Sundays. That gives us 4 days to be at home every week. Not everyone has this flexibility, although there are plenty of ways to make it work. For example, I know of a couple wherein the dad works night shifts and mom works day shifts. They take turns spending time and raising their two kids, even if it means they hardly see each other. To them, that was a priority.
How much money do we actually have to make? Where can we cut? You may be surprised to learn that post-baby’s birth, you don’t have the same desires as you once did. Those late nights at the bar, loud concerts, and constant travel may be a chapter in your life that ends. It isn’t a bad thing. But realizing where you can cut can actually alleviate or remove financial stress, which is what many parents struggle with. Figure out the amount of money you really need, then establish a way to achieve that goal while reallocating the other work hours you used to spend doing new things at home.
What will we do for an emergency fund? This should definitely be a question answered, as there will be emergencies. Knowing where the money will come from (whether that be from a savings account, from family and friends, from stocks, or by selling off something you own) will make it more seamless when you need money right away for an emergency.
How often will we do finance check ins? In our family, we do weekly budgeting meetings since we got married. Making sure your finances are squared away will make the family unit run so much more smoothly. We use YNAB as our budgeting tool and it is easy, efficient, and accessible to both of us.
How often will we do mental health check-ins? Role equality check-ins? I think once a quarter, we will voice our resentments, difficulties, and hopes. We also plan to re-evaluate our roles. Are the tasks we are doing at home equal? Is someone slipping on their duties? Is it a matter of needing to re-assign tasks or hire a third-party to outsource a task in order to prioritize other things?
What are ways in which we can get increased support shall we need it? Call on the grandparents to take shifts on weekdays? Ask for grandparents to do babysitting on weekends so we can do errands or go on a date night? Hire an au pair if the grandparents aren’t working out or if it is too heavy of a burden on them and us? Hire a part-time nanny or sign them up for daycare or pre-school?
What are things that rejuvenate you and your partner? When I see my partner struggling, I know that he either needs sleep, space, or time to himself. Things that rejuvenate him are music, whiling away on the phone or computer, video games, or the TV. I am quite the opposite. Things that rejuvenate me include working out, taking a shower, getting some sunlight either by walking or swimming, writing/journaling, or reading a book. But like him, I also need that space or time to myself to feel human. That being said, you need to find space in the schedule for you-time. For example, we’ve talked about carving out a few hours a week before or after work for our own sanity.
How often shall we make time for us? The all-important question. It was you two before any of this started. Make sure it’s still you two when it ends.

A Word on Modern Dads Pulling Their Weight At Home

I must say, I swell with pride when I see amazing dads take to the homefront more. There are a lot of you out there, and I see you. In fact, as of 2016, 17% of men are stay-at-home dads. One of our best friends recently decided to be the stay-at-home dad while his career-driven wife does the bread-winning. We have another friend who works-from-home and brings their baby daughter on his wife’s conference trips, since she travels a lot and works directly under the VP of the company. Because the entire family travels with her on these trips, his wife is still able to breast feed their 6+ month baby during conference breaks. Another father in our neighborhood is home with his son every day and takes him out on walks a few times a day. I’ve seen him diligently care for their boy while his wife goes into work.

My own dad became a work-from-home dad in 2008, thereby allowing my mom (who gave up her job in the 90’s in order to raise three children) to go back to work again. Today my dad preps my mom’s lunches for the day, walks the dog, and does household errands on his down-time from work. And now that I am on my own parenting journey, my own husband has been able to secure WFH every Tuesday and Friday, thereby allowing me to work at a dental office on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I am excited to know that our son will be raised with both of his parents at home equally. But none of this would have happened if we did not talk about our expectations first!

Photo by Rachel Moenning on Unsplash

Simple Things: Baby Gym

Of all the hand-me-downs I received, this eco-friendly, collapsible play gym is my favorite. I love the story behind this play gym. It was gifted to me by a high-school best-friend whose two boys have outgrown it. She packed it in her luggage on a recent visit home, along with a bag of clothes which the boys have also outgrown. To forgo luggage space whilst traveling by plane with two children is a sacrifice. Going beyond that to lug it to me meant the world.

When I thanked her profusely for making the effort, she brushed me off gracefully. She even demonstrated how to put it back together. It took her less than a minute to reassemble it in my living room. No tools required! When in folded position, it’s easy to carry by the top bar. The gym slides nicely in a crevice between the couch and the wall. A perfect tiny space solution for a tiny person like me!

One might notice one of the dangling toys feature a green ribbon. This is a result of her husband accidentally stepping on the gym and breaking the wooden ring from which the toy originally hung. Instead of chucking the gym set because of the accident, she resourcefully remedied it in her own, simple way. Mike and I also made an addition to the gym set. In the middle we hung Mike’s cousin’s hand-made macrame planter. (His cousin also made a macrame paci-holder for baby which I adore.) With this play gym, it’s easy to add and subtract hangings from the bar. The legs on either side unscrew from the rod, allowing you to slip in more dangling points of interest.

This beautiful gym looks amazing in any space. It is light, portable, and easy to disassemble. Despite the light weight, it’s sturdy too! And the wood material looks minimal but feels luxe. Since we want to teach our baby about human impact on the environment, we prefer toys and books made with wood, cardboard, or paper over plastic. Our closest friends and family know this of us. We also did not list any toys or books on our curated, minimalist baby registry, which limited the amount we received. Another of our friends gifted us these wood toys by Gathre, and this local toy shop contains other great options for new parents who wish to be mindful over their toy selection too.

I am not sure what brand this gym is, but similar ones can be found online under the brand Poppyseed. There’s this Black and Wood one at West Elm, and this all natural one at Baby List.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Essential Finance Moves Parents Can Make For A Newborn Baby

Well, here’s the fun stuff about becoming parents. There are plenty of things you can do to set your kid up for financial success! YAY! This is the stuff that excites me to my bones. Of course, finance isn’t for everyone. That’s why I wanted to share a few actionable tips for people who love a set-it-and-forget-it type of financial life. By doing these few finance moves early on, you are making your family’s life a lot easier. Even before they can even babble, you can already do so much! Here is a list of finance moves we are going to make for our newborn in the first few months after birth.

Set Up your Baby for Financial Success with these easy finance moves

Add baby as an authorized user to your credit card. You can do this once they are born, which allows them to start building credit. Of course, you want to make sure you yourself are paying back those credit cards every month. We don’t want you to ruin their credit scores by racking up a terrible history. But as long as you do, this is a sure-fire way to give them a good score! If you have trouble paying off your credit card debts, you can always try The Credit Pros. They will help identify the most damaging and most helpful credit items, as well as provide advice and educationalools.
Start a 529 plan. You can open this through a brokerage account such as Fidelity or Vanguard. A 529 plan allows you to save up for educational expenses for your child. It is a tax-advantaged savings account. As long as money stays in the account, there are no taxes on earnings. As long as the money is used to pay for qualifying educational expenses, there are no federal taxes. And most of the time, there are no state taxes either! If your child doesn’t end up going needing educational expenses, you can rename the beneficiary to someone else. A grandchild, for example. Or you can transfer funds to an IRA.
Add them to the HSA plan. Having a child is a qualifying life event that allows you to add them to your HSA plan mid-year. Make sure to claim them as a dependent under the person who owns the HSA plan.
Claim child as a dependent with your employer.
Take care of health insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance. Adding your newborn to existing insurance plans is a must!
Create a budget category for your new family member. We budget every dollar, and now that we have an additional person, we need to financially account for them. We added a specific spending bucket for our baby’s additional monthly expenses. We’ve actually tried to not increase our spending by much even though we have a new family member. Check out the list of baby stuff we did not buy if you also want to limit spending. As for our budgeting tool, we have used YNAB for years and I recommend it to everyone. It is a tool that gave us the lifestyle we wanted. You can try it for free for 34 days using my referral link here. Personally, we find so much value in YNAB that we pay a yearly subscription.
Add them to your living trust and will. I wrote our living trust on my own with Legal Zoom. By doing so, I saved thousands of dollars on lawyer fees. It was super easy to do on my own, too. All we had to pay for were notary fees. I talked a lot about the importance of living trusts in this post. The living trust is crucial in avoiding state interferences that usually occur prior to the will being carried out.
Add child as beneficiary to accounts. Do this as a safety measure to the living trust and will.
Take advantage of tax breaks. Did you know that there is the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit? It allows you to get 20-35% of tax credit for up to $3000 (one dependent) or $6000 (two or more qualifying dependents). The percent depends on your adjusted gross income. There is also the option of opening an FSA account with your employer and funding up to $5000 tax-free in an FSA account. This money can be used to pay for pre-K programs such as nursery school or pre-school. Higher income earners may benefit more from an FSA account than the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit (you can’t use both!). However, FSA money must be spent within the same year. So use it or lose it! Plus, check to see if you qualify for the Child Tax Credit (CTC) which gives up to $2k per child, or the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Sign them up for a frequent flyer account with an airline so they can accumulate miles for award flights simultaneously. Most of the time, we travel hack our trips so that we use points to book flights and hotels instead of our hard-earned dollars. We actually did this for our upcoming trip to Japan in October. We paid for our hotels 100% with points (that means we spent $0 for 11 days of stay in Japan!), and 50% of our flights using a credit card sign up bonus cash redemption with this credit card (this referral link of ours will give you an additional $200 cash back if you sign up by 6/7/23). You can read how we travel hacked our Japan trip in this post. But for the times such as this when we can’t cover the flights solely through credit card rewards, it is very important to collect the frequent flyer miles. I think it will be harder to travel hack for a family of three than it was when it was just us two. So I would love for them to earn the points so they can accrue enough to cover their future trips.

Of course, this probably isn’t everything, but it’s a good place to start when you don’t want to do much work. If there are other intricacies that I come across, I will try to let the community know. I would love to know any hacks you may have too, so do leave a comment below!

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Books I Read on Pregnancy and Parenting

I am a lover of information. A little bit too much information. During my pregnancy, I turned to many books, along with anecdotal stories from people I knew. Both gave me a good grasp on what to really expect when expecting – and that means the good, the false, and the ugly too. I didn’t shy away from any of it, even when others apologized for their candor. The brutal truth did me good and helped me to have a less painful experience. I had the privilege of being mentally prepared and that’s a BIG DEAL for any mother. Although I didn’t agree with 100% of the opinions, and found some ‘facts’ to be baseless, I collected a number of thoughts that allowed me to reach my own conclusions. So here I will pass on the books I read during this time. I’m not saying these are the best by far and there are so many more on the list that I will be sure to add. Take what you will.

Books I Read on Pregnancy and Parenting

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting by Emily Oster. I found this book so much better than her other one (Expecting Better) which I also read. The latter is all about pregnancy but the former is what happens after. As a first-time father and facts-lover, Mike also enjoyed reading Cribsheet. I told him to skip Expecting Better because I was unimpressed and it really only relates to the mom.
Not Buying It: Stop OverSpending and Start Raising Happier, Healthier, More Successful Kids by Brett Graff. A great reminder of the true cost of raising kids. It gave me peace of mind, especially after all this talk about the average costs of raising a child. I got around to publishing a list of baby stuff we never bought, to give frugal parents in this space ideas on how to provide for a child without spending more money. I highly recommend this to parents who want to shy away from consumerism.
No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I really liked the actionable tips in this book. I know sleep solutions are different for each child and we have yet to try this book’s recommendations but a lot of it overlaps with Cara’s Sleep Training course which is very popular these days. I think the more information you have under your belt, the more prepared you are. Whether it works or not is a totally different story and honestly, irrelevant. You do your best in parenting, and that’s about all there is to it.
Your Pregnancy and Childbirth: Month to Month: 6th Ed. Literally a textbook. For the medical student in me, this was by far the most useful and my favorite resource.
Mama You Got This by Emma Bunton. Just a short, quick, easy read that was fun and light-hearted. I mean, it’s Baby Spice!
After Birth by Elisa Albert. A terribly dark book that is so raw and honest. I couldn’t help but whole-heartedly agree and at the same time, whole-heartedly shy away from some of these truths. Caution: Read when you’re in the right headspace. At the same time, perhaps you’ll find comfort in its honesty.

As always, feel free to share the books that you’ve enjoyed or found useful.

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Why I Enjoyed Expecting in April

A lot of thought-jotting happening at this household as I wait for baby’s arrival. It’s been nice to have a few moments to reflect on this special time, which equally flew by AND lasted forever. These last few months have been busy either way and I haven’t had as much time to journal as I would like. Well, now’s the time. This morning, I was thinking about my pregnancy journey and was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed the timing of it. Although I was initially unhappy about our baby being due in April, I suddenly realized that there were a lot of benefits for me that made this first pregnancy easier. Here is why I unexpectedly enjoyed expecting in April.

We were able to enjoy our birthday months and summer before pregnancy. We found out we were pregnant in August, which meant we were able to celebrate both our June and July birthdays last summer. We went to a winery in Temecula for a friend’s wedding in June, and celebrated fourth of July with beers at a friend’s backyard. Essentially, we celebrated our own birthdays one final time before worrying about someone else’s.

We had a great ‘final’ summer outdoors! I had a lot of energy during my first trimester and enjoyed bike rides with my dad, going on hikes with friends, and going to the lagoon and pool with my husband. I also was still in fit shape, and did not feel self-conscious in bathing suits, slim dresses, and workout clothes. Luckily, I started to show in the winter months when bundling up was quite normal. I pretty much did not appear pregnant until my 8th month of pregnancy thanks to the clothes I was wearing.

Sharing the news with our family right before the holidays was awesome. We announced our pregnancy a bit late, on Thanksgiving Day. This was partly because we didn’t feel ready, but also partly because we wanted to ensure a healthy baby. By doing so, we ended up having a really great holiday season. Both sides of the family were ecstatic about the new addition, and it was a common topic and point of excitement during the holiday.

I had an excuse to eat a TON during holiday season. Honestly, I feasted like a queen. I loved that there were always reasons to gather and eat. While I lacked cravings, I was especially hungry and could eat a decent amount during this time. The holidays didn’t make me feel bad about that at all! I think I would have felt worse if it was swim season and I saw all my girlfriends lounging at the pool drinking cocktails.

Being pregnant during the winter meant I got to eat a lot of comfort foods and baked goods. I associate the cool weather with fattier dishes. Baking is so much more enjoyable in the winter and our household was never short on baked goods. I also love pizzas, stews, and soups. I loved that our friends invited us to ramen dates over happy hours. This post is apparently centered around the food I ate…

I avoided the heat wave months during the final stretch of my pregnancy. Third trimester is the most physically uncomfortable stage. You’ve got a bowling ball for a stomach that keeps you hungry while at the same time prevents you from over-eating without feeling miserable. My back hurts from carrying the weight in the middle, and my fingers are slightly numb from reduced circulation and hand swelling. Imagine if I had to suffer through a heat wave as well. I am more comfortable propped up in bed under blankets with a warm mug of tea in my hand and a book on my lap. Also, this allowed me to continue my dog-walking business to the very end!

Our parental leave covers some of the best summer months and holidays. Since our baby is due at the end of April, our maternity and paternity leaves will stretch to the end of July. Mike and I joke that this time will be just like undergrad, when we met 13 years ago. Summer days of sleeping all day and staying up all night, with no work or school responsibilities as we try to get to know another human being. During our leave, we will experience Memorial Day, my brother’s Graduation from dental school, both of our birthdays (again!), our first Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Fourth of July, and my sister’s birthday. We also will have great summer weather before the REALLY HOT days of August and September begin. Honestly, we are SO excited!

Now I know not everyone plans out their due dates. I certainly didn’t choose April 20. But if you are looking at a seasonal time frame, I would highly recommend April and May as target due months. Personally, I enjoyed it a lot!

Photo by pure julia on Unsplash

Small Space Living: Baby Carts

Creative storage solution ideas abound when it comes to small spaces. Making do with what we’ve got is kind of my forte. It is not something to brag about, per se, but I am proud none-the-less of my baby cart. In essence, I took an Ikea Nissafors pushcart that I was using as a WFH desk storage solution and remedied it into a portable, all-carrying baby dresser on wheels. Baby dressers on the market cost anywhere between $100-$1000 these days, but my baby cart sells for a mere $30! Plus, I already owned it. I consolidated my WFH items into a storage bin within our media console and called it a day. But first, let me gush about the pushcart.

What Is On the Baby Cart?

Since we are co-rooming with our baby for the first three months during our work leave, we wanted to keep the essentials in our room. This included things like newborn clothes, swaddles, reusable diapers, diaper wipes, and bathing essentials in our tiny space upstairs. Technically, we have a closet designated for his stuff downstairs, but when it comes to daily necessities, only a few truly qualify. Those few are kept on our handy cart to avoid going up and down the stairs. I envision us living almost entirely on the second floor for our entire work leave.

We have already accumulated a wide range of clothing options, socks, shoes, hats, swim suits, toys and books before baby is even born. But the months by which these correspond to his development and growth vary as well. I’ve stowed away items by 3-month segments in that designated closet downstairs for later use. We will only bring the most relevant few items to the main living space (the second floor). They just all happen to fit on the pushcart.

So what qualifies as essential? Accessories such as shoes and hats do not belong on the cart. The shoes and hats can be nabbed on the way out the door downstairs. Likewise, bathing suits do not have space in the cart. I doubt we will bring baby to the pool before three months of age anyways. Toys and books go in a bin and stow away in a corner of our space. Therefore, they also don’t need to go on the cart. Which makes me wonder, why does one need a huge dresser for a baby, honestly?

All of this curation is a natural element to small space living, but comes quite unnaturally. It took years of practice to pare down true needs from wants. But it allows us to save space and money. I consider it a frugal muscle worth working out.

Why I Love the Cart

The Ikea Nissafors cart is slim, light, and highly portable. Measuring less than 12 inches wide and 20 inches long, the cart fits perfectly in tiny nooks and crannies. I store it in our closet next to our equally slim Ikea hamper and it hardly takes up room. When we move it from room to room (say to change a diaper or change an outfit), it can post up neatly against a wall without being in the way.

I love that it has wheels as well. We can cart it to the guest bathroom by the kitchen where we plan to bathe baby in the sink using a Friday Baby soft-sink bath. We also plan to change baby either on the bed using a foldable diaper changing pad or sheet. It was the way my mum did it when she cloth-diapered us to potty training age.

The cart has seriously been a god-send in our home. It’s a variable piece that I can see myself using for a very long time. We eventually plan to sleep train our son at 4-6 months of age, which will then bring him to the nursery room downstairs. By then, he will be in the same room as his closet. With that transition, we will no longer need the baby cart upstairs, which can be relegated as a pantry shelf, a coffee cart, or general caddy.

A Place to Rest with a Kind Bassinet

This post is written in partnership with Dock-A-Tot. They’ve created a sustainable bassinet option that is both affordable and practical. More importantly, they have done so without comprising good design or function. We have been gifted their Kind Bassinet to try, along with a nursing pillow and swaddle set. All opinions herein are my own. I receive no commissions for any of the Dock-A-Tot products shall you choose to purchase from my links after reading this review. I simply believe in the product and want to share what Dock-A-Tot has made. As always, thank you for supporting the companies that support this space.

A road of sleepless nights and parental unrest lies before us, or so we are told. Preparing for a newborn is much like preparing for battle. Make sure you’ve got the right gear, good training, a general idea of what you’re up against, and comrades to back you up. We are still stuck on the gear part. When it comes to gathering baby arsenal, let me be the first to say that we are of the pared-back type. It may not be your cup of tea. You can judge for yourself by looking at our curated baby registry list. However, there have been a few items that we wanted on hand right away. One of which was a place to rest. Dock-A-Tot recently released their Kind Essential Bassinet, and it fit the bill of sustainable, simple, safe and slow.

Kind to Earth

Dock-A-Tot’s Kind Essential Bassinet is fully sustainable. It is made of responsibly harvested corrugated cardboard (WHAT?!) that folds flat for portability. The light-weight allows petite mamas such as myself to carry it around the house and on travels effortlessly. Plus it ships for less! The cardboard acts as the frame of the bassinet, and a Sorona foam core mattress lies on top of the cardboard base. It comes with a machine washable, OEKO-TEK standard 1 certified cotton sheet as well. Shipped in a box that doubles as a carrying case (reuse, recycle), this bassinet is as easy to stow away as it is to assemble. Plus, with each bassinet purchase, a tree in planted on baby’s behalf.

Things I like about the box. It is fully recyclable. Simply remove mattress and sheet, and place box in recycle bin. But not so fast! A better option is to up-cycle the box. This could serve as a toy bin, doll crib, pet-bed, and more. Store their favorite books for easy reach. Use it to corral their toys. I would even consider using this as an organizing bin inside the closet or pantry. With boxes, the possibilities are endless.

Kind to Mama

With this bassinet, we can walk down the street to grandparents’ house and have a place to rest baby and mama’s tired arms. That is, without lugging more stuff that would require a car or wagon. It is also easy to move from room to room. Sometimes, mama just needs her space. Being able to put this bassinet in the living room so that someone else can have baby duty while mama gets some shut-eye is heavenly. Bonus points for the fact that any of the grandparent’s can lift this, too! The bassinet weighs a total 5 pounds. Look, in my fourth trimester, I am not planning on carrying ANYTHING, if possible.

Kind to Baby

The Kind Bassinet is a safe space for baby to sleep or nap. The cotton sheet is super soft and the mattress is water-resistant. The sheet is washable in case of accidents during those early months of life. I know baby will be comfortable on the Sorona foam mattress, which by the way is made up of 37% plant-based recycled fibers! Producing Sorona® uses 30% less energy and releases 63% fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to the production of nylon 6. At the end of the day, the product you get is a firm, flat surface on which to lay baby down while being mindful of your impact.

The Kind Bassinet is compliant with US standards applicable to bassinets and meets children’s product safety standards. Just ensure that it sits firmly on the floor, and has no additional products inside while baby is sleeping. Of course, this works best in a pet-free home. Curious critters may want to snuggle along with your babe, so always keep an eye.

Kind to Our Wallet

As a frugalist, I always talk price. The price of the Dock-A-Tot bassinet is at a mere $119, thereby making it one of the more affordable bassinet options out there. Sure, it isn’t fancy. It doesn’t rock or wheel. But it is space saving, and in an urban, minimalist tiny home, that is the exact thing we need right now. It stores away quickly and well. It moves. The thing is, when it comes to adding a member of the family to a home, the question of space and whether there is enough of it will come up. This was the FIRST concern both of our parents had. But small living is a choice many young people make, because frankly, it is financially savvy. Any product that provides function given a small footprint is a winner in my world.

Final notes:

The Kind Essential Bassinet was designed well, in beautifully colored prints that engage baby’s imagination during awake time. There are many prints to choose from, all of which keep the home looking stylish. We chose to go with the Strawberry Thief print, to match my Dock-A-Tot nursing pillow (La Maman Wedge). However, I also liked the Willow Boughs print for a woodsy vibe. The prints are sealed with a non-toxic protective varnish that makes clean-up easy. Cute pedestal feet add stability and ornate detail to this cardboard box. Tool-free assembly takes me less than 30 seconds. Simply open the carboard box, lay down the base, followed by the mattress.

As we will both be partly working from home (me with the blog and dog-sitting, and him on a hybrid schedule), we need a place to set our loved one down nearby. This bassinet can be at the foot of our desks, by the couch, near the bed … anywhere else for that matter.

Bottom line: baby stuff is required for such a short period of time. Anything we can do to reduce the waste for 6 months of life is something worthwhile. I could croon all day about design and beauty, function and fit, but let’s be real. The sustainability that this bassinet option provides puts what we are doing as parents into perspective. Babies of the past have thrived on waaaay less stuff. Forego the most complicated bassinets that add to the headache, the bulky cradles that require an upgrade in living space, or the expensive tech that forces you to pick up additional work days. Your baby simply wants to be near you. You want them to have a safe space. And you want rest. This Kind Bassinet provides.