Juicebox "Handles"

I cannot claim credit for this cool trick. I believe I read it in Parents magazine- twice actually. (They actually have a regular article called "It Worked For Me" where parents submit their cool tricks/tips!). Anyone with a small child knows how it is to hand them a full juice box. Even if you've taken a sip so it's not as full, they still squeeze it in an attempt to hold it and end up with juice all over them or wherever they are. A long time ago I came across one of those hard plastic juice box holders and purchased it. It was GREAT, but I read this tip in Parents which is both free and does not require lugging around an extra gadget.


When you look at a juice box, on the sides you will notice the little flaps ("flappies" as they are now called in our house) that are glued down. All you do is pull them up and they are instant handles for kids to hold onto. No matter how hard they pinch those flappies/handles, it won't squirt juice! This is great in the car too as my daughter's car seat has cup holders. It is super easy to get her juice box when she has flaps to hold onto instead of trying to reach down into the cup holder to grab her juice. Just remember to lift the flaps before you insert the straw. Enjoy!


Here is a juice box with the "flappies" up:

Parent Shortcut

This will be a "combo" blog of sorts. I had a few types of posts I wanted to do on this blog, so this will fall into the "time savers", "feeding", and "products I love" categories.

A little background info: With my son I was only able to breastfeed until he was 6 months old. We still don't know why he didn't gain weight. Spent plenty of time with his pediatrician and a lactation consultant, did all we could. Long story short we had to use formula and bottles. When we registered we wanted to switch to a new brand of bottle. We used the Avent bottles with my daughter and didn't like how they leaked and were a bit finicky. So instead we chose the Tommee Tippee brand. Here were my personal requirements for bottles: No special parts- only the bottle, nipple, ring, and lid- but still had to vent air in to prevent that collapsing nipple issue. We are so happy with our choice! Here is my bottle/sippy cup shelf:

Our TT bottles have been GREAT!! We did find that you have to handwash them because of the lip at the neck of the bottle. And before you put the bottle back together, check to see if the vent part is stuck together, sometimes that happens. If so, just pinch it and it will open. That way you don't get the collapsing nipple issue. I also LOVE the formula container/inserts (seen at right in the pic). These drop into the bottle then you put on the nipple/ring/lid. Soo easy to carry around everything all ready to go!

My time saving trick came when I was trying to deal with night feedings and adjusting to 2 kids at once is that I started filling the bottles with the nursery water ahead of time. Then all I had to do was grab a bottle, heat it, add formula and go! Sooo much easier than filling each bottle every time! And don't worry, the bottles don't sit in the cupboard long. I would say 2 days at MOST before it's used. I also rotate forward the bottles so none are left sitting in the back.

I really recommend these bottles!