Baby Shower Bliss

Before my first baby shower, I thought the hard part was finding something cute to fit my 36 week tummy into and sitting through the gift opening without taking a potty break every 10 minutes. However, after the baby shower, my living room looked like a tornado of Babies-R-Us and tissue paper. Trying to figure out where to start and where to put everything was an overwhelming task. So here are a few of my recommendations for organizing after your baby shower.

First, there are a few tasks to complete before your first baby shower.  Purchase a three ring binder and clear document sleeves to create a place for all those instruction manuals that come with the baby items. Here’s some pictures of my binder.

I made tabs for different categories and filed the receipts, instruction manuals, warranty cards and recall information. Now when we go to transition the crib to toddler bed, I won’t be searching every drawer for the instruction manual, because it is safely filed in the binder under “furniture”.

 

Next, clear a spot in your home/garage for boxes of diapers, wipes, and tubs of clothes. Whether you clear out a guest room closet, shelf in the garage or corner in the basement- you will need a designated spot for the overflow and surplus. I purchased a couple medium sized clear tubs with lids that fit in our shelves and had them ready (I even used my trusty label maker to label them “Size 0-6mo”, “6-12mo,” “12mo +”).

After my first shower, the gifts sat in our living room floor for a week while I worked through each bag. So at my second shower, I was much more prepared and here’s my advice:

Upon returning home with your gifts, unload them to an area where you can sit and work comfortably (trust me- a cold tile floor is not where you want to sit with an aching back).

Then gather the following:

1) a regular pen,
2) a laundry pen,
3) a tub,
4) a laundry basket,
5) a trash bag,
6) your three ring binder

 Start by empting your two largest gift bags or boxes first and use one to put all the empty gift bags in and use the other bag to hold the items that may need exchanged.

 

 I am a “Thank You” card writer, so during the shower my sister kept a list of the gifts and giver. But as I re-opened the gifts at home, I would take time to actually read the card and then write which gift they gave me on the back of the card. That made it easy to see the spelling of their names on their card, with the gift they gave on the back. This is also great for our family to have and look through in the future, so all the cards were kept and placed in her "memento's box". (*A GREAT Idea at the shower is to have everyone self address a Thank You card envelope. Then put the envelopes into a bowl and draw some out to award door prizes. Afterwards, give the addressed envelopes to the mom-to-be and you’ve done a lot of work for her!!)

Now, as I opened the gifts I would make a decision by asking myself:

  "Is this something we will use or does it need returned/exchanged?"

      Any items to return or exchange were placed in the large designated bag.

     Any non-clothing  items that we kept were put in their place or on the overflow/surplus shelf. As I opened the items, I'd trash any packaging and put the instruction manuals in the appropriate sleeve in the binder. 
  

Baby clothes that I wanted to keep were organized into two stacks:

1)   "Definitely will use soon": so the stickers/tags were removed, I put my initials on the tag with the laundry pen, and placed it in the laundry basket to be washed and hung in the nursery.

2)   "Keep for later": these items we will use, but the size or season makes it an item we’ll use later, so it was placed in the tub (leave the tags intact just in case it needs to be exchanged later). The tub was placed on the overflow shelf and easily accessible when needed. 

I wish I had taken some photographs of the messiness and chaos that ensued during this process. But I can assure you that when everything is sorted and put away, it's BABY SHOWER BLISS!!!  

What are your favorite tips!! I look forward to your comments!!