Best Design Blogs for Moms

 

The best sites to scour for design inspiration, including:

  
• Best mom + kids style
• Best handmade
• Best toys + gear
• Best home products
• Best all things beautiful

• Overview
• When Is Your Child Ready for Potty-Training
• How to Start Potty-Training
• Best Potty-Training Methods
• Common Potty-Training Problems (and How to Solve Them)
• Best Potty-Training Tips
• Best Potty-Training Products
• FAQs
• Reader Potty-Training Tips

   
   
     
Overview: Week 1
 
     
 
 
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Congratulations! The moment you have been anticipating and planning for is here! You’ve finally met the little baby that had been kicking and squirming inside of your body, and that tiny heart that once beat along with your own is now out in the world. After the kisses and cuddles and overwhelming emotion, there’s one tiny thing you may have overlooked — or make that dozens of tiny things.
  
While the bassinet may be assembled and the car seat installed, you might be starting to realize that it’s still hard to fully prepare yourself for how you feel, both physically and emotionally, in the first postpartum week. Keep in mind that this time is an adjustment period for even experienced parents, and it’s completely normal to feel a little overwhelmed with the enormity of what just happened.
  
To provide insight and comfort, we’ve compiled a comprehensive guide on everything you might be wondering about, from baby basics (like feeding, swaddling and diapering) to health concerns (such as SIDS, bowel movements and jaundice) to mommy issues (like baby blues, bleeding and exhaustion). But as you read through our advice and guidelines, remember that there’s no better resource than your own intuition.
      
 
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Find More:
  
 
 
• Week 2  
  • Baby’s Health and Well-being
  • Mom’s Health and Well-being
  • Leaving the House
  • Feeding: Breast or Bottle?
  • Breastfeeding
  • Formula-feeding
  • Feeding and Digestive Issues
  • Sleep
  • Swaddling
  • Diapering
  • Crying and Soothing
  • Bathing and Dressing
  • Developmental Milestones and Play
  • FAQs
  • Reader Tips
  • Weeks 3 & 4  
    • Baby’s Health and
      Well-being
    • Mom’s Health and
      Well-being
    • Feeding
    • Feeding and Digestive Issues
    • Sleep
    • Crying and Colic
    • Developmental Milestones and Play
    • FAQs
    • Weeks 5 - 10  
      • Overview
      • Baby’s Health and
        Well-being
      • Mom’s Health and
        Well-being
      • Feeding
      • Digestive Issues
      • Surviving Colic
      • Sleep
      • Developmental Milestones and Play
      • Weeks 11 - 16

Other Parenting Guides:

  
• Baby Feeding Guide
• Bedwetting Guide
• Diapering Guide
• Babble's Back to School Guide
• Newborn Care Guide: Week 1
• Newborn Care Guide: Week 2
• Newborn Care Guide: Weeks 3 & 4
• Newborn Care Guide: Month 2
• Newborn Care Guide: Month 3
• Baby Care Guide Months 4-12
• Pregnancy Week-by-Week Guide
• Summer Style Guide
• Travel Safety Guide
• Bathing Guide
• Ear Infection Guide
• Pinkeye Guide
• Childproofing Guide
• Digital Photography Guide

Day Care, Child Care, Newborn Care Guide

 

A detailed guide to caring for your newborn,
week by week

  
• What you'll need at home
• All about breastfeeding
• Developmental milestones
• Diapering, bathing and more
  

READ MORE »

Baby's First Year, on Video

Our Bloggers Share their Baby Firsts

TMI Parenting Anxiety

When less information online is more

By Lyz Lenz  |  June 24, 2011

When my daughter was 6 weeks old, she wasn’t smiling. All the information I read in books and on websites said that she should be smiling. As a new mom, I was very worried. I posted on discussion boards and received a host of suggestions ranging from failure to thrive and autism. I Googled, “autism in infants,” “autism at six weeks,” “my child is not smiling” and “my baby doesn’t like me.”

The doctor told me my baby was fine. My husband told me she was fine. My family told me she was fine, but with the overwhelming information superhighway contradicting their reasoned counsel, I couldn’t help but worry, fret and Google. Until one day, without warning, my daughter just smiled and she hasn’t stopped smiling since.

But it’s not just the Internet introducing anxiety. A new slate of technology allows parents to spy on their children in ways never before imagined. The AngelCare baby monitor detects signs of breathing and sounds an alarm if your baby stops moving. Some friends of mine watch their children on their phones through a live-video feed available via Skype. “Why not just stick computer chips in them?” I joked. “We’d consider it,” the father seriously retorted.

New parents worry. It’s a given that all new moms will anxiously check their snoozing infant for signs of breathing. We buckle. Innoculate. Sanitize. But does this wealth of information feed into our deepest fears and actually make us worse parents? Or when it comes to your children can you never have enough knowledge?

Dr. John Duffy, author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens, argues that the glut of product and Internet-induced knowledge is not just hurting parents, it’s hurting kids. “In my opinion, we definitely have far too much information these days, and it can be crippling for parents.

About the Author

Lyz Lenz is a blogger and writer. Her essays have been published on MSNBC.com, Mommyish, YourTango and more. You can find her over on lyzlenz.com where she TMI's about her daughter, chicken nuggets and hating pants.

Beyond Chinese Mothering

The science and practice of child success

Child-Unfriendly

10 places I don’t want to see your kids (or mine)

June 26, 2011

• Ethnic minorities outnumber caucasian babies for first time
• CDC recommends Whooping Cough vaccine for pregnant women
• Babywearing Dads — hot or not?

Demographics

                                                                 

Demographics	BabyCenter	Women +18
Female	84%	-
Median Age	30	39
Median HH Income	$42,500	$42,500
One+ Children in HH	70%	44%
Any College	73%	75%
Employed Full Time or   Part time	56%	55%
Married	57%	53%

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Fast Facts

 
• 92% are moms or moms-to-be
• 38% are pregnant
• Over half are first-time moms
• Nearly 3 in 4 have one or more children; 32% have two or more
• 1 in 3 have kids ages 3 to 8 years old
• 41% have kids ages 3 to 11 years old
• Moms trust BabyCenter nearly 3x more than any other pregnancy and parenting site
• They recommend BabyCenter 2x more often than the closest parenting site
• 85,000+ moms voice their opinions via our 21st Century Mom® panel - the largest panel of moms in the US
• Spend $2.8 billion annually across baby, beauty, and OTC medicine
• 44% use social media for word-of-mouth recommendations for brands and products to try and buy
• More than 3 out of 4 share the information they find on BabyCenter with other moms
• BabyCenter Study, May 2010 
• comScore Plan Metrix, October 2010
• BabyCenter 21st Century Mom® Report, June 2009 with January 2010 update