Whenever I leave the house with my toddler, it’s inevitable that I forget something we need.
Despite my best efforts to properly load up the diaper bag before we go, I’ll always forget to bring some essential piece of baby gear like a bib, a set of spare clothes or, in the worst-case-scenario, a pacifier.
Recently, however, my husband had a great idea for how to overcome this symptom of mommy and daddy brain, a trick that is today’s hint and that is a parenting variation of keeping a spare tire in your trunk.
His idea: Keep spare bibs and pacifiers, or whatever other items you generally forget, in your car. And if you don’t have a car, you can keep the spares in your stroller storage basket.
As usual, it turns out that my husband isn’t the first one to think of this brilliant idea. Parents commenting over at the site of Windsor Peak Press (the publishers of my go-to baby gear bible Baby Bargains), What to Expect and Baby Center, for instance, have discussed having spare packed diaper bags, or other diaper-related essentials, in their vehicles just for these kind of forgot-that situations.
Over at Rookie Moms, meanwhile, Whitney Moss shares this tip from the authors of How to Have Your Second Child First: “keep your car stocked” (think a cardboard box in your trunk full of essentials like diapers, wipes and a pacifier). Elsewhere, Tiffany at Simply Modern Mom writes about having a “mom emergency kit” in the trunk of her vehicle holding similar baby items, and a mom commenting over at Hellobee shares how she has a “disaster bag,” a gallon ziploc bag filled with important items like spare clothes and wipes, in her car.
To be sure, there are other methods you can use for remembering what to put in your diaper bag each time you stock it up. You can try using a diaper bag mnemonic you recite to yourself each time you fill up the bag, or you could have a checklist prominently displayed by your door that you read over before you leave the house.
And of course, today’s hint is only going to work as well as your ability to remember to stock up the car or stroller. In fact, my husband and I still have to remember to load up our trunk.
What are your tricks for remembering to leave the house with everything you need and for handling situations where you inevitably forgot some essential piece of baby or toddler gear?
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