Baby Fashion Blog - Baby Gifts & Baby Boutique Stories

San Francisco Chronicle's Baby Blog - The Poop

Baby Fashion Blog is in the midst of reading Neal Pollack’s AlternaDad.  The book opens up with a story about Neal and his wife Regina's 2-year old boy, Elijah, slinging POOP around his bedroom, screaming with glee!  AAAGGGHHH!

Quite an opening:) Neal Pollack has his own blog with the latest entry being called "Poo Sham".  You can read it here.

It isn’t often that a ‘corporate’ newspaper shows its sense of humor. That is why Baby Fashion Blog was happy to see the San Francisco Chronicle’s blog…. “The Poop”. Maybe a play on the scoop? Check out their very funny section called “Web Babies”

Motherhood and other adventures

Continuing our series of Mom Powered Blogs, here is one FULL of fantastic stories and advise.

Motherhood - and other adventures

Here's the author's info from her blog:  I am a thirty-something mother of three living in Loudoun County, VA (an outer suburb of Washington, D.C.).  I worked for a decade at a large internet company before quitting a year ago to spend more time with my kids, who are all under five years old.  Now I work and go to school part-time.  I intend to work in education once my kids are a bit older.

Here is an excellent story on breastfeeding that mentions Polka Dot Whale.  For those of you that have struggled through breastfeeding (best for baby!) this is a great collection of tips:

"

With three kids under four years old, I am now well into my third (non-consecutive) year of breastfeeding. I don’t profess to be an expert, but there are a few things that I’ve learned. 

• Here’s something I mention so you’ll know what to expect, and that it will pass: Breastfeeding feels fine for the first day or so, and then it hurts like hell during latch-on for two or three weeks. It’s not just a “little pinch” or “uncomfortable” type of pain. This is fifteen seconds of “getting your hand slammed in a door” kind of pain. Except that it’s your breast. And it hurts worse. After fifteen seconds or so, though, it feels ok, and after two weeks your skin toughens and the whole process is pain free. You should then be able to enjoy the bonding time with your baby instead of cursing his name for causing your nipples to feel like they are on fire.

• After trying out every brand out there, I can safely say that Medela disposable breast pads (http://www.medela.com/NewFiles/breastcare.html#lacepads) are far and away the best. When milk gets on them they form a gel-like substance within the pad rather than just getting wet. This way they are more comfortable and the milk doesn’t soak through or run off and leak. Also, they are thin and flexible to start out with, so they are not obvious under thin clothes. They cost more, but they are absolutely worth it.

• Get a comfortable cotton sleeping bra, like the Arabella Sleep Bra at www.amazon.com. Sleeping in a regular nursing bra is uncomfortable after a night or two. Make sure it’s cotton - I tried a microfiber one and found that it gets so stiff when milk gets on it and dries that it can stand up by itself.

• Get a good nursing pillow and use it, at least at the beginning. I learned my lesson with my third baby. I was just using pillows and not sitting up straight, and after a few weeks I developed excruciating headaches. My doctor informed me that I had a muscle tension headache (not the brain tumor I convinced myself I had) that was caused by hunching over.

 I have a “My Brest Friend” (http://www.mybrestfriend.com/) pillow, which is great. It has a washable cover and has held up great after three kids. It’s flat on top so the baby doesn’t roll into you too much and it has a strap so you can walk around with it to grab a pacifier, change a diaper, etc. The Velcro strap is loud enough to wake your baby when you pull it off, though, so I just make sure not to tie it too tight and just shimmy out of it when I’m done. 

• Get a hands-free pumping kit (http://www.medela.com/NEWFILES/seambraspant.html#pumpingfree) if you need to pump, even if you’re at home. You may not think you need one, but once you won’t go back. It’s nice to have an extra fifteen minutes of productivity.

• The Medela Micro-Steam sterilizer bags (http://www.medela.com/NewFiles/cleaningproducts.html) are a Godsend. You rinse your bottles, pacifiers, or pumping equipment and put it in the microwave for a minute and a half (three minutes with an older microwave, depending on wattage.) Once they’re microwaved, they are sterilized. I really liked this for my pumping equipment. I brought these to work and would use them right after pumping. That way I could use the same pumping equipment later in the day without making a big scene at the sink.

• Get a washable hands-free Nursing Cover , like you’ll find at www.polkadotwhale.com. This is very handy when nursing in public. No matter how well you schedule your outings or visitors, your baby will let you know at some point that it’s time to eat NOW, in public. A hands-free cover is a lot more convenient than a blanket.

• If you’re planning to nurse at night you’ll want to have a nursing nightgown or wear a top and bottom pajama combo, rather than a nightgown. This will be obvious the first time you try to hoist up a long nightgown while your baby is wailing, but I’m mentioning it so you can get one before you go to the hospital. Also, don’t bother bringing pajamas to the hospital. You won’t want that mess and nastiness on your clothes – stick to the ugly hospital gowns!

 Giving some of these things as shower or hospital gifts for a mom intending to breastfeed is a great idea. Most new moms don’t know that they’ll need some of these things. I didn’t realize I’d need a sleeping bra, for example, and was really happy to get one as a gift in the hospital. Anyway, hope this is helpful advice from the trenches! Good luck!"

FULL ARTICLE LINK HERE

Check out Validation for a stay-at-home mom too Article here. 

Mom Power - MyMomShops

MyMomShops - Described as a blog run by a New York City mom of two (and fanatic online shopper)...this Mommy powered Blog finds cute and clever stuff for moms and tots.  Here's one of her latest finds:










Tricycle Canvas

Also, check out MyMomShops stylehive for some more unique shopping finds.

AdAge Trying to Cash in on Mommy Blogs

Here's a great story of how advertising is trying to capture the MOM Powered Blogs out there.  We've pulled the story from Adage.com.  You can read here.  The story is their #1 emailed story this month!.

------------------------------------

It's a boom time for blogs and similar websites catering to the shopping, networking and shoulder-crying needs of the big-spending modern mom. Good news for marketers looking to tap into this market -- yet worried about the usual pitfalls of blogger involvement (bad design, worse writing) -- is that the creators of some of the more popular sites are (or were) agency creative directors, advertising lawyers and women's-content developers for major media conglomerates. And those women, many of them new moms themselves, are delivering loyal mothers eager for shopping tips and product picks.

A more intimate relationship
Unlike corporate sites such as iVillage or BabyCenter, the "mom webmaster overdelivers in impressions and marketing because a big brand has valued what she's doing, and her readers support her and respond better to those ads and content," said Maria Bailey, CEO of mom-targeted marketing firm BSM Media and author of "Trillion-Dollar Moms: Marketing to a New Generation of Mothers." Ms. Bailey noted that major marketers have been slow to sign on to these smaller sites that, while offering fewer eyeballs than large online networks, have something far harder to come by: intimate online relationships with moms.

"Moms are the ultimate internet networkers," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer.com. "They seek out other moms' advice for what they're looking for." All of today's e-media buzz words, from Web 2.0 to blogging to user-generated content, are "right down the alley of today's moms." Ms. Williamson's recent report, "Mom's Online: Parenting With Web 2.0," found that in 2005, 32.2 million internet users -- or 18.4% of U.S. internet users -- were females with children under 18 in the house, a number that is predicted to rise to 36.6 million by 2010. And mommy-blog readers are a marketer's dream: Blog-ad firm Blogads in March reported that the average consumer of such content is a 29-year-old female with annual income of $70,000 who taps in to five blogs a day and spends four hours a week on them.

Just how many mommy blogs?
BlogHer, an aggregator for women's blogs, counts 1,662 mother/family blogs as Modern Mom, Mommy Track'd and Cool Mom Picks are joined by countless others looking to cash in on moms. Technorati links to more than 1,000 blogs tagged parenting.

Michelle Madhok left her position as director-editorial products for women at AOL in 2004 to launch SheFinds, a site dedicated to women's style and fashion advice that she extended last April to cater more to moms with a separate site, SheFindsMom. Though she garners a mere 4,000 visitors a day to SheFindsMom -- a far cry from AOL's 112 million unique visitors a month -- she charges far less and offers far more. For cost per thousand of just $80, Ms. Madhok offers marketers customized, dedicated e-mails to her database of newsletter subscribers and offers sponsorships of shopping guides for products including underwear and Uggs. Through such sponsorships, Ms. Madhok said, she has helped "build the trust factor" for online lingerie retailer Bare Necessities and has sold $200,000 worth of Uggs.

'Momtrepreneurs'
Liz Gumbinner co-founded Cool Mom Picks last year with Kristen Chase, a blog buddy she had met only online. She had coached many a client at agency David & Goliath in Los Angeles, where she is now part-time creative director, that "the blog world is [ripe] to be targeted" and she wanted to put her money where her mouth was. Now, the site, which features reviews of non-mainstream baby gifts and gear that appeals to hip parents -- mostly products created by other "momtrepreneurs" -- gets roughly 1,200 unique visitors a day.

Ads come mainly from past mom-made products it has featured, while some are sold through blogads.com and some come from CNN or Scholastic. The site is definitely on the radar of major media, Ms. Gumbinner said, as at least four "really obscure companies we've written up all got spreads in Real Simple." Major marketers, too, are currying favor with Cool Mom Picks, with General Motors flying a Cool Picks writer out recently to review its new Chevy Malibu.

Mommy Track'd likewise leads readers of its Deals & Discounts section to favorite online destinations, all of which are mom-owned and -operated. But unlike many of its upstart compatriots in the cool-spotting trend, Mommy Track'd was able to lure an exclusive deal during its first holiday season last year with Gap Inc. for Gap, Old Navy and its new shoe store, Piperlime. Mommy Track'd founder and CEO Amy Keroes says the deal was based on more than the fact that she had, until the site's launch last fall, been the retailer's senior corporate counsel for its advertising-related legal work.

Advertorial for Gap
Gap, in fact, won praise as an innovative marketer in an AP wire story for signing on to the site and garnered far more than traditional banner ads. In November, Mommy Track'd began wrapping Gap's messaging in its own to hook advertorial with tips and suggestions, including picking out offerings that overextended moms might especially like. The site featured a promotion for Gap Inc.'s Options card (good at Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic).

"Our ad offerings are more customized, more interactive," Ms. Keroes said. To wit: A recent promotion with Netflix tied a giveaway of a year's subscription to the service to an article on the site about "Sherrybaby" director Laurie Collyer just as the film was being released on DVD.

Now, Mommy Track'd is bringing on apparel retailer Gymboree and has a number of other advertisers on the hook. Ms. Keroes' pitch focuses on more than just visitor traffic. "We say, 'You're reaching your pure target demographic ... and they're listening," she said.

Lolita Carrico, founder of the blog Modern Mom, is beginning to offer big numbers. She launched the site, which is aimed at helping moms balance their busy lives, two years ago. Today, she gets 500,000 unique visitors a month, and has more than 100,000 subscribers to her newsletter. In addition to plans to develop other Modern Mom media offline, including testing a concept of Modern Mom moms'-night-out clubs, Ms. Carrico has forged a relationship with nail-polish manufacturer Essie to offer a Modern Mom color (that camouflages chips far more easily than today's hip darker colors).

The partnership is an indicator of things to come, she said, "as marketers are getting hip to the fact that they need to address moms more directly."

Notes from the Trenches

One of the first thing you learn about Notes from the Trenches is " I have seven children. Is there really anything else you need to know?"

And thus starts a very clever blog (that like all mom blogs, has a voice that is honest and sharing)...

Two of our favorite posts:

132 things i love about you: a birthday letter
Forty Things To Do Before I Turn Forty:

 

As John Lennon sings on Beautiful Boy….“Life is something that happens when you busy making other plans”. No more is this apparent than on voices we’ve discovered on MOM written blogs. 

It is utterly amazing with the advent of blogging….how many woman (especially moms) have grasped onto the technology….creating a very powerful voice in cyberspace.

We regularly read more and more “mommy-powered” blogs….stumbling upon and discovering more than we can even keep up with. Each is unique and often has a common-sense yet profound tidbit to share. 

Continuing our “finds’ category, we going to try to start a category called Mommy Powered Blogs.

Hopefully we'll compile a list as great as Guy Kawaski's

Our first is City Mama….out of the suburbs of San Francisco.

Two of our favorite recent posts are:

"This is the best day of my whole life!"

Why was there no "good" babystuff out when I was pregnant?

Are you hooked yet?