Your Kids

When you have your first child, everything changes. But before your little one is born, you’re out there, frantically stocking up on cute little clothes, buying decorations for the baby’s nursery, and building your baby registry. It’s kind of fun. As you go through it all though, you never really know what you’re going to need.  There’s SO much marketing out there for …

Potty training is often more frustrating for the parent than it is for the child. For your child, it’s like learning to drive when they’ve never been in the driver’s seat before. Actually, it’s more like learning to drive when you’ve never even been in a car before. It’s difficult. And often times, disgusting. (Okay, that last part doesn’t really …

A lot of parents have anxiety over figuring out what it takes to be a good parent.  Especially new parents. It’s a tricky subject, because you don’t get a report card that tells you whether or not you’ve been a good parent.  There’s no master guidebook on how to be a good parent. The challenging part of it all is …

Image credit: http://www.babysleepsite.com Before you become a parent, you take sleep for granted.  After all, you can completely control how much sleep you get simply by adjusting your bedtime or wake-up time. After having a baby, however, sleep becomes this unknown variable in your life; it becomes this elusive concept that changes from night to night.  As a parent of an …

Several years ago, long before I ever thought about becoming a parent, I heard about a family member who had begun using cloth diapers for her baby.  And to be honest, my initial gut reaction was: that’s disgusting. It’s true that today’s society is often criticized for embracing a “throw away” culture, and I agree it’s a valid complaint.  We’re …

One thing my wife and I have discussed and debated with regards to our baby girl is how we want to handle childcare, considering we both work full time jobs.  And I’m guessing we’re not alone in trying to figure out the best childcare options (for infants especially). Our general debate was “daycare or in-home nanny” because those were really the …

As a parent, one of the hot topics in personal finance that you’ll often see discussed is saving for your child’s college education. While some parents prefer to save their child’s college fund in a glass jar or underneath their mattress, there are certainly a lot of better options out there: one of which is a 529 Plan. (Whether or …

There’s no doubt you’ve heard about the importance of reading to your child, especially as he or she gets a bit older and can comprehend what you’re saying. But even when your child is an infant – before he or she can talk or comprehend language – reading still has benefits. But what should you read? Does it even matter …

Undoubtedly the single greatest challenge of raising a newborn child is something you’ve likely taken for granted your entire life: how to manage sleep. And no, not managing sleep for the baby: the baby will sleep whenever it feels like sleeping. Before becoming a new parent, you commonly hear two seemingly contradictory things: Newborn babies sleep all the time (somewhere …

Setting up a baby registry is one of those fun things you get to do before the baby is born (maybe as fun as designing the baby’s nursery). It’s kind of like writing a Christmas list when you’re a little kid…you pick out things you want, you don’t pay for them, and you just wait and see if you get the …