My lovely friend, Sarndra, all the way in Brisbane, Australia, asked this question:

How do you keep organised with your nappy bag?

(Those of us who speak UK English call diapers nappies )

I’m one of those OCD mothers who seriously hates running out of anything. On the other hand, I’m also very minimalistic in my approach (there are, after all, TWO babies to carry/ coax along).

I have a nappy checklist for warm and cold weather (!) stuck to the side of our wardrobe where the nappy bag lives.

Ours has the following standard items:

1. 2 each of nappies for K and C (they wear different sizes)
2. cream
3. nappy wipes (I’ve finally run out of the sample packs of 12 we were given by all the baby companies so I pull about 10 wipes out of the tub of 140 and put them in a Ziploc – they never go dry – never)
4. disposable bags for dirty poo nappies
5. a cloth nappy and a plastic changing cover in case the changing surface is too hard
6. 2 dummies (they only get this if they’re meant to sleep going or coming home)

In summer I’ll add things like sunblock, a change of clothes for each one and a sunhat.

In winter I’ll add jerseys and jackets.

Part of my “getting home” routine is re-stocking the nappy bag – it helps me to do it when it’s all still fresh in my mind rather than waiting til we go out again and I have to think, “hmm, what did we use? what do we need to add?”

Readers, what works/ worked for you with organising your nappy/ diaper bag?

PS Of all my friends with twins, I seem to have the smallest nappy bag. I don’t know if that says I’m optimistic, unprepared or stupid

My babies will be 9 months old tomorrow (gosh! where has the time gone?) and have still not had a drop of Purity (our local jarred baby food, for the non-South Africans) pass their lips.

I will admit – I nearly, nearly cracked this weekend when we had two SPECTACULAR power failures, but I didn’t.

Still, there was NO WAY I was going to be spending R6 per baby for a jar of baby food, 2 – 3 times a day.

After all, I have twins (my new excuse for being cheap )

So I decided to try my hand at making my own.

It’s a lot easier than you think especially if you cook them in batches instead of cooking daily.

We bought a butternut squash for R12,78 (let’s not forget the 78c ) and it made all these portions.

6 portions for Connor and 6 for Kendra.

That’s at least 9 jars of baby food = R54

Saving = R41

You can save even more money when you use cheaper vegetables like sweet potato.

Another way I like to save money on our food is this – every month there is one week (happens to be this week) where I cook from the freezer and pantry.

I’m forced to get creative using strange combinations of whatever cans and bits of frozen food I have, all to empty it out.

Sometimes these strange combinations work really well, like a potato bake I now regularly make with a can of sweet corn stirred in.

How do you save money on food?

We go through around 12 – 14 nappies a day and I’m proud to say I still have not bought or used ONE fancy nappy disposal bag.

Why?

I use bread bags. And apple bags. And bags from the CD and DVD stores.

They work beautifully and they’re free.

When you’re spending thousands on nappies, bum creme and baby wipes every month for your babies, you save where you can!

What do you do to save money that others may find unconventional?

P.S. I don’t see us running out anytime soon. Either I hoarded quite a bit before the babies were born or we eat lots of bread and rolls. Or both

One thing I’ve realised about being a new parent is that “they” market to us big-time and make you out to be a bad parent if you don’t get the latest whatever to make your life or your baby’s life easier.

I’m wise to that nonsense for two main reasons – I’m cheap and I hate clutter.

The advantage of having twins is you quickly learn to find the quickest, easiest way to do things because all the work is doubled.

Clothes

The good thing about having babies that are such different weights is that you only need buy one main set of clothes in a gender-neutral colour and then one or two others for girl/ boy cuteness

I still label everything although these clothes are now in the chest of drawers.

I still use these boxes to separate the different sizes…

and I still use gift bags for additional organising. Really love this idea because I simply change the post-it notes when I’m storing something else and if I no longer need a gift bag, it lies flat and I don’t have a bulky storage container.

Baby toiletries

We keep it simple – we use body wash that can also be used for hair, baby aqueous cream and baby oil. That’s it. Oh, and bum creme.

I don’t believe babies need a whole skincare routine – also, I just don’t have the time.

Bottles

Kendra and Connor like different teats (nipples) so I have separate bottles for each baby. I use masking tape and label each with a big C or K on the top. This is a trick from the NICU

I also have two formula dispensers and twice a day we measure out the correct number of scoops in each container. These are also labelled with masking tape and I also have the instructions on there so that any of the other caregivers who need to make a bottle get it right, e.g. “125 ml water plus 5 scoops”.

Once the bottles are clean and sterilised we fill them with the correct amount of water. At any one time there are about 3 bottles ready for each baby.

By the way, the babies drink room temperature formula so we that we don’t have to  faff around warming bottles.

Toys

I didn’t ask for any toys at the baby showers so we didn’t get any.

I only realised later that it might be a good idea to have one or two things so I went out and bought one playmat. Which they share.

We do have a couple of rattles but that’s it at the moment.

I’m keeping my minimalistic view of toys because (1) I want them to learn to share everything and again (2) I’m not a fan of the clutter!

Books

We have a couple – again, I only have one of each – when they’re old enough to read, they’ll have to fight it out amongst themselves. Survival of the fittest and all that

Control Journal

It won’t surprise you to know that I have a control journal for the babies. It’s got sections on their routine, with additional sections for bathing, feeding, laundry, playing, sleeping, etc. It also has an emergency section with numbers for the nearest hospital, their paediatrician, medical aid details, all our contact details, etc.

When a new nanny starts (this is the second day nanny and we’ve had two night nannies), I hand it to them to reinforce all I tell them when I do the training.

Each time I update it I change the date on the cover and reprint the document.

All that to say this – I’ve only been a mother for 7 months and am still learning what works best for us…. and sometimes that changes on a weekly basis

Please share your best baby organising tips with me.

Hi all

On Sunday I challenged you to declare in the comments an area of your home that you’d be organising this week.

It’s not too late to join in – even if you do just one drawer, the top of your kitchen counters, etc.

I’ll be posting on Friday (so we all stay accountable) and I’d love to read your comments where you tell me what you’ve managed to get done.

I said that I’d be sorting out the gift wrap and whatnot (just means there’s such a lot and I’m too lazy to list it all ) which I’m still busy working through as I do my project-type stuff between the 11pm and 2am feeds!

Long story but I can stay up easier than I get up so this is my new routine.

BUT I have found a use for some of those gift bags…which have become one of my favourite organising tools.

In the post where I spoke about organising the babies’ clothes, Se7en commented and shared how she uses gift bags.

Well, I decided to try her suggestion and look…

and this shelf, which makes my heart go all aflutter – so neat and organised and PRETTY!!!

How else do you use gift bags for non-gift purposes in your home or office?

Please share in the comments and let’s get some good tips going. And Se7en, thanks again!

I never could understand how it was that some women didn’t take care of themselves.

Until now.

Because now I’ve had babies it is a different ball game altogether!

I didn’t notice while I was still in the hospital because they wake you so early with coffee/ tea but the day after I was discharged, I realised something is a bit off…what is it???

Oh my word! I’m not hungry.

And that’s how it started.

After a few days of being at home, I realised that I wasn’t eating breakfast until HOURS after I’d woken. When I was pregnant, I’d wake and literally have to eat something within minutes because I woke up starving.

Not so anymore.

I also realised I’d just grab the first thing available (some biscuits (cookies) or rusks with my tea) which is not good!

Good thing I had the awareness before it got even more out of hand. I decided I had to do something about it because I have to take care of me first before I can take care of the babies.

So now when I do my to-do list every day, my no. 1 item is Eat Breakfast.

What’s no. 1 on your to-do list?

Organising the babies’ clothes is starting to be a minefield.

Especially since I’m not good with seeing what size things are. I always have to look on the label to see the size. Poor kids!

So I thought I’d show you quickly what I’ve been doing.

I have these storage boxes and I separated the clothes into the various sizes, slapped on a post-it note and voila, organised!

Untidy but organised

So the baby showers are over and I finally knew what I could go buy.

People like to buy “outfits”, in other words, cute clothes, so I put things like vests, leggings and babygrows (onesies) on my wish list.

Also, I like babies to look like babies, not like three-year-olds

We got a lot of what we needed but there being two, we had to go buy some stuff. I still don’t know if we have enough but at least we have some clothes.

How many vests does one baby need anyway?

Someone at work gave us a very generous gift voucher so we went and bought the rest of what we needed, at least for the first stage.

And so the laundering commenced.

leggings on the left and vests on the right

babygrows and knitted leggings and tops

burp cloths on left and blankets on right
(don’t worry, I have PLENTY – the rest are still being laundered)

I feel much better now that they at least have clothes to wear!

I’ve used gift boxes (the purple ones) and plastic drawer dividers because they were falling over in anything bigger and I hate untidy shelves.

Question – anybody have any bright ideas to store all these tiny little clothes?

Remember I told you our plan was to move the guest bed into the study for the babies’ room?

It’s finally done – not perfect but 90% there and the babies’ room is now empty except for a chair which has to find a place elsewhere in the house.

This room is long and narrow, so the bed fits nicely at the back and the front will remain my study/ office.

another angle

Doesn’t the sun look beautiful streaming in through the windows?

This is a typical Joburg winter’s day – are you jealous?

P.S. Yes, my desk is really that tidy – I can’t STAND an untidy desk so I do a quick 30-second tidy every day when I’ve done working.