Wondering how to get stuff done with a new baby around? These simple new mom hacks helped me be a more productive and happier momma. How you choose to spend the extra time is up to you!

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Babies add lots of daily chores that have to be done. In the early days of caring for a newborn, sometimes it’s enough to, say, successfully empty the dishwasher to feel accomplished.

And it’s easy to let those things suck up every moment of naptime. Oftentimes they will.

But there will come a point in your new-baby journey that you’ll want to take time back–to work more, or start a new project, or just have time to yourself.

That’s when you need new mom hacks, or more specifically, newborn baby hacks.

What are new mom hacks?

The idea isn’t to outsource being mom, but to eliminate or downsize the time and soul sucking tasks that don’t bring joy or add significant value.

Let me explain further. Only you can be mom. You probably want to be the one who attends the important doctor’s appointments, school plays, baby and me classes, etc.

Things that *you* don’t have to do is volunteer on committees where they just need a warm body, have in person meetings or appointments that could easily be accomplished online, or do tasks of daily living in a non-efficient way.

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Anything but the value mom stuff gets outsourced or streamlined.

Unless you have unlimited money, you’ll have to choose which things get outsourced and others which might simply become more efficient.

For instance, I do hire someone to clean my house twice per month, but deal with our own laundry. YMMV.

Your first order of business when considering pregnancy hacks and new mom hacks is to decide what you enjoy doing versus what you would prefer to outsource or avoid altogether. For instance, I hate shopping, so I prefer to outsource this task 100%.

You don’t have to wait till baby arrives to start saving hashtag all the time. First up is pregnancy hacks. Then we’ll cover some new mom hacks and toddler mom hacks.

Pregnancy Hacks

I decided early on that my goal would be to absolutely minimize things that don’t directly add value.

Complete your baby registry online

Just to give you an idea of how serious I am, I went to zero—that’s right zero—stores during pregnancy and while creating my new baby registry.

Between my registry and the moms on call essentials list, absolutely everything was accomplished online!

This is a pregnancy hack, but also doubles as a new mom hack and newborn baby hack.

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Need help with what to buy for baby? Be sure to check out 9 essentials for your baby registry list.

Buy maternity clothes that will last

I admit that I wasted money on transitional maternity clothes, when I should have just jumped to the four maternity dresses that were everything [and that I still wear nine months later #confession.]

There is a slim chance you’ll be a pregnant person who wears their skinny jeans home from the hospital. Honestly, there are ladies who claim this is a thing, but I’m not sure I believe them.

But, if you’re like the rest of us, it’s not just your stomach that grows, it’s everything.

To save money, I’d recommend the pregnancy hack of buying maternity clothes that will last through the trimesters.

Read: These four maternity dresses were everything during my twin pregnancy.

Newborn Baby Hacks

Baby is here. Congrats! The early days of momming are overwhelming, but you can reclaim time back with these new mom hacks.

Here’s the list I came up with.

things that have to be done and suck up a lot of time

Laundry and baby clothes organization

Washing and organizing dishes, bottle, and pump parts

Grocery and other baby products shopping

Admin tasks—paying bills, making appointments, getting a plumber, etc.

Here’s how I deal with all of the above.

New Mom Hacks to save time

laundry and clothes organization

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Confession: pre-babies, I didn’t really consider laundry *a thing*. That is, my method of doing laundry was to throw in a load, then usually have to run again. After that it would live in the dryer or thrown over a laundry basket. Ready to wear.

Doing laundry that way isn’t–the best–but it does cost very little time. That’s probably why when someone said they were “busy doing laundry” I thought it was like the excuse “I can’t because I’m washing my hair.” That is, a fake excuse.

Well now that I have twin babies, I understand how laundry–and the organization aftermath–can take actual time and a lot of it. Let’s streamline it!

But first, let’s talk about expectations. We’ve all seem the cute aspirational photos of baby’s closet, where onesies and bibs are each hung up individually. Yeah. No.

That’s fine to do before baby arrives… it’s called channeling anxiety. After, there will be plenty of other stuff to keep you busy. So, assuming you don’t want to spend hours inserting the perfect amount of space between clothing items, and, you also don’t want baby’s room to look like you birthed the world’s youngest hoarder, here are some tips.

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Wash everyone’s clothes together

I saw a cute pin from someone who put individual laminated instruction cards on several laundry baskets, so a helper could use the right wash instructions for each type of clothing in the house. Um what? Either I’m doing it all wrong, or her clothes are just nicer than mine.

If I can’t wash them all together in one colorful load, then they don’t get worn.

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Since Dreft smells amazing and is great for infants, I’ve started to use it to wash my clothes, too.

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Throw them on the floor.

No really. After 2 – 3 loads are dried, I separate by category on the hall floor. Yes, on the floor. Sorry Marie Kondo. There’s a pile of onesies, a mountain of burp clothes, etc.

Bins in baby’s dresser and in baby’s closet. 

I use a toy organizer with bins in baby’s closet to separate clothes by category. Nothing gets folded except for blankets, everything else goes in a little bin or container. The items go in the bin just like they lay on the hallway floor. Same thing with baby’s dresser. I use organizers like these to separate pants, jumpsuits, etc.

Minimize hanging clothes

Overall, not many items get hung up. I try to buy things that don’t get wrinkly. I use a belt hanger like this one to hang overalls and jeans.

Frequent purging

As soon as the boys start to grow out of a size, I begin accumulating another bag for donation– either to another mom-to-be or a charitable cause.

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Dish and bottle management

I’m pretty sure I’ve run the dishwasher more in the last six months, than in the previous twenty-odd years prior. It comes with the territory: regular dishes, bottle parts, pump parts add up over the course of a day.

tips to save time on dish and bottle management:

Put breast pump parts in the fridge and wash everything once every 12 – 24 hours.

Now that I’m weaning, I’ve spaced out pumping to every six hours or so. So I’m back to washing parts after nearly every use. However, when trying to increase milk supply, I was pumping every two – three hours, and this tip was a lifesaver.

Read: I tried and ranked the popular electric breast pumps.

Make sure all bottle parts are interchangeable

Make sure all your bottles, nipples, etc are interchangeable. Little pieces will disappear, kind of like tiny baby socks do, and it sucks to have just a couple of bottles that are completely different size and shape than the others.

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Pro tip: while we’re talking about pumping, I should mention hands free pumping bras are more than an essential time hack. They are a prequel to everything on this list.

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Always wash a load before bed

I always wash a load before bed whether it’s full or not. That way I can start the morning or the middle of the night with clean everything.

Make bottles only twice per day

I talked more about this in my article on supplementing breastmilk with formula, but if you have to pre-mix bottles, try and do it every 12 hours so you’re not constantly doing it.

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Tips to save time on shopping tasks:

I never went to a store while registering for baby products. I hate wasting time at stores–even more so now than during pregnancy! Fortunately, in this day and age, you don’t have to spend all day going to stores. In the six months since the boys were born, I think I’ve gone to the pharmacy a couple of times, target once, and the Apple Store once. That’s about it! Here are some of the ways to take shopping out of your schedule.

Order groceries through a service

There are lots of online comparisons of Amazon Fresh to Prime Now to Instacart to Walmart Delivery. We’ve tried nearly all of them–and though Primenow seems to be the best deal for us–we’d sign up for any of the options in a hot minute.

Online shopping is a huge time savings, and if you live in a major metro area, you probably have several options. Unless you enjoy grocery shopping, I’d factor in the cost of your time and see if grocery delivery is worth it for you. If your budget really doesn’t allow and you don’t have amazon prime, then I’m pretty sure Walmart order ahead and pick up is free.

Consider a subscription for other frequently used products

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve placed an emergency order of diapers or formula after just realizing we’re on the last load. The only reason I haven’t set all these things up–diapers, wipes, dog food, formula–through subscription is because I’m afraid I would never remember to cancel.

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Pro Tip: If you’re just setting up your registry, start at Amazon. One thing I didn’t realize is that you can add things to your list that aren’t even on their site!

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Convert prescriptions to 90 day mail-order.

When you cut out going to the store–except for the pharmacy–that monthly trip suddenly seems like a huge pain. Start with your insurance company to get your scripts switched to mail order.

Read: A productive and sane schedule for new moms.

Everything Appointments

Now let’s talk about admin tasks like making appointments. As we’ve already mentioned you probably don’t want to outsource going to actual appointments.

But what about calling to debate your billion-dollar NICU bill or scheduling your twins’ weekly cranial orthotic appointment? Oh that’s just me who has to do that? 🙂

In any case, I follow the golden rule of phone appointments. Phone calls should always be tackled while doing something else.

Did you just listen to the musico version of Fur Elise for the 200th time while on hold at the ped’s office? No problem!

We also just walked two miles with the double stroller at the same time. #Accomplished

Read: Getting back in shape after baby

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I hope these tips help save you save some precious time. Any good new mom hacks I forgot? Please let me know in the comments!

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You might also like:

• 3 new mom hacks to save you hours per week
• How to tandem feed twins to save time
• 5 tips for a productive morning routine with babies
• Four most comfortable and flattering maternity dresses [for 2019]
• The real deal on getting back in shape after baby

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