Pregnancy & Parenting
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NYC Central Park with Toddler
Central Park is a great place to visit with a toddler. There are many things to see and do, and the park is large enough that you can easily spend a whole day exploring. Here are some ideas for activities to do with your toddler in Central Park: Visit the Central Park Zoo. The zoo is home to over 1,000 animals, including lions, tigers, bears, and penguins. There is also a petting zoo for toddlers. Take a ride on the Central Park Carousel. The carousel is a classic New York City experience, and it’s sure to be a hit with your toddler. Have a picnic in the park. Pack a…
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Stroller Mod – DIY Stroller Liner & Packing Pouch
Make a stroller seat liner to keep those muddy feet away I decided to make a stroller seat liner for our Uppababy Cruz 2 to combat the dirts that my toddler constantly dragged onto the stroller. (See our full review on the Uppababy Cruz 2) And then a friend recently became a new parent, so I thought I better make her one, too. Since she has a pre-loved Uppababy Cruz that was given to her through the local Buy Nothing group, I decided to make a set of seat liner and packing pouch to match the Dennyson red of her stroller. (Check out our Smart Parenting Shopping Strategy post for…
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Budget Parenting- When & Where to buy Kids Stuff?
This is an example shopping timeline for a child born in Oct. For example, assuming all previous clothings have been acquired before birth, in Nov of his/her birth year, parents should be shopping for Size 18-24 months during Black Friday Sales. Move the Month Bar on the chart to suit your child’s birth month. Kids grow so fast! Their need for new clothes and stuff is relentless. Although it is fun to shop for cute children’s clothes, it can get pretty expensive very quickly. After three years of experimenting, we have come to a shopping pattern that has saved us a fair bit of money. (See the Example Shopping Timeline…
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Stroller Mod – Bugaboo Breezy Sun canopy on Uppababy strollers
Bugaboo Donkey Breezy Sun Canopy on an Uppababy Cruz v2. Method 2: Canopy is fully functional when used with Uppababy native canopy frame (Top left), but shows puckering of fabric near clamps (Bottom left). Method 1: Canopy is much neater when used with Bugaboo’s own canopy wire & clamps (Right). The Bugaboo Breezy Sun canopy has been one of the most lusted-after accessories amongst stroller pushers. Not only because it is a member of the stylish and well-made Bugaboo lineup, but it is genuinely a very useful summer accessories. It provides head-to-toe sun coverage for the child, yet it still offers great visibility from inside the stroller. Even my three…
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Uppababy Cruz v2 – A Three-month Review
Uppababy Cruz v2, is this the best single hauler for urban parents? After using and loving our Phil & Ted Voyager Double Convertible for the past two years, we have come to the realisation that we no longer need a double stroller. (See our posts on the Phil & Ted Voyager Review and Do You Really Need a Double Stroller?) We re-evaluated our needs and wants, and decided that an Uppababy Cruz v2 is a better fit for our current circumstances. After three months of daily use, here are what we thought are the good and the could be improved of this stroller. THE GOOD Sturdy mechanism Uppababy has…
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Do you really need a double stroller? – A Retrospective
We have recently jumped on the Uppababy bandwagon and became the proud owner of a new Cruz v2 stroller (Link to our three-month review). With the brand being one of the top choices for many new parents, one might wonder, why now? Why, after three years, are we choosing to forgo our existing double strollers and go back on a single? Like many starting a new family, when we had our first child, we were also considering the possibility of a second. But after three years of trying without success, with our toddler daughter increasing desire for independence, our need for our the beloved double stroller is fast becoming obsolete.…
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Choosing Child Restraint – What’s after infant car seat?
So many car seat products! What are they for and when do I need them? In North America, even with living in a very walkable city, occasional travel by car is still unavoidable. Children car seats are the most popular and effective safety gear used to protect our precious cargo in an event of a collision. Outside road transportation, air travel also benefit from the use of car seat for convenience and comfort. But for urbanites like us that relied mostly on public transport and ride-share services, constantly installing and hauling these very sizeable objects around is not an easy task. Our scenario Our daughter has been travelling with her…
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Montessori Bed – A More Affordable Set Up
As the first step toward independence, we wanted our daughter to have more access to things in her bedroom. This includes being able to get in and out of bed by herself, but also doing it safely. While the Montessori Method encouraged the use of accessible bed from birth, our previous compact apartment did not allow for this type of set up. However, once we moved to a more spacious home, we were determine to make it happen. When our daughter was 18-months old, we moved her from her crib to a floor bed. The Montessori beds we saw online are really cute but they are very expensive! We also…
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Oh Crap! Potty Training at 25 months old – WEEK 1 & 2
A few months ago, I picked up a copy of the Oh Crap! Potty Training by Jamie Glowacki at my local library just to get some background information on this inevitable topic. Then I realised that we were right at the critical age of 20 – 30 months for toilet training. Initially, we were not planning to get straight into the training yet. We were busy doing a few home improvement projects, and the little one had only just turned two. There will be plenty of time, right? So, despite the book advising us to start training within 2 weeks, we procrastinated for a couple of months. Until one…
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Essential Winter Items for 0 – 24 months
Layering is the key to keeping warm in winter! Winter is here and we are rugging up~ Our daughter was born in late autumn. Having lived in the subtropical climate all our life, we had no idea how to dress our baby for the Philadelphian winter. Throughout her infancy, we were constantly concerned that she might be cold. After two years of practice, I developed a winter clothing strategy to suit our comfort level (see table above). When dressing our child for warmth, we layer clothing of different warmth level to achieve an overall target value that suit the outside temperature. This minimised the guesswork of getting dressed and allowed…