Parenthood – Average Momma Bear

101 Things to do With Kids When You’re Stuck Inside

Board games have been a great way to practice colors, counting, and taking turns.

Whether you’re stuck inside because the weather’s too cold or too hot, or the air quality is bad (we get wildfire smoke every year where I live), or there’s an unbelievable plague waging war on the nations outside your door (see- 2020 Coronavirus), there are a million fun things you can do to entertain your kid(s) and keep yourself sane. I have written down 101 of my favorite time killers that are super simple and fun. I have broken them down into three categories: activities that require some form of technology, activities that only require yourself (and simple household items like pencil, paper, string, etc.), and activities that require something that you MIGHT not have in your home. Activities from the last group use things that are fairly common but may not be readily available to your family. I will do my best to provide suggestions on where to acquire these items.

Activities with technology

I know not everyone likes activities that involve screen time, but let’s be realistic, there are so many fun things you can do with technology! My family is fairly technologically savvy but we do everything together. Even when it comes to TV and movie time, we watch together. Most of these (18) activities can be done using a smartphone, tablet, or computer and shouldn’t require any apps or downloads that cost money. I want to keep this list of activities affordable to all or most families!

Who doesn’t love a dance party? Pump up your favorite tunes and dance like no one (who cares) is watching!
Make your own cooking/baking video. You don’t have to post it on the internet, but it is fun to pretend you have your own cooking show.
Play video games. I know this sounds pretty open ended, but that’s the point! Video games look different to different families. Play WITH your kids. Learn some new skills or beat each other’s high scores.
Baking- try a new cookie recipe. Cookies are usually pretty simple, and there’s a world of possibilities out there. Make a new combination with some items you already have in your pantry! Explore my Pinterest cookie board for ideas!
Cooking- try a new recipe from a different country. Branch out and try something exotic that is new to your family. Kids LOVE helping with cooking! Here is a link to the “toddler learning tower” we use at home to help elevate our kids to counter-height safely. (This is an affiliate link which means if you purchase anything through this link, I receive commission at no additional cost to you. My views and opinions are not swayed because of this; I only recommend products and services I love.)
Create a stop-motion video using toys and a smartphone camera. Use toys that you can pose and move, then take a picture after every move. Then splice them all together in a simple video editing app. This kind of activity is great for older kids!
Learn and practice new hairstyles on YouTube. YouTube is full of great video tutorials of hair styling from simple to complex and crazy! No matter your level of experience, there is something for you to try and learn. Kids can try too!
Find a new craft on Pinterest to try. This is probably one of my favorite things to use Pinterest for. I’ve saved thousands of craft ideas at this point. Check out what I’ve got on my kids crafts board. It’s filled with activities, crafts, and learning projects.
Kids Yoga. This is a good activity if the kids are getting restless and need something to focus their minds and calm their little bodies. I’ve heard great things about Cosmic Kids yoga on YouTube. Looks like they also have an app! This is a great way to transition into quiet time, nap time, or even first thing in the morning.
Music guessing game. Play a second or two of songs your kids know and see if they can guess them. They may surprise you with their crazy good memory!
Tell stories or read books around a “campfire”. You can create a campfire atmosphere by using an ambient light app, or a flashlight, or a nightlight. In my son’s room we have an Echo Glow, a smart light that pairs with Amazon Alexa and can change it’s color with your voice command! It even has a “campfire” setting that glows like a moving fire! (This is an affiliate link which means if you purchase anything through this link, I receive commission at no additional cost to you. My views and opinions are not swayed because of this; I only recommend products and services I love.)
Movie roulette. Have everyone choose a different movie or you choose several. Place them behind your back and pick one blindly or from a bag. This can also be done using streaming services by choosing a movie genre, closing your eyes and using the controller to hold the scroll button in one direction and let go at a random point. The movie or show it lands on is what you watch!
Make-up tutorial. Watch and try or create your own make-up tutorial using play make-up, make-up you’re okay with letting kids use, or buying dollar store make-up. Making your own kid-based make-up tutorial could be really fun!
Tour the world with Google Earth. Exactly what it sounds like! Let your imagination soar by visiting all the places on Earth that you dream of visiting. Here is a link to Google Earth, have fun exploring!
Guess the attraction with Google Maps Street View. This activity is great for older kids, especially those who’ve had some geography lessons. Check out this one to get you started.
Learn some simple magic tricks. Learn them yourself to perform for your kids or have them learn along with you to amaze their friends. Just crack open YouTube and search for “magic tricks for kids” to get you started.
Learn a few words in a new language. YouTube and Google are both helpful for this. There are tons of great language tutorials on YouTube, while Google offers a translator that will help you pronounce any word. Just pick a language!
Learn a few sign language signs. There are a lot of helpful books at your local library (especially for baby sign language) and Google is, once again, a great resource here. Google search “sign language” plus the word you are hoping to learn, and you will have many resources pop up instantly.

Activities That Could Require More

It’s difficult to write completely generalized lists because everyone has different circumstances and resources available to them. This next list is made up of 40 simple and cheap activities that shouldn’t require anything too crazy. I will try to provide ideas on where to get the things you need in order to do them.

Our rice bin is always a hit. Great for pouring, mixing, scooping!

Dry food play. In our house we use dry rice that we’ve dyed fun colors and then placed in a sealable container. You can also use beans, lentils, or any other food or material that works. You can use it with toy cars, cups and bottles, shovels and trowels, and anything else you can think of. Here is a link to a tutorial of mine where I show you how to make the colored rice and give you ideas on how to use it to teach your child to hypothesize. It’s never too early or late to learn!
Ripped paper pictures. This is something I’ve loved since I was a kid. And it doesn’t require scissors! I go to the dollar store and get cheap packs of construction paper to keep on hand for projects like this. All you do is rip shapes out of different colored paper to create a larger picture. This is great practice for young kid’s motor skills. We’ve used this project to make decorations for several holidays or just for fun.
Spa day. You don’t have to spend a ton of money to have a fun spa day with the kids. You can use sample sized things you’ve collected, take a fun bath, wrap yourselves up in clean towels and bathrobes, paint nails, try out hair styles and accessories, face masks, mini massages, or anything else you can think of to make everyone feel special and clean! I like to sneak in the nail trimming sessions to our spa days, haha!
Cardboard box race cars. If you’re anything like our family, you’ll have a surplus of delivery boxes sitting around, waiting to go out with the recycling. If you have any large enough to fit a sitting kid, make them into race cars! Decorate them with paper and markers, glue and glitter. Paper plates make great “wheels” on the sides. Then you can slip a towel under the box to pull them around…if you’re looking for a workout, of course.
Boardgames. It’s always a good idea to keep a decent collection of boardgames on hand to fight family boredom. Collect a wide variety or age ranges and number of players when stores like Target and Fred Meyer have big sales on boardgames. You can also take pictures of the boardgames you’re interested in and search for them on Amazon to see if you can find a better price. (I do this with most things, haha!).
Masking tape floor maze. When you have kids, there are a million and one uses for masking tape (or colored painter’s tape). If you have a large floor space available, use the tape (which won’t leave a residue) to create as simple or intricate a maze as your imagination can create. Then let kids walk it or drive their toys through it.
Masking tape hopscotch. Using masking tape, create as short or as long a hopscotch course as your kids can handle. The tape is so flexible you can even use it to create numbers or letter inside the squares. Here is a great option for colored masking tape from Amazon. (This is an affiliate link which means if you purchase anything through this link I receive commission at no additional cost to you. My views and opinions are not swayed because of this; I only recommend products and services I love.)
Masking tape roads for cars. Using masking tape, you can create nearly endless roads for your kids to explore with their toy cars. Remember that kids’ imaginations allow for a break in the laws of nature. Don’t be afraid to make those roads go up over furniture and over big jumps.
Build a bird feeder or bird house out of recycled materials. Check your recycling bin for things like milk cartons, jugs, straws, and cereal boxes. Thoroughly clean out your chosen materials and use a little glue and/or tape and a lot of imagination to create a refuge for your avian friends. Bird seed may be the only material you wouldn’t likely have on hand.
Use toilet paper tubes to make pretend binoculars. Of course, they won’t magnify anything, but imaginations can make up for that! Tape or glue a couple toilet paper tubes together and use your new binoculars to search for local wildlife. Explore further by opening a window (weather permitting) and match sounds with the observed creatures.
Brick building competition. This is a fun one to do with Legos, Duplos, Megablocks, or anything you prefer. Create an idea to work off of (create a car, spaceship, house, etc.) and let each person build their own. Then award each of them with a different compliment award at the end!
Build a cardboard box castle. Put those Amazon boxes to good use! Doesn’t have to be pretty, just fun!
Doll fashion show. Dress up your dollies and walk them down the catwalk with your most inventive fashions. For extra points, use more creative materials in your fashion design like pipe cleaners and googly eyes.
Glow stick bath play. Head down to the closest dollar store and stock up on $1 packs of glow sticks. Fill up the bath tub, get some glow sticks glowing and throw them in the water. Make sure to turn the lights out! Just keep things safe by sitting near by. This activity entertains my preschooler until the water turns cold.
Masking tape cardboard game board. Grab your masking tape and make a grid based on whichever game you choose. You can make the tape grid directly on the floor or grab a large, flat piece of cardboard to put the tape on. Then, search your toy bins for different pieces to play tic tac toe, checkers, 4 in a row, or battleship if you want to get really fancy!
Card games. Everyone has their favorites. Many are easy to teach and understand for young kids (Go Fish, Old Maid, War, etc.) If you’re drawing blanks, do an internet search. You’ll find so many!
Plant seeds in egg cartons. Fill up the holes in an egg carton with some dirt and throw in some seeds! Don’t have packets of seeds? Check your fridge! If you’ve got fruit or vegetables with seeds, it’s worth a try. Just set your carton in the window for sun and water it when the dirt gets dry. Your kids can learn about beginning a garden.
Grow beans in the window. All it takes is a dry bean, a wet paper towel, a zip lock baggie, and a piece of tape! Lay the bean on the wet paper towel and put both in the baggie and zip them up. Tape them to a window to get sun and wait a bit. It’s a great way to see how a seed grows from the very start.
Build the most epic Hot Wheels track ever built. Yes, this takes a pretty decent collection of Hot Wheels tracks, but don’t forget to let the creativity flow. Start upstairs and run downstairs. Make a chair obstacle course. Use walls to get extra speed. The possibilities are exciting!
How high can you stack? We love this game in our house. Legos, Duplos, Megablocks, even things like Cheerios are stackable! Choose materials and have a stacking competition. Simple fun!
Musical parade. Grab all the musical instruments in the house or find things that can work like instruments and hand them out. Every participant should take a music maker and walk in line to create a cacophony of fun.
Potato stamping. This craft requires a few things- potatoes, washable paint, paper, and a knife. Cut potatoes in half and CAREFULLY carve different shapes into the cut side. The potatoes can then be used as big stamps.
Vinegar and baking soda volcanoes. This project can be as elaborate as you want. The simplest version is to find a bottle with a narrow mouth and put several spoonfuls of baking soda inside. With the container over a tray, in a sink, or in a bowl to facilitate easy clean up, slowly pour vinegar into the bottle and watch the chemical reaction. Volcano!
Clay/Play-Doh stop motion animation. Create your own characters and scenery and change it one photo at a time. Then use a simple editing app to string them all together into a fun video. It’s a lot of work but worth it in the end.
Cat’s Cradle and other variations. A classic game that just takes a long piece of string (yarn or something a bit thick works best), two sets of hands, and a little bit of research if you don’t know how to do it.
Coloring books. This is another thing that is great to get at the dollar store. I like to stock up on some generic ones plus some favorite cartoon characters. The dollar store also has Crayola crayon packs for those with kids who like to break them (like mine).
Sticker art. Another great dollar store find is cheap stickers. Stock up! We use stickers to create works of “art” to tell a story on a single page.
Puzzles. Here is something else I found but didn’t expect to get so much use out of from the dollar store. Cheap puzzles! Dollar store puzzles aren’t the most durable, but it’s a lot less annoying when you lose a piece and the whole puzzle becomes “incomplete”. If we lose too many pieces, it doesn’t hurt us to just recycle it.
Fastest puzzle competition. When you can find simple puzzles for less than 100 pieces, you can pick up several and see who can put theirs together the fastest, upside down, blindfolded, etc.
Book Jenga. After a fruitful library trip, we like to stack all of our books on top of each other into a giant tower. After that, take turns trying to pull one book from the pile without toppling the entire stack! In our game, it’s okay to touch the stack to remove your book; you just can’t lift the others from on top of it.
Color mixing with food coloring and water. Using clear glasses of water, add food coloring droplets in each glass to create a rainbow. Then experiment with mixing colors to create new colors!
Container drums. Anything can be a drum if you try, haha! We like to use large oatmeal containers and anything else from the recycling bin that makes a good sound. Tape or glue them together if you’d like to create a whole drum kit.
Toy ice rescue. This one takes some planning to freeze some waterproof toys into large bowls of water in your freezer. Then give kids (safe) tools to use to excavate their frozen friends. Be aware that this one is messy because of the melting water. Have towels on hand and place the large ice pieces into something that can catch the melting ice.
Cereal box inventions. Save multiple empty cereal boxes from the recycling and have an invention contest using other materials from the recycling or craft supplies on hand. See what you can make out of a cereal box!
Pickup sticks with plastic flatware. Accumulating a lot of plastic spoons, sporks, or knives? Throw them in a pile and try to remove one (not from the top) without disturbing the others.
Build a pirate ship. This one can be a great mashup of pillow forts and cardboard box castles. Find and old sheet for sails and remember, every good pirate needs a parrot on their shoulder!
Temporary tattoos with washable markers. I get that not every house allows drawing on oneself, but wouldn’t it be fun to try it just once? Pick a design and then do art on each other. Make sure to take pictures because washable markers don’t last long.
Play UNO with added rules. Have an UNO deck? Every time someone puts down a Draw 4 for someone else, the person who put it down has to do a different dance move. This is just an example of weird new rules you can add to the game to change it up a bit.
Magazine “vision” boards. If you don’t have any magazines at home, a thrift store book section might have just what you need. You can find stacks of cheap, colorful magazines way past their release date. Then use scissors and glue to add pictures, colors, textures, and words to a large piece of paper to create a goal/vision board. These can feature a specific goal you want to work toward, or something special in your life you’re looking forward to.
“Operation” toy removal. This is a fun game for all ages. It works best to run string or yarn randomly, back and forth through the holes of a plastic hamper. Then place different size and shape toys at the bottom of the hamper. Using hands or tools like chopsticks (for the highly skilled), carefully reach through the yarn WITHOUT TOUCHING IT and remove the toys safely. More string lines makes it more challenging.

Activities That Don’t Require Much

These activities are the easiest to do because they don’t require anything but yourself (and maybe a pencil and paper)! Several of them are things you’ve probably already heard of, but if you haven’t, give it a Google. They’re all pretty simple.

My preschooler loves to set up a “store” where we can come spend our pretend money.

Hide and Seek
Leap frog
Slow motion tag. It’s like regular tag but you have to move in “slow motion”. This is the best indoor alternative I’ve found to prevent injuries.
Mad Libs. Don’t have a book? Write you own “story” and then ask your kids to fill it in. Keep it simple for the littlest ones and stick to adding in nouns.
Short story writing. This is extra fun when you let each kid write a different line or a different character.
Create a superhero costume. These turn out funnier and more creative when you use only clothes and items you already own.
Build pillow forts
Read books in different voices. This is a good opportunity to re-read some of your favorite books, but in a completely different voice. Now read it again in another voice!
Spring cleaning (any time of year). You might be surprised at how much kids can like cleaning. They enjoy having a “job” and doing things they see adults doing. Why not get some things cleaned WHILE playing? Make a game out of it.
Donate some toys. Spring cleaning doesn’t just have to be about dusting and wiping. It can also be a good opportunity to lighten the load and organize the toy box. This is a great opportunity to teach your children about being grateful for what you have and generous to others.
Fashion show. Using clothes you already have, come up with some of the wackiest combinations you can imagine and then strut your stuff on the runway (a hallway works great for this!). Don’t forget hair accessories!
Create a “store”. Kids love acting out things they see modeled in every day life. Even if you don’t have any fancy store front, collect toys or items you would like to “sell” and then act out the buying and selling part of everyday life. In our house, we like to use old, empty gift cards as credit cards. Go for the full effect and get some bags to pack the new purchases in. Old receipts are a fun way to add authenticity too.
Sock scooting. This works best on hardwood floors but can also work on any smooth surface. Put socks on feet AND hands (that’s my son’s favorite) and scoot around on all fours. We pretend we’re doggies, or cars, or skiing, or pretty much anything.
Sightseeing around the house. This is another activity where toilet paper tube binoculars come in handy. But really, you don’t need them when you have two hands that can act as pretend binoculars. Walking in a line with the tour guide leading the way, give a tour of sights and scenes around your house in the silliest voice possible. I guarantee you’ll see things in a new light.
20 guesses game. Can you guess what I’m thinking of in only 20 guesses? Yes or no questions only!
Charades with toys. Try playing the classical charades game but using only toys you already have instead of your body.
Practice/learn counting money. This can be done using real money, play money, or even cut out paper money.
In house camping. Find a part of your house that you don’t normally sleep in and bring blankets and pillows. Build a “campfire” and lay around together telling stories or reading pretend constellations on the ceiling. Did I hear a bear?!
Draw something using only one continuous line. Don’t lift the pencil! Can you tell what it is?
“Warmer/colder” game. This has been something I’ve loved since I was a kid. Hide something and help someone find it by only using the descriptions “warmer” for when they’re getting close to it and “colder” when they’re getting farther away.
“Copy this rhythm” game. Clap out or stomp out a made up rhythm and challenge someone to repeat it.
“Copy this dance” game. Same as above but with dance moves.
Hand tracing art. Trace your hand and turn it into something other than a turkey. Use both hands!
Clapping games. Standing face to face, try to keep a rhythm of clapping your own hands and then clapping your partner’s. There are so many variations to these games that you can find many on the internet or make up your own.
Strength training using only a wall. This is a great way to add fitness into the fun. Some good options are: handstands, pushups, wall sits, etc.
Hide and seek BINGO. On a piece of paper, make a bingo board and fill each square with a drawing or description of things hidden around the house. The kids then have to find those objects and whoever can fill up a whole row or column wins!
Animal charades. It’s like regular charades but only about animals. Play by acting out different animals. This is a great one for the young kids who have learned multiple animals.
Hot potato with a stuffed animal.
Gross soup. This is something I loved doing as a kid. Take a pot or bowl and put some water in it. Then, using (old or expired) spices, let them measure out or dump those spices into the water and stir it up. They can pretend to cook something without wasting the good stuff.
Guess the animal. Similar to animal charades but only using animal noises as the clues.
Race to get dressed. Pick out one article (or multiple for extra fun) of each type of clothing (socks, shoes, pants, shirt, sweatshirt, scarf, hat, sweater, jacket, etc.) for kids to race against each other to put on. This is a good game for older kids who have plenty of experience getting dressed.
Red light, green light
Simon says
Find the number. Search your home for things in only certain quantities. Give a number to search for and the first person to find something in that number or displaying that number is the winner.
Guess the item only by feel. You can use a box, a bag, or a blindfold to blindly try to guess a mystery object only with your sense of touch.
Shadow puppets. In a darkened room, cast a light on the wall or ceiling and use hands or objects to tell a story using shadows.
Puppet show
Theater production of favorite movies. Using homemade costumes, improvised scenery, and untrained acting, recreate your family’s favorite movies. And if they’re musicals, sing them!
NEW rock, paper, scissors. Add one or two NEW items to the old rock, paper, scissors game with rules on what beats what, then play!
Paint/draw what you see. Using whatever drawing/crafting materials you have on hand, choose a scene or create one with toys and objects and try your best to recreate that scene on paper.
Kid interviews. Think of basic questions you can “interview” your kid with (like, what’s your favorite color? Who is your favorite character? What do you like best about school?) and write down their answers no matter what. Then, have them ask you the same questions and write down your answers.
I spy. With OR without binoculars.
Toy fishing. Create your own fishing rod with a string and “hook” on the end. The hook can be something with a magnet, something sticky, or something actually hook shaped. Then place several toys on the floor behind a tall chair or couch and try to pick up the toys from the floor. Make sure to choose toys that CAN be picked up by your hook apparatus.
Plan a dream vacation. This is the totally free version of getting to do something you’ve always wanted to do. Plan out every part of your dream vacation and then verbally discuss how that would look. Where you would go, what you would eat, what things you want to see. Who knows, maybe all that daydreaming could motivate you to make it happen!

Conclusion

Grandma always makes the coolest blanket/pillow forts!

This list can be used for so many things. Please share it with school teachers you know, moms struggling with ideas during spring, winter, or summer breaks, or Grandparents looking for fun things to do while watching their grandkids. To give you one last use for this list, I’ve included a printable version of this list (below) that you can cut into pieces and put into a container to draw each idea out blindly. It makes for a fun family play night or for when you have cousins visiting and the kids are bored.

Printable

Here is the printable I promised below. I even included some blank spaces for you to add your own ideas! And once you’ve cut them out, feel free to throw out the ones you don’t like or that don’t work for your family.

101_ideas_inside_PRINTABLE Download

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This means if you purchase anything through my sponsored links, I receive commission at no additional cost to you. My views and opinions are not swayed because of this; I only recommend products and services I love.)*

My Honest Review: Trusst Brand Bras

Full disclosure: I DO NOT make any money or get any promotional kickbacks from Trusst Brand for my review. I am reviewing this product only as a consumer/customer.

I wore traditional underwire bras for almost 20 years of my life. Being larger chested made the underwire a necessity. It wasn’t until I got pregnant with my first baby that I considered a change. I wanted to do what was best for my baby and my body, so at that time I invested in some bras without underwire. Underwire-less bras took some getting used to because I instantly felt exposed and unsupported. Once my mind caught up to what my body had already realized, I found that I was actually way more comfortable. I nearly turned into a bra-burning mad woman when I noticed that I had developed bruising and muscle indentations under my breasts from the years of underwire digging in to support my ample chest. No wonder we women love taking our bras off at the end of the day!

After realizing my freedom, I ended up wearing wireless bras for about three years during my pregnancies and the postpartum breastfeeding journeys afterwards. I kept promising myself that when I finally finished breastfeeding, I’d buy some new, cute bras seeing as how I had just spent the last three years in the rotation of the same 4, milk-stained, incredibly unflattering stretchy bras. I started to venture back out into the retail fashion world that I had been absent from for an embarrassingly long time to find that I didn’t know where to start. Luckily, we live in a day and age where computers automatically read our minds and somehow know exactly how to advertise what we want. I began seeing more and more ads for bras and intimates. I checked some of them out but wasn’t willing to take the plunge on investing in bras that I couldn’t try on from companies that charged restocking fees.

The Trusst Brand’s Marjory The T-Shirt Bra is a huge upgrade from my worn-out stretchy-bras. The material is buttery soft and the lines you see on the cups do not show through most shirts.

Body After Babies

An unfortunate reality of carrying two babies and breastfeeding them for a combined 16 months was that I ended with completely different breasts than I started with. To make matters more complicated, we moved to a different city a year ago, and the availability and selection for what I lovingly refer to as “big girl bras” is next to nothing. I tried Target, but they didn’t keep my size in store, and what I bought online from them was not what I would consider an everyday bra due to its regular style underwire. Ouch! All other retail stores in our area were the same story. I even tried on what some would consider the “granny panties” of bras that offered full support and very little breathing room. Seriously! I felt like I was being suffocated. Plus, it wasn’t really the look I was going for; torpedo boobs and visible bra sticking out from under all my tank tops was not what I had in mind. I looked into bras from Cacique, intimates made by the Lane Bryant brand. I like the quality and selection of Lane Bryant clothes, so I figured I’d be safe. But what I couldn’t get past was their restocking fee. Since I wasn’t able to physically visit one of their stores to try on bras, and I knew that I’d inevitably need to return one or more trying to find the perfect fit for me, restocking fees were a deal breaker. Several more online retailers, including Adore Me, ThirdLove, and a couple others left me pretty discouraged for similar reasons.

I began planning a six hour round trip drive just to be able to visit a store where I MIGHT be able to find and try on bras that fit me. Thankfully, internet marketing had my back. I saw one more bra ad that sparked my interest. Trusst Brand bras first caught my interest because of their name. I thought using the word truss in their name was clever because, as Wikipedia states, “A truss is an assembly of beams or other elements that creates a rigid structure.” I thought, “well, at least I can expect these bras to have good support!” What I didn’t expect to find was a brand that not only had invented their own technology to help large chested women, but they also guaranteed their work AND did their best to make it affordable. Of course, most “big girl bras” are a financial investment, so price tags didn’t shock me much, but I still wanted to get the most out of my budget.

A unique feature of the Trusst Brand’s Naomi: Convertible Bra is the extended side panels that help smooth your figure by tucking in that troublesome armpit fat that loves to sneak out the sides. I love this feature!

Try Before You Buy

I found that not only was Trusst Brand willing to give me 40% off my first bra (by signing up with my email) but they also have a program to try before you buy. Trusst Brand’s try before you buy program sounded too good to be true, so I made sure to read ALL of the fine print before signing up. I found that their program was actually very simple, and there was little to no fine print. You take their online “quiz” to find out your size (which is important because Trusst doesn’t follow the same sizing as most bra manufacturers). This might sound like an annoying inconvenience but I’ll share what I learned from trying the Trusst sizing in the next section.

Trusst Brand’s “Try Before You Buy” system allows you to choose three bras to try on (any sizes or styles) at no initial cost and only pay for what you keep in the end. This means that you can have three bras sent to your house at no initial cost to try on in the comfort of your own home. If you choose to keep any of them you pay for what you keep, but not right away. If you decide to send any bras back and exchange them for different styles or sizes, they will not charge you until you have everything in-hand that you intend to keep. At the time that I made my purchase, I exceeded the minimum requirement for free shipping so even though I exchanged one bra for a different size and sent one back entirely, I didn’t pay any shipping. And no restocking fees! It was great.

Trusst Brand’s Sizing

It was hard for me to trust the fact that Trusst Brand had done their homework in creating a solid sizing chart that translated from traditional sizes to their own. So when I made my initial “Try Before You Buy” purchase, I chose one bra in the size they recommended and two in a size up from that because I was afraid that their sizing was too small. It turned out that I was way off. The size that they had measured me for was nearly perfect. The larger sizes I chose were much too big. Traditionally, I’m a DD but the Trusst Brand sizing chart measured me for (what they call) a D. See why it made me nervous to order their suggested size? Thanks to their super easy returns system, I was able to send back and exchange for the exact bras I wanted.

Special features that make these bras even more worth the cost: strong construction, generous hook closures, rose gold hardware, and a cross-back hook option.

The last thing I’d like to note about the size the Trusst Brand measured me for is that I still feel like it might be slightly too big for me but that might be because around the time that I was measuring myself and ordering the bras, my body was still adjusting to being done breastfeeding. I may have lost an inch or so of fat where the bra band sits, which means that even though I keep my bra on the tightest setting, the band is still a little loose on me. But it may be possible that they measure a little generously in the band size. I’ll have to do a follow-up on that if I buy another bra from them in the future.

Trusst Bra Quality

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to try many different bras from different sources and quality levels. When I was young and on a tighter budget, I got my bras from department stores. Department stores carry a pretty wide variety of bra qualities, but current prices seem to reflect an inflation of cost without much progress for quality. The materials and makeup of the department store bras may have improved slightly over the years but the prices seem to have gone up more than they’re worth, in my opinion. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to find something good there, but it means you may have to work harder to find it.

Eventually, I “graduated” to what I thought at the time was higher quality bras from Victoria’s Secret. They’re definitely slightly better than what you can buy from a department store, but you pay a bit more for the name brand. It was always hard for me to find a style in VS that not only fit me but was practical AND flattering. Being larger chested narrowed down my choices to begin with, but finding a style I liked that worked under regular clothing and didn’t cause me to spill out in all the wrong places was difficult. I spent years wearing VS bras but was completely underwhelmed by the cost to comfort ratio. Why did I have to pay so much money for something that wasn’t completely comfortable for my body?

The interior lining material of both types of bra I tried from Trusst Brand was so soft and comfortable against my skin with the bonus of being moisture-wicking. Plus, the sewn parts seem very durable and do not irritate my skin. Most of the time I can easily forget I’m wearing anything!

Finally, after dealing with the changes my body has gone through after having kids and realizing that I’m willing to pay a little more for comfort over cuteness I found Trusst Brand bras. My first impression when I took the bras out of their packaging is that the material they use to make them is buttery soft. The material works really well under regular t-shirts and thin tank tops. Plus, it’s very soft on the skin. The cups are nicely shaped and give me way more lift than I’m used to! I was a little worried when I first put the bra on that I’d look like my boobs were going to knock satellites out of the sky, but once I put a shirt on over the bra my chest didn’t look odd at all. I guess I’m just so used to my new old boobs that I didn’t know what to expect from my new new boobs, haha!

Technology > Underwire

An image from the Trusst Brand website showing their patented support structure.

When I first started looking for new bras, I figured I’d have to make some sort of sacrifice and that I’d have to live with some level of discomfort. When I first found Trusst Brand, I chose them based on the fact that they had a wide range of sizes, plus they had a great exchange and return policy. What I didn’t count on was finding all of those things from a company that had ALSO developed a brand new technology to help large-chested ladies find a more comfortable alternative to underwire without compromising support. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, they did it. Here is a little bit more on the technology you find in every Trusst Brand bra.

The image to the right shows an illustration of the Trusst Brand’s patented support structure. It’s made of a hard plastic, which allows for it to be easily moldable while still being light so as not to add weight to an already heavy load. The plastic piece has some shapes that pop out three-dimensionally above the main curve, which gives the whole shape its strength. The nice thing is that those popped-out shapes are hollow. This means they use less plastic to make them, making them lighter and cheaper to make (less cost to pass on to the customer), while still providing a strong shape.

When I first started reading about this new technology, I was skeptical about its comfort. I thought for sure that the bottom of the bra cups would still push against my ribcage to provide support and leave my skin bruised and dented. That is always the struggle I came across with traditional underwire. Once I got the bras and tried them on, I found that this was not the case for Trusst Brand bras at all. Not only is the inside material soft and comfortable on skin, but the shape of the bottom of the cup (where the plastic support sits) does NOT push into the ribcage but sits perfectly spaced from the body while keeping a good form and not losing support or causing breast tissue to slip out the bottom. Trusst Brand has done an amazing job at padding the bra just right to prevent you from feeling the support structure while not over-padding the bra and making it feel bulky or fake. I can wear these bras all day without discomfort. I’ve only had them for a couple months, so I will do a follow-up review once I’ve put more miles on them and can truly attest to their lifespan through normal wear and tear.

In Conclusion

Trusst Brand seems to offer everything I’ve been looking for in a bra company. They have a great product, created with groundbreaking technology, backed by great policies, and the convenience of online purchasing. The only thing I hope they are able to change in the future is to expand their color and pattern availability. With proper care, I’m imagining getting a lot more life out of these bras than any I’ve purchased before. They’re built for comfort AND built to last. So far so good. I look forward to creating a positive follow-up review in the future. But for now, I give this product a 5 out of 5 bear tracks rating.

I give this product 5 out of 5 bear tracks. That’s my first product with that high of a rating!

Dear Second Child, I Didn’t Know How Badly I Needed You

Is a first time mom ever really prepared? Mom groups, Pinterest, blog articles like this. Read all you want, there are a million things you can’t prepare for as a parent. I’m not saying this to scare you, or maybe you’re already painfully aware, I just want to share my experience with you. When I had my first baby, I was as prepared as I could be. Had all the equipment I needed, read as much as I could to learn about what to expect, I even took classes to prepare me for childbirth. But even after all that, I still suffered from postpartum anxiety and depression for over a year after my baby was born because I was inexperienced as a parent and didn’t understand the signs. I was sleep deprived, suddenly eating anything and everything I could out of convenience, riding the hormone roller coaster, and spread thinner than I ever had been before. I couldn’t believe that being a mother was a miserable thing. I couldn’t believe that something I had wanted and looked forward to most of my life was a mistake.

Misery’s Company

I spent the first year of my first child’s life hating almost every second of motherhood. Never for a second hating my baby, but I couldn’t keep from wondering if I shouldn’t have tried so hard to become a mother. I looked at my rainbow baby, for whom I had fought through fertility issues, through tears and months of disappointments, and thought “why don’t I enjoy being a mother? What is WRONG with me?” I thought this over and over for months. Never finding an answer. I felt horrible for not desiring to leave my house or take my baby out into public. I didn’t want to join any mom groups because I feared that I was such a horrible mother for the way I felt that other moms would shame me for sure. Sharing this story now is hard enough because I’m sure there are still some moms out there who might be reading this thinking I was a horrible mom for feeling this way. Thankfully, postpartum depression and anxiety are gaining more awareness. More parents are sharing their journey. More parents are understanding the signs and signals. You can read my post about my postpartum mental health struggles HERE, complete with a long list of my personal symptoms.

“I looked at my rainbow baby … and thought ‘why don’t I enjoy being a mother? What is WRONG with me?'”

After a year of struggling as a mom with PPD and PPA (postpartum depression and anxiety), I finally realized that I needed to address my mental health. Being a mom is equal parts mental, physical, and emotional effort, but even after my moods improved, my brain fog lifted, and I started to feel less overwhelmed, I was still left with regrets and guilt. I regretted not being able to dote over my brand new baby, not wanting to do a newborn photoshoot, or even dress my baby up in his cutest onesie and show him off at church. I felt guilty that I didn’t enjoy being a mom, I didn’t wear cute coordinating outfits with my baby, I didn’t want to do playdates. And to complicate feelings even further, my hormones had started to tell me that I wanted another baby. What kind of cruel joke is it that our bodies can give us mixed signals like that?!

And Then Comes Baby…#2

To make a long post short, we became pregnant with our second baby when our first was only 16 months old. It was joyful and daunting at the same time. Exciting and overwhelming. I prepared for the worst and hoped for the best, but I assumed that my hormones would torture me again and drive me back down the postpartum struggle highway. Fast forward nine months through a fairly basic pregnancy (for which I thank God), a week overdue, we decided to have me induced because my gestational diabetes had our baby measuring large to begin with. After an even longer and more difficult labor than my first, I figured it was just the beginning of my second round of struggles as a mom. Call me a pessimist, but suffering through PPD and PPA and feeling guilty about wasting your first year as a mom will have you seeing things in a cautious light. Things didn’t seem any different at first, but it wasn’t until I finally held my baby after the nurses cleaned her up, measured her, checked her health, swaddled her and handed her back to me that I started to be able to hear my own thoughts and notice a change.

For the first time since becoming a mom over two years before, I had a moment of calm. As I looked down at my second baby, I realized that I DID know what to do if she cried. I DID know how to hold her to breastfeed (even if I was a little out of practice), I DID know how and when to change a diaper. I wasn’t instantly overwhelmed or scared, and I didn’t feel alone. I felt confident that my husband knew what to do and that I could actually try to sleep in the hospital before we took her home. Then, I chose to hold my new baby not because I was afraid to put her down but because I wanted to look at her tiny, perfect face and take in everything about it. I was able to focus on tiny details like her eyelashes, soft cheeks, and tiny fingers instead of feeling overwhelmed by the hugeness of the situation and the responsibility of caring for a new life. I didn’t wake up in a panic when she would start crying. Not only was I prepared to be a mother, I was finally enjoying it.

Starting Fresh

Remember the feeling of starting a new job and being awkward and scared to answer the phones or not have the answers a customer needed? Being a first time parent can feel kind of like that, but instead of disappointing a fellow adult human, you’re suddenly responsible for keeping a tiny human alive. No pressure, right? But once you’ve had that job for a while, you know where to find everything, you’ve learned the answers to almost all of the questions, and you have more confidence when answering the phone. This is closer to what being a second-time parent is like. Now, that’s not to say that parenting a newborn and a toddler at the same time is a piece of cake, but you might be able to approach the situation with a little more confidence than when you were a newbie.

Once we got our precious cargo home, it began to sink in for me that maybe I was on some sort of naive high from the pain medication from the hospital. I thought for sure that I would begin feeling overwhelmed at any moment. Thankfully, as the days progressed, my confidence stayed the same and even in the more frustrating moments, my brain didn’t fail me and gave me the proper mixture of patience and clear thinking that I needed. Late nights were rough but didn’t affect me the way they had before. I didn’t spend my hardest hours alone, struggling to feed my baby and crying in the dark. Instead, I would leave just enough light on so I could watch her sweet, little face looking up at me and shooting hearts out of her eyes at me while she fed. It immediately soothed my soul, calmed me, and restored my confidence as a mother. I hadn’t failed my children, I had just been fighting my body’s abnormal hormonal responses.

Redemption

My second baby restored my faith as a mother. She helped me understand that the feelings I had with my first were not my fault. Even if my brain was the one speaking the lies, I didn’t have to believe a word of them. My second baby showed me what it felt like to enjoy my opportunity to be a mom. She made me feel that even though I wasn’t (and still am not) perfect, it wasn’t about being perfect. Even though she wasn’t directly responsible for this change in feelings, I thank her for helping me realize that I didn’t fail my first baby. I didn’t realize how much I needed a second baby until I realized that that baby was my redemption as a mother. I didn’t actually hate the newborn stage. I didn’t actually hate getting up every two hours to feed my baby. I didn’t actually hate sacrificing my body and my comfort to feed my baby. I didn’t actually hate having to hold my baby until my arms ached. Those were just all cruel jokes played on me by my postpartum body after my first pregnancy, and I felt a new sense of purpose and pride in doing those things.

Rainbows and Butterflies

This is not to say that everything has been all rainbows and butterflies after this second pregnancy, but it is a stark contrast to my first. I share all of this with you to give you hope. If you are struggling, have struggled, or are afraid you will struggle again with your postpartum mental health, I want you to know that those struggles are NOT your identity. Those struggles don’t define who you are as a mother. And they aren’t written in stone. Your children love you despite those things and may never even know you struggled in the first place. Make your health a priority and seek help with a doctor, counselor, friend, pastor, or anyone who cares about you. You are worth that redemption.

How I Overcame Postpartum Depression & Anxiety

As the title suggests, this article contains some possibly triggering subjects including depression, anxiety, miscarriage, surgery, and infertility. Please read with caution.

I’ve been putting off writing about this for a long time now because it is an incredibly difficult subject to write about. It’s hard to revisit the feelings and events. It’s hard to describe my experience accurately enough for others to grasp. It’s hard not to turn this into a 500 page novel because I want so badly to share every aspect of my experience if it means that one person can find helpful information in it. So here it goes.

My Origin Story

I’ll start by giving you a synopsis of my history and reproductive health. Middle school is a time for change and growth…and crazy bonkers hormones. In my case, my hormones were less focused on chasing boys and more focused on causing me a lifetime of physical issues. I wasn’t diagnosed with PCOS until I was an adult and found a doctor who would commit to the diagnosis, but I had been living with the symptoms since I hit puberty. Irregular periods, debilitating cramps, facial hair and acne (which is extra humiliating when you’re a school age kid), low sex drive (which is rough as an adult), and unpredictable PMS. And on top of that, moments when I thought I would die from the pain of a burst cyst.

Me at a high school dance. Already dealing with PCOS symptoms.

After dealing with PCOS for years, I asked my doctor about treatments. There were none. “Try these pills,” they said. A few miserable days later, I quit them cold turkey. I couldn’t live like that. I asked my doctor if I would be able to have kids. She said she wasn’t sure, but she was optimistic. Other doctors were not. I knew I wanted kids, regardless of how helpful my body would be. Once I finally got serious about trying to conceive, I found out that I had a cyst the size of a grapefruit that needed to be removed. The good news was that the cyst was non-cancerous; the bad news was that it had wrapped itself around the ovary it was attached to, and there was no way to remove the cyst without also removing the ovary. Are you kidding me? Now I’ll never get pregnant, I thought.

To make a long post shorter, I WAS able to have kids. I miscarried once but was able to get healthy, find a product to help me balance my hormones, and have a healthy pregnancy and a very healthy baby. Sleep during pregnancy wasn’t too much of a problem for me, and neither were cravings, constipation or hemorrhoids, or mood swings. Sounds like an easy pregnancy, huh? It definitely could have been worse. I still had plenty of other symptoms, but I was thankful for a fairly boring ride. Most of my struggles came later.

A Tiny Human Just Came Out of Me

I didn’t sleep for 72 hours when my son was born. It was the first time in my life when I dealt with serious sleep deprivation. It turns out, 72 hours without sleep piled on top of pushing a baby out of your body results in what feels like the most wicked hangover you can imagine. And I’m supposed to take care of a tiny, fragile, new human at the same time? What fresh hell is this parenting gig?! That’s most likely where my PPD and PPA began creeping in.

My first born and me immediately after a fast and hard labor. No sleep 24+ hours before AND after.

At my six-week checkup, my doctor’s office handed me a one page “survey” about my current feelings situation. I passed with flying colors, but the reason for that was that six weeks postpartum was probably the high point for me. I had been parenting long enough that I didn’t feel like a total failure. I had a little sleep under my belt. I had lost all of the weight I had gained while pregnant plus some! I was feeling pretty awesome. So I hadn’t lied on my survey. I really did feel good. No feelings of wanting to harm myself or my baby. No crying. No out-of-the-ordinary outbursts. My doctor literally said the words “I see no signs of postpartum depression in you. You’re good to go!” She asked the wrong questions at the wrong time.

Early on in our new parent experience, we had a bit of extra help. My parents were living a mile away from us, and my mom was able to help out with some things. Soon after my six-week checkup, my parents began discussing the possibility of moving away…3 hours away. That may not sound like a lot for some people, but losing my best babysitter and some of my moral support so soon after becoming a mom was just the first ingredient in my stress stew.

Stress Levels Rising

At the time, my parents were living in a townhouse that we owned. It was my husband’s first house, and we rented it out to my parents when they needed a place to live. In order for my parents to have a nice place to live once they moved out of our townhouse, we offered to help them buy a house that we all approved of. This meant that we would have to sell the townhouse to be able to afford buying a different home for them. In order to sell the townhouse, we had to move my parents into our house temporarily, pack up and hide most of their belongings in the townhouse to be able to stage the home, clean it from top to bottom to make the house sellable, and then hope that the market was in our favor for the sake of our sanity. This process took several months and began when my son was only six weeks old.

My stress levels were rising. My mom was still recovering from multiple hip surgeries, my dad and husband both had to work full work days, and my brother had recently moved out of town. I was the only “able bodied” person who could drive the process and do most of the heavy lifting, literally AND figuratively. Plus, I was still trying to figure out how to be a mom. While my parents lived with us, my stresses were building as I struggled to coexist with my family and run my own home. I’ll spare you the details, but I will add that ice cream and carbs had become my “therapy.” My weight got out of control. I gained every pound back that I had lost before my six week check up. As my cortisol levels (stress hormone) spiked, my body began to feel like a fat, disgusting prison.

Cry Me a River

My husband was just as green to new parent life as I was. He didn’t know what signs to look for to recognize depression or anxiety. And even if he did, I’m not sure he would have known that I spent hours alone, cradling my new baby, struggling to feed him and crying my eyes out. Crying harder than I had in years. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried before I became a mother. I wish I could say I cried tears of love and joy when my son was born, but in reality, they were tears of relief. Relief that my son was healthy, relief that we had both survived, and relief that I was DONE being pregnant (at least for the time being).

My husband finally becoming Daddy. Also very low on the sleep levels. But I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.

Tears were something that came easy after my son was born. Tears of frustration. Tears of anger. Tears of fear. I became scared of everything. Having this new human in my care meant that I instantly became paranoid that everything harmful in the world could and WOULD hurt my precious package. How could I possibly pile on that amount of responsibility to my already toppling tower of fear and stress? Easy. I had no choice. My brain ran constant terror scenarios of the worst case you can imagine. Things you only see in movies or read about in the most click-baity articles ever written.

Shut Up, Brain

At night, my brain lay awake in the short opportunities I had for actual sleep, thinking up all the best ways to prepare myself to defend my family and protect my tiny baby from the evils lurking around every corner. Being unprepared was not just a fear at that point but my legitimate reasoning for not leaving the house with my baby unless absolutely necessary. I would see social media posts from friends happily leaving the house with their new bundles of joy for a day in the city, a family trip to the zoo, or even just a coffee date with other mom friends. Mom friends? What was that? At that point, I was so afraid to leave the house unprepared that my friendships were suffering.

In solidarity for all the parents suffering.

During the day, I was irritable. But not like just easily annoyed. Like full on rage at the drop of a baby bottle. I tried so hard not to take it out on my husband, but in reality, he took the brunt of my rage like a boxer takes hits to the face. I could see some times when his immense amounts of patience began to wear thin. I could see that he was as confused by my anger and outbursts as I was, but he didn’t know that my outbursts were really cries for help. He didn’t know that I was confused. I was so afraid for my baby to want or suffer for more than a few seconds that I truly believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was the only person capable of caring for my infant child. I was the only one who knew what he needed and how to interpret his cries.

My anxiety came to a peak one day when I had ventured out of the house on a simple errand. Driving my sweet baby around in the car, in his perfectly safe car seat, in one of the safest cars on the market. But at that point I wasn’t able to trust any other person enough to drive my son around. I’ve never doubted my driving abilities. I’m a very cautious driver without being overly cautious. But that day, my anxiety was in full swing and I was anticipating disaster around every turn. I was driving through a neighborhood I had driven many times, with a speed limit of 25mph and I was doing 20…15…10. When it hit me. Nothing. No one was around. No one behind me. Yet, I was approaching every intersection with a level of caution that was insanely paranoid. Looking both ways more times that necessary. Stopping at stop signs for ridiculous amounts of time. Because my brain had left me terrified of the hypothetical dangers. And then the full blown panic attack set in. Heart racing, trouble breathing, tunnel vision. I pulled over. And for the first time through this emotional rollercoaster of parenting, I heard my brain ask me WHY I was reacting this way.

It’s painful to think back on how I didn’t get to enjoy my son’s first year of life while I had undiagnosed PPD & PPA.

That was abnormal for me because I tend to be very self-aware. I spend a lot of mental and emotional energy every day being aware of why I do what I do and how I interact with my surroundings. As I sat in my car, I reflected on what I was experiencing and why that could be. After dealing with similar situations and breakdowns, outbursts and paranoia, I came to the conclusion that I had been suffering from postpartum depression and anxiety for almost a year. And I KNEW that I had to do something about it.

I Need Help

I was ready to pursue therapy and medication if necessary. I began researching therapists in my area. At the same time, a company I trusted released a new product that caught my attention. It was a natural ingredient probiotic that was specially formulated to lower cortisol levels and help reduce feelings of stress. I figured, if nothing else, trying this could help me with my every-day mom stress. I was really skeptical that I would even notice a difference, but I was willing to give it a try as a first line of defense against my PPD and PPA. I was ready to try almost anything to have a chance at finally enjoying my son’s first year of life, even if I had nearly missed it.

Do it for you BECAUSE you do it for them.

I do my best to stay as healthy as possible, trying natural remedies before turning to other options. I tried the probiotic; I was skeptical, but I tried it. To my surprise, IT WORKED. Not only did it do what it promised, but I felt my PPD and PPA symptoms (that I was clearly aware of by this point) melt away within the first week of trying this natural method. I was shocked. I thought for sure that it was temporary, but I’ve been taking it for two years now, and I can say that I am a believer. If you’re interested in the product, please follow the link at the end of the article.

But Seriously…

Every person is different. Every momma needs something different in those most vulnerable moments. I’m not here to prescribe anything or tell you that this is the end-all method of treating PPD or PPA. I’m ONLY sharing what worked for me. I can’t tell you exactly why this method worked so well for me, but I continued to take this probiotic through my second pregnancy/birth, and it was a night and day difference in terms of mental health. Situations were different. Stress levels were different. Inevitably, hormones were different. But what I do know for sure is that I was able to enjoy my daughter’s birth and newborn stage in a completely different way than I did with my son. Even in my highest stress moments with my daughter, I was able to look down at her sweet face, take a deep breath, clear my mind, and even enjoy those times. It breaks my heart to think back to the first year of my son’s life and how miserable I was. I was so deeply entrenched in fear and doubt that I couldn’t enjoy those newborn moments with him.

If only I had known better the signs of PPD and PPA. If only I could have seen how abnormal my behavior was, or if only someone could have seen it in me. The best I can do is share a list of the behaviors I experienced during my difficult year to raise awareness. If you or someone you love is experiencing ANY of these symptoms or any behavior or feelings out of the ordinary, PLEASE contact your doctor and make them aware of EVERYTHING. The more your doctor knows about your experience, the better they can help you. Please do not suffer alone. Do not think that others will not understand. Thousands of women have had completely different experiences with PPD and PPA. There is no cookie cutter way to diagnose it.

List of my symptoms:

Anger towards loved ones.
Extremely quick to frustration.
Paranoia of unrealistic situations.
Fear of leaving the house.
Fear of being unprepared.
Neglecting relationships.
Emotional outbursts.
Extreme PMS-like symptoms.
Heart racing with no stimulant.
Feeling the need to be overly cautious.
Questioning life choices.
Feeling like your baby is purposely inconveniencing you.
Constantly feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
Brain fog stronger than regular “Mom brain”.
Irrational fears driving your actions.
Abnormal nightmares.
Waking nightmares (visions of irrational fears).
“Lost time” moments when you realize you’re unaware of how you got somewhere or accomplished a task.
Inability to trust anyone with your baby.
Inability to trust anyone to help you.
Inability to connect with baby
Inability to see baby as anything other than a very important task list

For the Dads

Please also be aware that dads can experience the same or similar symptoms. They experience the birth of their children through different eyes than we moms do but can hurt just the same. Please watch your loved ones for behavior out of the ordinary, and make sure to check in on their mental health. The only way we can protect ourselves is to protect each other and to raise awareness of these struggles. Parents need to know that they are not failing when they have these feelings. There is help and they are NOT alone.

And Finally…

I’ve also recently written about my journey as a second-time parent and how postpartum depression and anxiety played a part in that. Please read that HERE.

As promised, here is the LINK * to the probiotic that helped me. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper recommendation without a proper disclaimer:

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Teaching a Toddler to Hypothesize

I’m technically not a homeschool mom, but I never turn down an opportunity to learn and have fun at the same time. A couple months ago, I decided to make a colored rice bin for my toddler son to play in because one of his favorite activities is putting anything into anything else. He’ll spend large parts of his play time filling containers, baskets, nooks and crannies with his toys, and hiding every object he can find behind the couch cushions or in the dog kennels. He even has a large bin of random bottles we’ve collected from the recycle bin just for him to experiment with. He’s quite the up-cycler at two and a half years old.

Making a rice bin is cheap and easy and has already provided us with hours of enjoyment. We use many different sized cups and containers in the bin. Plastic bugs to dig for, scoops, ping pong balls, etc. You could also use the rice bin as a cool digging quarry for small diggers and dump trucks. The whole project cost me around $10 to make with the plastic bin being the most expensive part. Here are the things you need to make one:

A decently sized plastic bin with a locking lid. I went for one that was about 9” x 12” and 7” tall.
One or two 5 lb bag(s) of white rice.
Liquid food coloring.
White vinegar (helps seal color into rice grains to prevent color bleeding).
Gallon ziplock bags for coloring rice. 1 for each color you want to make.

Easy Directions for Making Colored Rice

Separate white rice into ziplock bags. One bag per color.
Add several drops of food coloring to a bag of rice (do one bag at a time to ensure most even color absorption).
Add one teaspoon of white vinegar to bag of rice.
Zip bag closed.
Massage rice bag to thoroughly mix color and vinegar into rice. (You can add more food coloring and repeat this step for brighter colored rice.)
Repeat with each color/bag.
Open bag zippers and leave bags open, sitting in a place where it won’t be disturbed for 24 hrs or longer. This allows the rice to dry and keep the color from transferring to hands or other surfaces. You can also spread the rice out in a cookie sheet or tray to help it dry faster. The rice will smell a little vinegary at first but this will air out over time.
Once the rice is dry you can dump it all into your bin and enjoy!

Our original colored rice. It turned out great! Time to mix it up.

*A word of CAUTION: we learned the hard way that if you have dogs or other small animals who roam freely in your home, DO NOT leave the rice bin open and unattended. Our dog got into our rice bin and ate some of it. He was not hurt, but he did end up with an upset stomach and potty problems for a few days. Not fun for any of us. Plus, we had to throw away some of our rice that he got wet with drool. Now we’re diligent to not leave a single grain unattended.

Learning to Experiment and Hypothesize

The rice bin (or sand bin, or whatever medium you choose) is a great segue into learning the scientific method and fueling curiosity about the way things work. Free play with the rice bin will usually yield all sorts of creative experiments on its own. But if you have the time and want to introduce some new ideas to your kids, here are some ways you can do that. Of course, this is just a very small list of prompts to get you started but there really is no limit to the ways you can use this rice bin to learn. And don’t worry about your kid’s age. If they’re old enough to know not to eat the rice, then they’re old enough to begin to question the world around them.

Here are some examples of tools we used to enhance our rice bin learning experience (these items can be found around your home or purchased for cheap from the dollar store). These items are not necessary but can be fun additions. Get creative with what you have available:

My son, using a watering can, container lids, a tambourine, and a scoop to experiment with his rice bin.

Toilet paper tube
Scoops from baby formula containers
Ping pong ball
Small plastic cups and dishes
Plastic bugs
Plastic Easter eggs
Empty pill bottles, caps, and lids

Helping a child learn to hypothesize is simply about asking the right questions. Hypothesizing is guessing an outcome to an action based on what information you have at that time. All of my son’s hypotheses were based on what experience he already had with the rice medium and how it works with other objects.

I started by standing a toilet paper tube up on end on top of the rice and then filling it to the top with more rice. I then asked,

“What do you think will happen to the rice if we lift the toilet paper tube straight up?”

My son looked at the current situation, considered the information he already had, and then guessed that the rice would spill out the bottom of the tube. He was right! We celebrated that. And I could tell he was curious to try something else. So I took the TP tube and placed it up on end inside a plastic cup. I then filled it back up with rice but took care to fill only the TP tube. Then I asked,

“When I lift this paper tube up, where do you think the rice will go?”

Again, my son studied the situation and made an educated guess. He guessed that the rice would spill out into the bin. He was wrong, but that was good! He was surprised to learn that when I lifted the paper tube, the rice only filled up the plastic cup. And I learned that the cup we chose held exactly the same amount of rice as the filled paper tube. We both learned something!

After we tried a few more experiments learning about volume, I decided to try some experiments with movement and resistance. I used my hand to shape the rice in the bin into a tall slope. Using the ping pong ball, I then asked my son,

“What do you think will happen to this ball if I place it at the top of this slope?”

I was wondering if he would remember seeing an episode of Sesame Street where they experimented with whether or not different materials would slide down a slope. That might have been part of the information he pulled from when he formed his hypothesis. He guessed that the ball would roll down the slope. He was right again! Smart little guy.

We tried one last experiment. With this one, I gave him very little information to start with to see what he might come up with. Placing the ping pong ball on top the rice surface, I asked,

“What do you think will happen to the ball if I use my finger to push it down in the rice?”

This was the first time he looked genuinely confused, like he had no idea what would happen. More likely, he had no words to communicate what he thought would happen. So he just waited to see what happened next. I then used my finger to push the ball all the way under the rice until it was completely submerged. I loved his surprised face! Even though he didn’t have a hypothesis for this experiment, he learned the meaning of the word “bury.”

After we concluded our experiments, I left him to his free play. I could see him trying to replicate some of our experiments. This told me that not only did he enjoy what we had done, he also knew that he wanted to try to gather more information. Even if his brain wasn’t using those terms, specifically, he knew that he wanted to learn more. I’m so excited to find more ways to help him learn to hypothesize and test the world around him. It’s one thing to tell someone else the way things work, but if you ask them to make an educated guess and try the experiment out for themselves, they build many more mental connections and synaptic pathways in their brain than they would have otherwise.

The rice bin has been a great tool for learning already, and I know we’ve only scratched the surface with its teaching potential. I love when the cheapest toys are the most valuable!

My 5 Favorite Potty Training Tricks

Let’s just get this out on the table now. Potty training sucks. It takes all the fun out of raising a tiny dictator and turns it into…well, poop. If you’re lucky. I used to be hopeful about potty training. My mom told me I potty trained in a night when I was my son’s age. She said all it took was me peeing my pants at night one time to motivate me enough to use the toilet. I’ve heard all sorts of similar stories from parents. In an online mom-group, I read a ton of success stories that filled me with confidence in that we’d be 100% potty trained in no time!

On the advice of MANY other moms, I read a highly recommended potty training book. This book was well written and suggested a method that aligned with my own thoughts and feelings about PT (potty training). Better yet, it made me believe that it would only take us a week to fully day train! I was willing to split up day and night training if we’d only need a week. That sounds great!

Me- genuinely wondering if we’ll ever be done with potty training.

When I first read the PT book, I was 8 months pregnant with our second kid. Looking forward to the future, I knew my toddler would be just about the right age to start PT when the baby arrived. My husband and I both read the book to make sure that we were on the same page with the training method. I read the book twice to make sure all the rules stuck in my mind. We schooled Grandma and Grandpa on our chosen method since we’d be living with them during this big life change. We bought the travel potty, the potty seats, flushable wipes, a couple of potty-related kid’s books, and enough puppy wee-wee pads to blanket the entire house multiple times.

We hid the entire living room floor in the wee-wee pads and covered the couch in towels. Potty training was upon us. But we knew we wanted to focus on it after the baby arrived. At the end of my pregnancy, I was so uncomfortable that I knew I wouldn’t be mobile enough to help my son to the potty over and over. We also knew that once I had the baby, my husband would be on paternity leave, giving us one more person to help. We were so hopeful. What was a week of our time to focus on such an important step in our lives?

As I write this, we’re over 6 months into our potty training journey. Yup. You read that right. 6 freaking months. And we’re still not done yet. I’m not writing this to tell you HOW to potty train. I’m not writing this to tell you which method is best. And I’m sure as heck not writing this to tell you that potty training is easy, fast, or terribly convenient. I’m writing this to tell you that potty training is freaking hard no matter which age you start or how smart your little genius is. But over the last six months, we’ve tried many different methods, tricks and hacks and I’m writing this to tell you which of those tricks worked for us.

1- REWARD SYSTEM

The potty training method that I chose to follow expressly discourages a reward system. But hey, we’re a family of rebels and our parenting motto is “Whatever Works!” because we all get to a point sometimes when it’s more about just getting things done. We didn’t start out our training with a reward system in place. Again, we started this adventure as hopeful parents. Weeks into our PT journey when we were deep in discouragement, we decided to give rewards a try. We started PTing in the fall so we had tons of pre and post Halloween candy at our disposal. One of my favorites that I kept stocked in the house was candy corn. Love it or hate it, most kids don’t care. It’s a special, sweet treat. Our rule was one corn for a pee and two corn for a poop. For a time, it was a great motivator. You could substitute a different food treat in place of candy. I’ve also heard of people using potty charts with stickers given as a reward. If you’re not opposed to a reward system, test out the things that motivate your child.

Sometimes you just have to go with your gut.

The last thing I want to mention about this method is that it did NOT completely ruin our PT results. This singular trick is not the reason we’re still struggling to get to 100% trained. The reward system worked well for our kid, for a time. We were actually able to quit the reward system cold turkey because we eventually ran out of candy corn when it went out of season. Thankfully, our toddler is pretty flexible to rule changes like that, and after asking multiple times finally gave up and accepted the fact that he didn’t need a reward to use the toilet. This method helped transition us from the little, portable potty to the big toilet. So, I consider it a small win in the long game.

2- BATH CRAYONS

These were an item that we already had laying around from bath time. Bath crayons are washable crayons that can be used on the walls of a shower or bath tub. We found that they work great on the glass doors of the shower in the bathroom we mainly use for PT. Many times we found ourselves stuck in the bathroom with a stubborn toddler parked on the potty waiting for results. We were spending anywhere between 10-30 minutes in the bathroom with our son who refused to go on command even when we knew he needed to. So, what do you do to pass the time? We’ve read books, watched videos with him on our phones, or just sat and memorized the back of the shampoo bottle. But once we figured out we could use the bath crayons, we opened a whole new world of bathroom entertainment.

These are the bath crayons we use. They’ve come in handy so many times in our PT journey.

We used the bathtime crayons to draw on the glass shower door immediately adjacent to the toilet. We worked on our ABC’s, colors, numbers, etc. But the most helpful was learning new words. I would write a new word on the door that was related to our training, regardless of how long the word was. Our favorite word was “COOPERATE” which was written above definitions like “to help” and “work together.” While my son sat, trapped and bored on the toilet, I would read the big word to him and give him a little explanation and story to define it. My son amazed me when we came back after only doing this a couple of times. He not only remembered all the words (not quite site reading but more memorization) and had a grasp of what those things meant. This helped us a lot in our journey because my son is BIG on communication.

I was also able to use the crayons to draw or write things my son was interested in and create stories around those to help him learn concepts like “focusing” thanks to something Cookie Monster once said, team members “obeying” the direction of the captain on a football team thanks to his love of the Seahawks, and I also fabricated a story about how Stormtroopers have to “communicate” to Darth Vader when they need to go potty. That one might not be canon, but it worked for us! You know your kid best. Use these tools to your advantage when helping them learn about the PT process. And if you don’t have a shower door to draw on you can always just use regular paper and tape it to a wall and use regular crayons or markers. Time to get creative in the bathroom!

The shower door is a great opportunity to learn new things since we spend so much time in the bathroom while potty training. Here, we learn words we commonly use plus new words that can help us in our PT journey. Right now our big word of the week is “communicate” which has been a big speed bump for us.

You can also use the bath crayons (or dry erase markers) to draw on the inside of the toilet seat. If your child is having a hard time focusing on staying on the toilet, you can flip them around backwards (facing the toilet seat) and let them draw on it to pass the time. This worked for us for a while and made for some interesting bathroom art to surprise the next unsuspecting toilet user. Click HERE for a link to the bath crayons we use. These ones work really well and also wipe off without a lot of effort. We found them for a few dollars at Walmart and I don’t make any money off this recommendation.

3- TALLY MARKS

While we’re on the subject of the bath crayons, I want to mention one of our latest tricks. We’ve started writing a tally mark on the shower door for every pee and poop made without an accident. Unfortunately, when there is an accident, we erase that line of tally marks and start over. We started this idea without a solid plan for it. We weren’t offering a specific reward or punishment. We just wanted to build into practice the idea that the tally marks hold value.

It’s hard to get a good picture of it but this is our crude tally mark portion of the shower door. Obviously, we’ve had a recent set-back in the pee department.

Recently, after another big accident-related set back, I impulsively offered ice cream as a reward for accumulating 40 tally marks. In the past, my son has only hit 36 tally marks without an accident as his personal record, and he’s never had ice cream in his two and a half years on this planet. So, I’m not sure if it means a darn thing to him, but I’m willing to try it. For science! And for ice cream! Because we all know Momma Bear is going to get some of that ice cream too for her hard work.

Alternatively to the tally marks providing a reward, they can also provide a means of understanding hard work lost. When we have an “accident” (and, to be clear, these are hardly accidents at this point because my son knows the rules, knows our routines and still refuses to use the toilet without prompting) we erase all of the accumulated tally marks for either pee or poop depending on the accident type. When we do this, we make sure to stress that these tallies are valuable and that we’re disappointed to have to erase them. I do see that my son is starting to understand their value, and losing them finally has some significance to him. I am curious to see WHEN (because I remain hopeful) my son reaches 40 tally marks, if getting ice cream makes a positive impact on him in terms of motivations. Stay tuned in for an update!

4- TAKING SOMETHING SPECIAL

This trick came to me on a whim. We had been struggling for weeks to get my son into the bathroom at our prompting (based on his regular and predictable pee schedule), and every time we even mentioned the word “bathroom” it became a massive fight. It became increasingly difficult to keep our composure and creative a positive experience. At one point, before prompting for a bathroom break, I decided that I was not going to use my usual verbal prompt. Instead, I would ask him these words exactly: “What are we taking with us?” I didn’t give him any warning, or any context for the words’ meaning, but I would get up and start to suggest specific toys or items in the room to “take with us.” Then, once he had selected the items, we would carry them to the bathroom (without any resistance, surprisingly), and find a place for them on the bathroom counter while we did our business. It worked! And it still works!

Today’s “chosen” few consists of some magnet tiles, a horse, a spider, a dog toy, and Mommy’s hair clip. Whatever works.

Every time we use this method, we take something different. We’ve taken every toy, some more than once. We’ve taken really obscure objects from different rooms in the house. We’ve even taken random pieces of paper, ads from the mail, or small bits of (what I consider) trash. There have been very few items that I have said “no” to taking with us. Because remember, WHATEVER WORKS. Sometimes we take a specific toy to “show” it how we go potty like a big kid. Or we take a specific book to read. It’s really about the novelty of getting to choose (almost) anything to take with us. Most of the time my son puts the items on the counter and completely forgets about them while we’re taking care of business! This method is probably my favorite.

5- RESPONSIBILITIES

This PT trick has been an interesting one for us. We started working these responsibilities early into our routine. At first, we were having to help our toddler with every step because he was still in that physically awkward phase where things like pushing his pants down was too difficult for his little fingers. Slowly, over many MANY repetitions, he’s been able to take over the responsibility of moving his step-stool, putting up the toilet seat, placing the potty seat on top of the toilet seat, pushing down his own pants, sitting down on the potty seat without assistance, flushing the toilet, writing the tally mark on the shower door, and moving his step-stool to the sink for hand washing.

“Having these responsibilities has helped him understand better WHY we’re potty training.”

All of these things are steps towards his potty independence. All of these learned routines have saved me a lot of work. Having these responsibilities has helped him understand better why we’re potty training. The latest responsibility we’ve given him is to pee standing up. This one seems to be particularly special. For months, we offered it to him as an optional change but he kept refusing. We didn’t push it because we wanted him to feel ready. Thankfully, he found that peeing standing up “like Daddy” was a very special privilege, and it has been the most successful milestone we’ve had in months. I know this particular responsibility doesn’t work for girls, so once we get to the potty training age with my daughter, I’ll let you know what new methods we come up with.

Overall, potty training has been an uphill battle for us. We’re still not through it. But these 5 methods have helped get us through different stages and learn new things about what our toddler needs and how to communicate with him. I don’t expect anyone reading this to need or use all of these tricks. Hopefully, you’ll only need one or two. But I wanted to compile them all in one place so that you can keep them in your parenting “tool kit” and only use what you need. I’d love to hear about any other methods, tricks or hacks that have worked for your family. Please feel free to add a comment or two to this post and share your PT wins or struggles with the Average Momma Bear family.

Cleaning Hack: Dirty Stroller

I wouldn’t call myself cheap, but I appreciate a bargain. Especially when it comes to equipment and clothing for my children. I still end up spending plenty on them, but when I can save a few bucks here and there, it means I can splurge on the more fun stuff.

Getting hand-me-downs and re-gifts is a great place to start when you’re expecting a child, but as you get further in, you start to realize how much stuff you actually need for a baby. Of course, there are some things that are more of a luxury and not a necessity. But there are some items that end up on every baby registry or wishlist. A stroller is one of them.

When I found out I was pregnant with my second baby, I started to think about what life would look like with a newborn AND a toddler. How do I keep track of both of them at the same time when we’re out and about? How do I get both of them from one place to another outside of a vehicle? It all started to sound overwhelming, but I was determined to make the transition from one to two as easy on myself as possible. I struggled with anxiety when I became a mom the first time, and I was intent on preventing a repeat situation.

Dreaming of a Two-Seater

I told myself years ago (before I had kids) that I never wanted to have to juggle a double-stroller. Well, that bit of pride went right out the window when I discovered multi-function strollers. They now have double strollers (for two children) that convert into different seating functions. You can have two seats for toddler-sized kids, or two spots for baby carriers (good for twins), a spot for an older kid to stand and hold on, or any variation of those options.

My bargain stroller almost totally clean!

Since I love a bargain, I was determined not to pay full price for one of these luxury baby vehicles. I saw how the stroller I had for my first child got beat up, used heavily, and tossed around, and this made me less excited to sink several hundred dollars into something that received that much wear and tear. So, I started bargain shopping.

Thankfully, there are as many people trying to get rid of their old child-rearing gear as there are trying to buy it, so I had plenty of options to choose from. Once I narrowed down the make and model of the stroller I wanted (based on reviews I read on new ones combined with input from other moms), I jumped on the Facebook Marketplace and searched my surrounding area for the stroller I wanted.

I lucked out and found one for a fraction of the cost of a new one. It was practically free! I knew this most likely meant that it had some wear and tear, but at the price they were asking, I could hardly be picky. Once I picked up the item, I found that it wasn’t so much wear and tear that I should have been concerned about but more dirt and grime. Yuck! I know kids are messy, stinky, sticky, icky, cute, little creatures but this stroller had seen some action!

I had seen some Pinterest post months before about soaking a stroller in a bathtub filled with water and soap, but I wasn’t quite willing to submerge my stroller in water. Plus, I wanted to be able to let it dry out completely, which seemed tricky when washing it inside the house. Luckily, I was pregnant with an end-of-summer baby so I had great weather for my experiment.

The Nitty and Not-so-Gritty

I decided to wash my not-so-new stroller like I used to wash my car. (I say “used to” because I just go through the car wash now…I don’t have the time or energy to wash my own car anymore.) I cleaned the stroller in my driveway with a hose fixed with a spray nozzle that had multiple spray options. Here’s the breakdown of my method:

Scrub brushes like this make the job easier.

Open up stroller completely and remove any loose debris. Turn it upside down and shake it out if need be. Vacuum it out! There are a lot of methods that could work for this part.
Remove anything on the stroller that you don’t want getting wet. This could be any bags or extra things hanging off the stroller that don’t need cleaning.
Open/extend all canopies as they will also be getting a scrub down and need to be easily accessible.
Get a hose hooked up to water, preferably with a spray nozzle that offers at least one higher pressure setting.
Spray the heck out of that stroller. Get every nook and cranny. Use the high pressure setting to blast stains and grimy surfaces. *Watch out for flying fishy crackers!*
Using regular dish soap and a scrubby brush (I used the kind I use on dishes, and it worked fabulously), scrub every surface of that stroller until you get a decent lather all over.
Using the high pressure hose setting, spray off all of the soapy surfaces until water runs clear.
Check surfaces for any necessary re-scrubbing.
Once stroller is clean of soap and dirt, leave in a warm, dry area or in the sun to dry.
***Don’t leave the stroller in the sun too long because some material colors could fade. Make sure to spin the stroller around every 15 minutes or so to speed up drying in the sun. Also, don’t leave a wet stroller in a warm, dark place or you could cause mold to grow on it. Similarly, don’t fold up the stroller if it is wet or even damp for the same reason. Fold it up once the material surfaces are COMPLETELY dry.***

You may need to go over some sections more than once. Seriously, kids are gross! But so much fun, amirite?! I purposely used just regular dish soap for this task because it is a mild detergent. I’m sure you could use something else, but I wouldn’t suggest it. You don’t know how some cleaners could affect the integrity of the stroller’s surfaces. You wouldn’t want to weaken materials or corrode the stroller’s moving parts.

This process took me maybe 30 minutes to complete, and it changed something that was garage-sale-quality into consignment-shop-quality for only minimal effort and no extra money. This process could be used on things like playpens, baby seats, high chairs, etc. But you SHOULD NOT use this process on car seats, as car seats have very strict rules on cleaning so that their structural integrity and safety are not compromised. Please do your research or ask a qualified car seat safety specialist for the proper methods of cleaning a car seat.

How Video Games Saved Me as a New Mom

It’s been 2½ years since I became a mother. I’ve learned a lot in this time. I probably have an encyclopedia’s worth of material I could write in regards to that already. But when I look back to what my life was like shortly after having my son I make note of a few things. The first is that it’s easy to miss signs for postpartum depression and anxiety. I missed them for an entire year before I realized what was happening and got help. But that is a topic I will write on at length in another post because it deserves the acknowledgement.

The second thing I note is my coping methods for the stress of motherhood. Being a mom is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. Being a new mom was like climbing Everest in scuba flippers. I’m not entirely sure how I survived it, but I can give you at least one tip on what helped keep me sane.

Video games. Now, I know video games aren’t for everyone, but please hear me out. I’ve never been a big reader. It’s not a matter of ignorance but rather interest. I get distracted too easily when I read unless I’m surrounded by complete silence. So even if, as a new mother, I had had a stack of riveting novels to spend my time on, it wouldn’t have done much but frustrate me because I can’t really get into a book when I have a kiddo crying to be strapped to my breast every 45 minutes. Cluster feeding is no joke.

My dad introduced me to video games at a young age. I was probably close to 8 years old when he and I went to Toys ‘R Us (God, rest its soul) to buy a brand new Sega Genesis. It was life changing. My dad and I spent quality time together flying fighter jets, saving damsels in distress, and racing around as a little, blue hedgehog. That’s probably where I developed my love for video games.

Although I’ve been a gamer since then, there was a dry spell in my video gaming career after events in my life allowed for some personal rediscovery before I met my husband. Years later, when I finally had the opportunity to become a mom, I found that I had some downtime while experiencing pretty severe pelvic pain in my first pregnancy. My husband supported me and enabled me to stay at home to ensure a healthy pregnancy. But while I was couch-ridden through most of my third trimester, I got back into video games. At the time, I felt it was probably my last chance to enjoy some gaming before becoming a mom. Little did I know there would be more than enough time to enjoy games after having my son.

When we first brought our son home from the hospital, we had a lot to figure out. What would our new schedule look like with a creature that wanted to eat every 45 minutes? Turns out momma just becomes a milk factory at that point. When your life revolves around feeding an insatiable creature who depends on you for all movement and care, you start to get really good at multitasking. Breastfeed and eat? Check. Breastfeed and update social media? Can do! Breastfeed and Google breastfeeding questions? Of course.

But when I started feeling more like a milking heifer and less like myself I knew that I needed to find a way to distract my brain while breastfeeding. Since I had learned a few new ways to hold and balance my feeding baby, I found that I could free both of my hands. So I plugged in my game of choice and started my video game therapy. Most of the time I kept the sound very low or off. My newborn son didn’t need to know Mommy was fighting dragons while he ate peacefully.

“Most of the time I kept the sound very low or off. My newborn son didn’t need to know Mommy was fighting dragons while he ate peacefully.”

Video games can be a great stress reliever. They can also cause stress, so you have to be careful which ones you choose to play while momming. Personally, I chose three open world role playing games to focus on throughout my new-mom-journey. I started with a game I had owned for years and never had a chance to play, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Oblivion is a game from Bethesda Game Studios, released back in 2006. A first person style dungeon crawler. For some (or most) of you, that may not sound like much fun, especially since the graphics are outdated by today’s standards. But this game was nostalgic for me and just what I needed to get back into gaming. Back in 2002 I played the previous game in this series for hours a day. It was my temporary obsession. So, playing Oblivion was a fun way to experience some of my favorite gaming elements. I ended up playing all the way through Oblivion, twice, before I realized I needed another game. So, I moved on to Skyrim and then onto Fallout 4. I spent months in these worlds, relaxing and enjoying my in-game freedom. Killing monsters, looting EVERYTHING, and making gobs of gold coins. The worlds were relatively quiet and beautiful. I was alone (other than NPCs) and free to explore at my pace. I was in introvert heaven!

In the end, I learned that it’s healthy to have an outlet for stress and anxiety. Video games worked for me, but every mom and her experience are completely unique. Find what works for you and enjoy it unapologetically. Don’t let it come between you and your children or spouse, but treat it as a self-preservation, mental health break. You deserve it.