Mommin' It Up!

December 16, 2013January 24, 2014

5 Budget Conscious Child Safety Tips (+ giveaway!)

Oh, hi! It’s Jenny! We can’t stop giving stuff away these days! I guess you could say we are really in the holiday spirit!

Today we are bringing you a guest post from Kimberlee Mitchell, a child safety expert we’ve worked with through the American Cleaning Institute for a few months. Kimberlee is so sweet, and such a pro, that when she offered to guest post and provide a giveaway, we said yes because she’s a great resource. This post is in no way sponsored, we just really like Kimberlee – and, she has a lot of great things to say! Enjoy, and make sure and check out the sweet giveaway at the end!

5 Budget Conscious Child Safety Tips:

By Kimberlee Mitchell

Child Safety Expert & Founder of Boo Boo Busters

Most families are looking for areas where they can cut back and stretch their dollar these days. I get it; my family is doing the same thing. Childproofing is not an area that should be omitted because unintentional injury continues to be the #1 cause of death for children between the ages of one and four, according to Safe Kids USA. Here are five money saving tips for budget conscious parents in need of home childproofing:

1) Establish Off-Limits Rooms

Locking off certain portions of the house is the most cost effective way to childproof the home. Just be sure to be militant about not allowing a baby/child into those rooms. Use a doorknob cover or a top door lock to make the room inaccessible to little ones. For extra dangerous rooms, such as gym, laundry room, garage and loft, and homes that lack a priority for using safety devices use two barriers of prevention, such as both a door knob cover and top door lock.

2) Create a Safe Play Zone

Choose an area in your home where your child can be free to roam and then childproof it like Fort Knox. A common choice for this space is the family “great room” where your whole clan spends the most time together. Gate off this area to limit a child’s access out of the room (i.e., block off hallway, stairs, kitchen, etc.) and address all child safety hazards in the room like outlets, coffee table edges and corners, fireplace, entertainment center, flat screen TV, to name a few.

3) DIY Childproofing

Just like on HGTV, doing it yourself can save you some cash but it does require a bit of skill. For many folks the task of childproofing can be daunting and frustrating (due to the numerous variables every home presents), so hiring a professional childproofer to do the initial consultation will give you peace-of-mind that all the hazards have been addressed as well as provide a clear blueprint for what needs to be done. Save money by tackling some of the simple tasks on your own (outlet covers, padding, cord cleats/shorteners, wire cover, etc.) to save cash and then leave the “heavy lifting” (i.e., complicated custom gate mounts, Plexiglas installation, window guards, magnetic latches, etc.) to the trained pros!

4) Start Early & Get Ahead of the Curve

Once baby arrives life seems to go into warp speed, so get an early jump on childproofing and start during pregnancy. Begin your ongoing education in child safety by reading about it on the web. Then make an appointment for your in-home consultation with a professional childproofer near you and begin tackling the installation a little bit at a time. This works like a built in payment plan making it affordable yet still resulting in safety for your baby and peace of mind for mom and dad.

5) Supervise Baby … at ALL Times

Childproofing is defined as the use or implementation of child safety devices designed to help parents ensure the health, wellbeing and safety of their baby. A baby monitor is a childproofing device! And it’s truly one of my favorite new parent “must haves” because supervision is the best friend of childproofing. Up until recently, hi-tech monitors were too expensive. Yes, audio-only monitors are less pricy but they don’t allow you to actually see your baby. The good news is technology has come a long way and so have the prices! VTech’s new Safe&Sound® VM333 Baby Monitor offers a pan and tilt camera, full-color video, talk back intercom, LEDs for night vision, expandable up to four cameras for one video parent unit. The wall mounts make it easy to set up the monitors, which make it easier for DIY installation. All this plus lullabies for under $180! A good video monitor like this one will bring you peace-of-mind like no other child safety device or mommy must have.

Thanks Kimberlee!

And now for a giveaway! Kimberlee and VTech are giving away one Vtech Safe&Sound® VM333 Baby Monitor to one lucky Mommin’ It Up reader. This thing is pretty sweet & is perfect for your own family or to give as a gift. Here’s how to enter! You can enter up to 4 times.

1) Leave us a comment with YOUR best childproofing tip!

2) Follow Kimberlee @Childsafetyguru on Twitter and come back here and leave a comment letting us know you did so (with your Twitter username).

3) Follow VTech @VTechPhones on Twitter and come back here and leave a comment letting us know you did so (with your Twitter username).

4) Tweet about the giveaway “I want to win a Safe&Sound video monitor from @childsafetyguru @VTechPhones #VTechBaby http://bit.ly/18QCQBv” then leave a separate comment with your tweet URL.

One winner will be chosen at random on December 23rd, 2013 at 6pm! Good luck!

December 15, 2013January 2, 2014

Keeping Kids Active in Cold Weather

This post is part of my duties as an Energy Balance Ambassador for Together Counts, for which I am being compensated. But I wrote it my own self and the words, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are completely mine.

Since I’ve been working with Together Counts all year as an Energy Balance Ambassador, I’ve really been thinking a lot about being active – calories in, calories out. And though most of my thoughts on families being active together have been on the Together Counts blog, I do have a few I’ve saved to share here. Specifically about being active during the c-c-c-cold months of the year.

Now, my friends who know me know I’m more of an “indoor girl” in general, but this applies especially during the winter. I HATE COLD. And we’ve had an especially brutal winter this year already, and it’s technically not even December 21st yet! But, I know that it’s important to be active and keep my kids active. I’m all for indoor yoga and Pilates myself, but they’re into things that are more fast-paced. Here are a few ideas to keep your family active during cold weather.

1) Bundle up & get outside. I know it seems simple, but it works! Snow is a great excuse to get out, but even 15 minutes out in just plain cold with lots of layers is better then being inside playing video games all day. My kids ask to go outside no matter what the temperature – sometimes you just need to get out and run.

2) Get yer skate on. Got a local skating rink? They’re open year-round, pretty affordable, and taking a million laps around the rink with your kids is a great way to get some exercise and have LOTS of fun!

3) Spring for some lessons. My Sophie takes gymnastics once a week; she’s never going to be in a competitive class, but she has a great time learning and building strength, not to mention getting some great exercise. This winter both kids are also going to be in swim lessons. Joshua’s already a great swimmer but he can always use the exercise and learn new strokes and safety techniques, and we’re hoping this year Sophie will become a confident swimmer by summer time.

Those are just a few of the ways we’re keeping active this winter – what are your ideas?

For more great articles on family activities and meals, visit the Together Counts blog!

December 12, 2013December 17, 2013

Do Good Things. (With our money.)

Earlier this week, our friend Jeannett from Life Rearranged wrote a sponsored post for Toys R Us, but instead of spending her profit from that post on peppermint lattes and manicures, she and two of her kids spent all of the money buying things to donate to Toys for Tots.

Pretty amazing, right? I thought so.

But then Jeannett took it one step further, because she is awesome.

She decided to give one of her readers $100 to do the same thing. That was $100 of her own money, from her heart. To enter, all her readers had to do was leave a comment telling her the nicest thing anyone had ever done for them.

You guys. These comments? They were amazing, and inspiring. (Jeannett has promised to punch Jenny and me in the face if we call her inspiring, but I think she’d agree that that’s an appropriate description of the comments.) (Also? She is inspiring.)

Anyway, Jeannett’s giveaway ended yesterday, but you should still click over and read the comments on her post. You will be glad you did, I promise. Kate and I read them together, and we had to keep taking turns reading them aloud because we kept getting choked up.

So, because Jenny and I were so moved by this whole thing, we’ve decided to completely rip off Jeannett’s idea and do the same thing here on Mommin’ It Up. We’re going to give one reader $100 to do something good this holiday season. We don’t care what it is (although we do want to hear about it!), just something good.

But we’re going to have to move quickly, because Christmas is like 24 hours away. Or 13 days. Something like that. So we’ll close comments on Tuesday, December 17 and randomly choose a winner.

And to make sure our idea-ripping-off is complete, we are going to have the same rules as Jeannett:

1. You must use the money to do good, however you see that. Toys for Tots, donations to a food pantry, adopt a family – whatever. Just something that is kind and will make someone else happy.
2. You must have a social media account of some kind. Whether its a personal Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, whatever. Just some way to share at least one photo of what you decided to do.
3. Take a pic and tag Mommin’ It Up (on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter) so we can see what you’ve done and enjoy it with you, and share it with all of our readers.
4. Shady people need not apply. Don’t enter if you’re going to blow it on Mt. Dew and cheez puffs. (Not that I know anyone who eats those things. *cough*Jenny*cough*).

Just leave ONE comment telling us:
WHAT WAS THE NICEST THING SOMEONE HAS EVER DONE FOR YOU?

I cannot wait to hear.