A Working Mom Holiday Gift Guide

Here's what you need to know about a #workingmom: her life has been completely flipped on its head and she is absolutely BODYING it. (Not sure what that means? Ask your fourteen-year-old niece.) Show her you love, support and applaud her with something a little more meaningful than a giftcard. Here are a few things almost every #workingmom could use this holiday.

Bottle Labels

Turns out, you don’t just drop your baby off at daycare and call it a day. You’ve got to get their bag packed before they go, and spend an hour after you get home cleaning up the remnants. My fiancé and I clumsily fumbled through the first few weeks of daycare by taping printed-out labels to our baby’s bottles. These were reduced to inky piles of mush by the end of the day. As he grows, his clothes will need to be labeled, table food containers and more.

Wearable Breast Pump

You know, I truly believe if men had to breastfed, wearable breast pumps would be handed out like candy at the hospital before you even go home. I totally understand why so many mothers transition to formula. Pumping is the most inconvenient, messy, cumbersome, disappointing process in the history of processes. Now that I’m back to work, I have to:

·       Find time in my schedule to go pump, several times a day.

·       Book the mother’s room and make sure no one else is using it at the same time.

·       Lug my breast pump, all of her parts, a sharpie and breast milk bags.

·       Assemble the whole thing, stand next to an outlet while I pump, disassemble and wash everything—just to start the process over again a few hours later.

It’s a nightmare. I haven’t tried a wearable breast pump but it sounds like a gift from the heavens.

A Chunky Heel

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked down at my shoe choice and thought, “Not going to be able to lug a baby carrier and diaper bag in these.” Some of us are sick of wearing nude flats everyday.

Get Her Hair Done

In my case, Gunner’s daycare cut directly into my sew-in budget. (Major bummer but obviously a fair trade.) I haven’t had my hair done in a whiiiile and, I miss it. Send the working mom on your list back to the office with some highlights and a pep in her step, aight?

The Gift of Not Wasting Milk

Let’s get one thing straight—breastfeeding is truly a full time job. So while she’s at her other full-time-job, she’s probably letting that precious liquid gold waste away inside of a nipple pad while she’s stuck in meetings. Like the wearable breast pump, the Milkies Milk-Saver is discrete and will help build her stash up in no time!

A Spotify Subscription

She cancelled it back in the third trimester and she’s very over only getting six skips an hour. PLUS—she actually wants to listen to Desmond Dennis’s version of Wheels on the Bus in her free time. (It’s a bop, okay?!)

A Playbook

Not your mother's how-to, Retrofit: The Playbook for Modern Moms is full of data, quizzes, worksheets and first-hand stories from the Moms who have already bodied the Working Mom thing.

Remember, when in doubt, offering to baby sit is *always* welcome. Good luck out there!

Kelsea Wiggins is a Social Media Manager, lifestyle blogger, influencer and first-time-Mom to five month old Gunner Xavier.