Stuff Parents Need

Easing the chaos in the nest, one find at a time.

10 Baby Book Gift Ideas That Will Become Treasured Possessions

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Enjoy today’s guest post from my friend Rebekah Gienapp. She is a true expert on outstanding children’s books and has some great baby book gift ideas for you all. I purchase Barefoot Books on the regular from her, and I’m always very pleased with my purchases. 🙂 

Book Gift Ideas for Baby Showers

Books are my go-to gift at baby showers and at first birthday parties. Why? I love giving something that will encourage an experience between babies and their families. Books do that better than any toy I can think of. Some parents also aren’t aware of the benefit of reading daily with their babies, right from birth, and I like to subtly encourage that habit! Finally, I hope that parents will appreciate that I’m giving them something that is easy to store, and won’t take up a lot of space in baby’s bedroom (unlike certain massive toys given by certain in-laws if you know what I mean).

So how do you know which books are right for babies? Here are a few types of books I look for, followed by suggestions of specific titles available from Barefoot Books that fit within these types.

10 baby book gift ideas

High Contrast Books

This sounds like a fancy term, but high contrast just means colors that are easy to tell apart. Babies (especially newborns) are still developing their vision. They have a preference for black, white, and red because these colors are easy to distinguish. With younger babies, it’s important not to over stimulate them with illustrations that are too busy.

Baby Talk: Every pregnant friend receives this book from me because it has high contrast illustrations and it has a sweet message about love between baby and family members. Babies love to look at faces, and this book is filled with photographs of children and adults from diverse backgrounds.

Big and Small: This simple book with color high contrast pictures introduces the concepts of big and small through page spreads that feature concepts like a lion and a cat, and an apple and a seed.

Books with Rhyming Text

There’s a reason that Mother Goose nursery rhymes have long been staples for baby’s first books. The sounds we make when we talk or read mostly sound like chaos to infants. Rhyme and rhythm help babies to organize those sounds, even when babies don’t understand the words themselves. This helps them build listening, memory, and vocabulary skills over the long haul.

I Took the Moon for a Walk: It’s impossible not to look at the dreamy illustrations in this book and listen to the gentle rhymes without getting a bit sleepy yourself. The calming story follows a little boy who goes on a night time journey through his town with the moon as his guide.

Clare Beaton’s Nursery Rhymes set: Mother Goose’s classic rhymes have been given new warmth through Clare Beaton’s cozy fabric-inspired illustrations. Though the volumes are board books, I’ve often seen little ones reach out to touch the textures they see because they are so vivid. From action rhymes that teach babies finger play activities, to wild animals and farm animals, to rhymes that will make baby sleepy, this collection has every kind of rhyme you can think of.

Books that Introduce Basic Concepts

I’m a big believer in letting each child learn at her own natural pace. Reading books early on that introduce concepts such as counting, opposites, and the sounds of the alphabet, plant seeds of literacy that will bloom when the time is right.

Alligator Alphabet, Counting Cockatoos, and Octopus Opposites: This Baby Basics collection by Stella Blackstone features cheery, childlike illustrations. Babies tend to show a natural interest in animals, and these books build on that fascination to introduce letters, numbers, and opposites.

How Big is a Pig? Babies follow an inquisitive pig around the farmyard as he points out animals that are old and young, fat and thin, quick and slow. The rhyming text and quirky illustrations will always hold a special place in my heart because I remember the exact moment this book taught my son the difference between high and low.

Ship Shapes: This summery read gives babies a chance to find shapes on top of rolling waves and along the sandy shores. The rhyme and repetition help reinforce the shapes, as do the two full pages in the back that show each shape separate from the other illustrations.

Interactive Books

Some parents naturally seem to know how to help babies interact with books by pausing to ask questions. For those who may not be as confident, books that ask questions can help families learn how to help baby look for hidden items, or make predictions about what will happen next.

Who’s in the Garden?, Who’s in the Forest?, Who’s in the Farmyard? This set of peek-a-boo books is best for babies who are nearing age one because of the more complex illustrations. Each book asks questions (filled with rhyming text) about animals are found in each setting, giving babies and parents a chance to guess. The peek-a-boo holes are perfect for inserting finger puppets or small stuffed animals, or for just giving a baby a way to easily turn the pages.

The Sounds Around Town: Babies are of course delighted by sounds like the shake of a rattle or the honk of a horn, and love to imitate them. The Sounds Around Town is filled with dozens of new sounds to make as it follows a mother and toddler throughout their busy day, visiting the market, the park, a restaurant, and more.

Hidden Hippo: This rhyming book takes babies on a safari adventure where they can find the hippo hiding on every page. The many different animals in the story also provide an opportunity expand baby’s vocabulary.

I hope these baby book gift ideas help you out if you are looking for a unique baby shower gift or if you are putting together a baby book gift basket, or simply trying to add a few great books to your baby’s library. If you’d like more baby shower gift ideas, check out Tiffany’s post on baby toys for 6-12 month olds (many people buy baby shower gifts just for newborns and don’t think about the second half of the baby’s first year!).

Rebekah Gienapp blogs about children’s books and literacy at The Barefoot Mommy, and is a Barefoot Books Ambassador.

Unstuffed: On Learning that the Stuff Parents Need = Not All That Much

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Affiliate links may be included at no cost to you. I only share what rocks! 

A question I get asked fairly often is about what big takeaways I have learned as a parent, but particularly as a parent who is chronicaling the journey publicly through my blog, Stuff Parents Need. And the answer I give is usually surprising to people. I say, “Stuff Parents Need has taught me that you don’t actually need all that much stuff to rock this mom or dad gig.”

It’s true, friends. A HUGE percentage of the requests for collaboration I receive from brands get a polite but firm, “no thank you” from me (a fact that surprises folks since I regularly enjoy highlighting cool products). And of the collaborations I take on, a fair chunk of them actually don’t turn into content after I give the product or service a trial run.

Why? Because most of it is wildly unnecessary and even burdomsome, in the end. I’ve learned that through lots and lots of experience testing gizmos and gadgets and clothes and toys and beauty products, and well, you name it.

Most of it is just clutter that takes up space in your house, and sucks time away from you day after day, week after week, as you spend what feels like all of your time trying to organize it.

Perhaps I sound a bit melodramatic, and perhaps my own journey with stuff doesn’t seem as relatable since many of the things that come into my home are a direct result of my business. But if you dig a little deeper, our stories likely aren’t so different. Many of us are trading our time for money, and our money for stuff. And then we spend that small amount of free time we have trying to manage the stuff we’ve accumulated, and that management of stuff feels like its own part-time job. At least it does for me, sometimes.

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Enter my friend Ruth’s great (and titled-spot-on-for-yours-truly) book, Unstuffed. I ripped through the advanced copy Ruth sent to me in just a few days, feeling SO very relieved to hear this very successful individual get really real, and share about her own struggles with her relationship to stuff.

It was a quick read, and one that I would recommend to anyone who is feeling buried in their own home and unsure about how you got there. You see, this book isn’t so much about the specifics of how to get your house in order, though Ruth does offer some advice in that area. Instead, it’s a book about trying to uncover exactly how you got where you are. By sharing her own story, she touches on a lot of issues that will ring true with others (inheriting households after loved ones pass on, overly generous relatives, the thrill of the bargain, etc.). And I think her focus is a really good one because I can speak from experience when I say that if you don’t address the issues that got you into your mess, you’ll find yourself right back where you started 6 months from now, no matter how ruthlessly you purge today. Understanding WHY chaos is ruling in your home can help you find the solution much better than understanding which under-the-bed storage boxes are the best. 

Unstuffed is currently a best-seller on Amazon and I expect it to become a NY Times bestseller, as well (it won’t be Ruth’s first!). It’s doing well for a reason, friends. I very highly recommend it! Oh, and if you have an e-reader, go for the Kindle version and save yourself from having one more book in your house. 😉

And if you are looking for a more practical “walk me through how to get rid of my clutter” type book, definitely check out Becky Mansfield’s Freed from Clutter. She can help you unload the stuff that’s weighing you down throughout your house in 30 days.

(Giveaway!) Anchored: One of the Best Books I’ve Read

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I received a complimentary copy of this book. I also purchased a copy of this book on my own to pass on. Because it’s just that good, people. Affiliate links may be included. #AnchoredHope

Yesterday was a banner day for my friend Kayla Aimee, as it was the official launch day of her first book, Anchored.

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I completely devoured my copy that arrived early, and honestly, the speed with which I read through it surprised me a bit. This is because I was slightly afraid to read it.

You see, Anchored is the story of Kayla’s start to motherhood, when her daughter was born at just 25 weeks gestation. She was a micro-preemie, and she spent 156 days in the NICU before finally getting to come home. It’s a hard story, obviously. And I don’t really do “hard” stories that are about children. I just have a SUPER low tolerance for them and find myself all too quickly dissolved into a pile of mush and heartbroken by proxy. So my coping strategy is to simply avoid reading those sad stories. It’s not brave of me, but it is a way I have found that helps me not fall apart on the daily from all the sadness in the world.

But Kayla tells a tale that feels painful, absolutely, but that is also helpful and even healing for anyone who has gone through something tough (and haven’t we all?). I cried quite a few tears while reading. Some were for baby Scarlette, and some were for Kayla, and some, as it turns out, were for me. It’s quite a gift an author has to have to tell such a story and help you feel part of it at the same time. Kayla does this, and she does it well.

Also? You’ll be very surprised by how often you laugh while reading the book! And not the polite type of pseudo-fake laughing. I’m talking about big belly laughs. Kayla is a riot, and the type of person who is especially prone to having awkward things happen to her, and she shares those moments of the absurd with you because it’s simply part of who she is.

It’s the book I have enjoyed the most in quite a long time. I’m even reading it out loud to my husband now. I hope you will enter my giveaway below for a free copy. But I also hope you will BUY a copy; it would be an AMAZING gift to give to your nearest hospital with a NICU, or to share with a friend. You don’t have to have a preemie, or even be a parent for this story to resonate with you. If you’ve ever turned to God with the question, “WHY?!?!” then you will be able to relate.

Win it!:

One Stuff Parents Need reader will win a copy of Anchored!

Let’s keep this simple: to enter, simply leave a comment, including your email address (so I can contact you!) telling me your favorite book (could be a favorite recent read OR your all-time favorite book!). That’s it! 

Contest open to residents of the United States, ages 18 and up. Limit one entry per household, please. Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on July 16th and a winner will be randomly selected from eligible entries received. Winner will have 48 hours to respond to winning notification via email before an alternate winner is selected. Stuff Parents Need is not responsible for prize fulfillment.

Be sure to enter my other current giveaways on the right sidebar of the page.

Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives (Book Review)

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Complimentary copy provided by Blogging for Books. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

better than before

Here’s the bad news: habits are super fragile and far easier to break than to uphold.

Now here’s the good news: Gretchen Rubin has provided a wealth of insights into possible pitfalls as you work on developing new habits, as well as some strategies to keep on the straight and narrow, and she has done so for several different personality types.

As I read this book, though, I kept oscilating back and forth between feeling overwhelmed and feeling hopeful about new habits I’m trying to form (for me, that specifically means getting OUT of the habit of ingesting gross amounts of sugar and getting INTO the habit of eating cleaner).

On the flip side, I realized how important it is to be really choosy about what you decide to take up as a new habit. Since habit forming is so darn tricky, you really increase your odds of success by ony focusing on one new thing instead of trying to develop lots of new habits all at once. This has helped me set aside several other habits that I “should” be trying to form right now so that I can focus my efforts on the one I want to develop the most.

Better Than Before is a solidly good read, though perhaps a little annoying at times. Gretchen has an Upholder personality type, so she is very self-motivated and in some ways, her personality type has the easiest time forming new habits. I’m also an Upholder, so I’m fully aware of our tendency to be a smidge self-righteous, and that does come out in the book here and there. I think this is one to pick up from your library instead of purchasing for your permanent collection, though.

What are you reading right now? Any book recommendations for me? 

Hands-On Prints Books: Bringing Montessori Home!

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I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Hands-on-Prints books. I received books to facilitate my review.

Are you concerned about your kiddos experiencing some brain drain over the summer? This is an issue I’ve been a bit worried about, personally, and it has impacted the types of activities I am going to make available. Of course my kids are going to have plenty of unstructured play time (that’s an important part of learning, after all!) but I’m also on the look out for reading materials that can help with skill development for my pre-reader and my early reader.

Today I want to highlight two books that are fantastic summer additions to my kids’ libraries!

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My kids are in Montessori school, and one of the important learning activities that pre-readers do is to practice tracing the cursive letters while making the letter sounds. The focus isn’t on the name of the letter, but rather the sound that it typically makes. And by tracing the letter, you are using muscle memory. This is how learning, and not rote memorization, takes place.

hands on prints 2

I am really loving the book Around the World from A to Z. This book has the raised cursive letters on one side of each page for the child to enjoy tracing. The other side of the page has very vivid images from around the world. Real-world photographs would have been most ideal, in my opinion, but the drawings are very beautiful. The images show children all over the world engaged in various activities all over the world (for example: kayaking by the Golden Gate Bridge). So in addition to the pre-reading exercises, you are also getting some geography and some information about various physical sports and games.

My youngest has begins her first preschool year in Montessori school this fall. We will be tracing our letters over the summer and continuing to practice with it throughout the school year. When she outgrows the book, I will be donating it to the school!

The other book I’d recommend for little ones as they work on identifying emotions, as well as coping strategies for when things don’t go their way, is Do I have to? What if I don’t want to. Now this book is going to be just as helpful for me as it is for my kids. There are so many great points made just to the parents at the beginning of the book about how hard it is for a child to have so little control over how their day goes (when they wake up, where they go, what they eat, etc.) and that can get overwhelming, and also really frustrating! This book takes an empathetic approach to those difficulties and also helps start conversations between parents and their children so that they can help each other work through those hard moments.

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Both of these titles are from Hands on Prints. Christina Cheung is the founder of Hands-on-Prints, and she began writing her books after establishing a Montessori school. The range of material offered on the website spans from the simple to the more complex, and incorporates tactile elements as well as a visually stimulating experience for children. Please take a moment to check out the website and see what might need to be added to your summer reading list!

To Tuck Away for August: Fun New Read for the First Day of School

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Complimentary book provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included. 

Tomorrow is the very last day of school for my kids. Eeek! We’ll be talking a great deal about my feelings on this matter over the coming weeks, I am sure. But for now, I wanted to share a fun new book we have been enjoying, and one that I think would make a great gift for a little one about to start kindergarten or first grade in the fall.

ally-saurus 2

Check out Ally-Saurus and the First Day of School, by Richard Torrey. It’s all about a little dinosaur-in-training named Ally who brings her world of make believe right into the classroom. She quickly discovers that she’s different from the other kids, but she also discovers a whole classroom full of other fun “apprentices” such as an astronaut and a dragon.

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I love the message in this book: it’s good to be yourself. And it’s good to celebrate what makes everyone special and different! It’s even good to try out something new (spoiler alert: Ally decides to start the second day of school out as a rabbit!).

It’s very cute and is really just perfect for easing those first day of school jitters!

Supermarket Healthy: A Worthy Option for the Cook with a Bit of Time

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I received a complimentary copy of Supermarket Healthy from Blogging for Books. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included. 

I’ve been thumbing through Melissa D’Ariabian’s newest cookbook, Supermarket Healthy, for the past few weeks, and I’ve made 5 of her dishes. One was a bust, but the other 4 were all quite good (and in some cases very surprisingly good!).

MDA-Supermarket-Healthy

Occasionally I do see ingredients listed that I think I would have trouble locating in my grocery store, but for the most part, Melissa uses stuff I can easily get (and often things I already have on hand) and puts them together in fresh new ways that I wouldn’t have thought of on my own.

I would say that this is NOT a book for the beginner cook. I don’t think you need to be Julia Child, but her techniques do go beyond the basics. As someone who has been cooking for almost 13 years, but who favors simplicity over fuss in the kitchen, I have definitely tried some new techniques thanks to this cookbook, but I have felt comfortable giving them a try. If I was a cooking newbie, I would be a bit overwhelmed, personally.

If your kitchen is already overflowing with cookbooks that you never read, I can’t say that this will be one that will escape that same fate, especially since many of the recipes do require a bit of your time, and therefore aren’t ideal for anyone who either works outside of the home or who just doesn’t like meal prep to take a while.

But if you work from  home, like I do, and if you are comfortable in the kitchen and could use some new ideas, Supermarket Healthy does offer quite a nice variety of dishes you probably haven’t already tried.

meQuilibrium: 14 Days to Cooler, Calmer and Happier (Book Review)

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Book provided by Blogging for Books for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

There’s a cloud on the cover of this book that has the following sentence on it: “The clinically proven plan to banish burnout.” This got me very intrigued. When I saw “14 Days…” I was sold. Yes, I would love to be able to change my life in 14 days! I will read this book and amazing things will transpire!!!

mequilibrium

You know where this is going, right?

I’m sure your mama taught you that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Mama’s right. meQuilibrium is not going to radically change your life in 14 days, especially not with 15-20 minutes of your time each day, as the book also promises.

Now, that’s not to say that this book doesn’t have very sound advice, and that it doesn’t lay out many different very real stress triggers and some great ideas for ways to diffuse those little ticking time bombs. But the amount of time that they suggest you might need to “fix” these problems strikes me as ridiculous. I actually found myself getting all stressed out after I realized that they were suggesting that I learn how to correctly identify, categorize and then appropriately diffuse my emotional triggers all in one day. Seems like quite the lofty task! Do you struggle with sleep issues? Don’t worry, you’ll fix that in day 2. All you have to do is stuff that you have probably tried 100 times before like do a little yoga, not eat too much before bed, etc. It will fix itself in one night…aren’t you excited?

Ok, I know I’m being a little grouchy. So I want to state what is true again: this book really does do a nice job of uncovering stress trigger points and giving you some long term as well as some short term stress relief ideas. But I think that the promise of being able to radically transform how a person deals with stress in 14 days, 15 minutes at a time, is not realistic, and frankly, it encourages folks (or at least me) to just put the book down and walk away. Why not be honest about the fact that changing decades old habits is just going to take time, but that working slow and steady on making those changes is going to be worth all of the hard work (because it IS hard work…it isn’t 15 minutes of your time work).

Is it worth the read? I would say yes IF you are super stressed out and you can’t even put your finger on what the heck is wrong. If you are lost, this book will shed some light on what might be happening with you. But if you want to be cooler, calmer and happier in just 14 days and with minimum effort, I’m not convinced that this book will help.

 

The Prettiest Cookbook in My Collection: The Skinnytaste Cookbook

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Complimentary copy provided for review purposes. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. Affiliate links may be included. 

When I’m shopping for a new cookbook, the recipes inside need to sound absolutely delicious. But almost as important as the recipes, at least for me, are the photos. I want to see these gorgeous dishes that I will be making (or not making if they look and sound entirely too complicated!).

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The Skinnytaste Cookbook delivers on both fronts. Page after page of this cookbook from the popular food blogger Gina Homolka has recipes that sound flavorful and scrumptious, and I’d say about half of the recipes, if not more, have pictures to accompany them. And those pictures are mouth-watering to say the least.

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Now let me keep things real for you: I haven’t yet made a single thing in the cookbook. This is the very busiest time of year for me at work, and my credit card bill can prove it to you with all the eating out we’ve been doing! But I’m now heading into the season when there’s a bit of a hush and when I can spend a bit more time on the domestic element of my work. I have a ridiculous number of recipes in this cookbook that I’m planning on trying over the next 3 months. There have been a few dishes that I like the sound of them, but the execution seemed too cumbersome (too many unusual ingredients, for example) but for the most part, everything sounds tasty AND easy enough to replicate. So for me, the cookbook is a winner before I’ve even tried anything. I would buy this for a girlfriends as a gift in a hot second. 🙂