10 Essential Things To Bring When Going Out With The Kids

Whenever we’ll go the mall with the kids, we usually prepare the things we need to bring the night before. As you know, I have 3 kids and it takes so much time and energy to try to feed them, bathe them, brush their teeth, dress them up and then after that take a bath myself, dress up, fix myself a little while Javi is crying because he wants to be held by his mommy and the 2 kuyas are fighting over toys and crying and screaming... So better to have the bags and things we need to bring the night before to not waste any precious time because we might end up leaving the house in the afternoon. 

So here are the following things we never leave the house without:

1. Baby Wipes - Baby wipes is a life saver! When you become a mom, you can never be without baby wipes. You will use this to wipe off dirty tables or chairs, wipe sticky stuff in your child’s mouth, wipe your baby’s bum whenever you’ll change nappies, wipe your hands and your little ones’ hands, etc! We have boxes of Kirkland baby wipes at home so that we’ll never run out of it. We buy it in the U.S. and shipped here via a balikbayan box so it is much cheaper to buy in bulk. We only ever use Kirkland baby wipes because I love how soft and absorbent it is. It does not dry out. It’s unscented, hypoallergenic and alcohol free. Each sheet is also big and what I love about it is you can tear the sheet off so if you only need a tiny one to wipe something off your baby’s mouth, you won’t have to waste the entire sheet. It is also very strong. My mom even washes her used baby wipes (if it’s not really dirty naman like when she used it in wiping hands lang). It’s just like a cloth that you can wash! The packaging is also nice because it has a lid that prevents drying of the wipes. It is friendly to the environment as well, because the wipes are biodegradable. These are also available in S&R.
2. Baby wash – It is better to transfer your baby wash to smaller containers so your bag won’t get any heavier than it already is. We always bring baby wash for washing poop (Marko loves to poop at unexpected places, parang feel nya binyagan ang mga CR na napupuntahan namin! For Javi naman, although we have wipes, we always wash him with soap and water when he poops) and it also doubles as a handwash. Most of the restrooms here in the Philippines don’t have handwash so better bring your own.
3. Baby Powder – We always have Johnson’s baby powder at home. My siblings and I grew up using baby powder especially when it’s hot. There are some who don’t use baby powder because they believe it can cause asthma. We never had asthma naman. Asthma is caused by a combination of complex and incompletely understood environmental and genetic interactions so let’s not blame it on the baby powder. As long as you don’t inhale it, I don’t believe it’s bad. Anyway, we always bring baby powder because we use it every after changing diapers so the skin stays dry, soft and smooth. I also put powder on my kids’ back and neck. Even I use it if my skin feels sticky and hot. I only use the white original Johnson's baby powder. The smells always reminds me of my childhood.
   
   
4. Diapers – Now that the 2 kuyas know how to tell when they need to go to the loo, we don’t bring diapers for them anymore. But for Javi, we bring at least 4 diapers because we’ll never know how long we will be out of the house and we’ll never know how many times he’ll poop. So it is better to be prepared than be sorry. Javi uses pampers and the 2 kuyas used to wear mamy poko. Both diapers are good but mamy poko can withstand stronger wiwi. I don’t know, parang iba ang projection ng wiwi ni Enzo that’s why after lots of wiwi leaks on the bed, we kept coming back to mamy poko for both Enzo and Marko.
5. Extra Clothes - at least 1 set for my 2 elder boys and at least 3 for baby Javi. Kids play and run a lot so they get sweaty and dirty more easily. So you better have few sets of clothes for them to change to. When we know that we’ll be out late, we also bring their pajamas already so we won’t have to wake them up anymore to clean up when they fall asleep in the car. We use the baby wipes to clean them up from head to toe, sprinkle some baby powder, change them to their pj’s, give them their milk, make them clean and comfy and they’re ready to sleep.

   

   My kids playing around and having fun in the mall

6. Alcohol – When there’s no water, I put some alcohol to the baby wipes to clean my hands. We also use wipes with alcohol to wipe off toilet seat when my kids (usually Marko) have to poop. Basta dirty, to the rescue si alchohol. We use Green Cross Isopropyl Alcohol ( I don’t like the smell of Ethyl Alcohol).
7. Enfant Birds Eye Cloth Diapers – This is one of the softest cloth diaper that I have ever used. We don’t use it as diapers, we use it as “pamunas” for sweat, for Javi’s saliva, for Javi’s bum after washing, etc..
   
8.  Milk and water – My 2 elder boys still cannot last a day without their milk so to avoid screams and cries and noise, we bring at least 4 servings of their milk. As for Javi, I breastfeed him directly so as long as we’re together, he won’t run out of milk.
9. Scarf – I use my big scarf for cover up when I breastfeed in public. I never bought those breastfeeding cover ups that is uso now. My scarf is enough already and I have a lot of those naman. I just tie the 2 ends and wear it on my neck.  It can also double as a blanket when I get cold or when Javi gets cold.
10. Stroller – The stroller is used mainly as a push cart where we put all our bags in. Javi prefers to be carried anyway. We only put Javi in the stroller when he is asleep but sometimes as soon as we place him in the stroller, he cries na so we just hold him. Sometimes the kids sit down on it when they’re tired already but they prefer walking, running and exploring. Since its purpose is mostly for our stuff, we did not invest on an expensive stroller.