How To Budget For a Baby: A Guide For New Parents

Once you bring your baby home from the hospital, you’ll quickly find that a child is expensive. From clothes to diapers to food to childcare, it’s not cheap to raise a child these days. In fact, estimates show that the cost of raising a child tops out at over $233,000. With that in mind, it’s important when to budget before your baby is even born. Here’s how to do it.How-to-budget-for-a-new-baby

Budgeting Basics Still Apply

You may have heard that Europe’s childcare costs are higher, but it’s pricey to raise a child anywhere. That’s why you need to break out your basic budgeting skills and get to work. It’s important to anticipate child-related expenditures and budget them into your monthly spending. A simple spreadsheet is the easiest way to stay on track. A simple log of income and buying will help you balance your child’s needs with your paycheck. budgeting when preparing for a baby seems non-existent but it can be done. By following these steps in articles prepared by
Financial Priorities: Retirement vs. College Savings

Most financial experts will tell you that it’s more important to save for your own retirement than your child’s college. That might not be a comfortable thing to consider, but most college students have access to loans and grants to get them through. The same cannot be said for retirement and you must be prepared for your later years by putting money away now, even if that means you can’t fund your child’s college education.

Practice Living on Less

One of the best ways to save on anything, including child-related expenses, is to live below your means. That means not moving to a bigger and newer house every time you get a raise and not buying your child the latest pair of pricey basketball shoes. Living on less enables you to save money for the future and teaches your child a valuable lesson about financial responsibility.

Anticipate Ongoing Changes to Expenses

While you can expect to spend some amount of money on your child each month, those expenses change. For example, your teen child is going to cost a lot more money in groceries than your toddler. However, you won’t need diapers once your child hits preschool and is potty trained. You’ll also need to take into account school fees for your kids as they get older. Anticipating these changes makes it easier to budget accordingly so that you aren’t coming up short at the end of the month.

When There Just Isn’t Enough

It’s no secret that raising kids is expensive, but there’s help out there if you find there isn’t enough. Public assistance programs can help you find affordable housing and provide you with enough food to feed your family. Other ways to make ends meet include finding a part-time job to supplement your income, cutting unnecessary costs, such as cable television or your morning Starbucks run. You might also consider shopping for clothes and other items at second-hand stores where you can save a lot of cash on stuff your kids need.

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Related Parenting:
5 Tips for Your Best Possible Pregnancy
Getting Ready for Baby-Nursery Set-Up 101

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Dealing with a Cranky Riser 3 Tips on How to Get Your Son Out of Bed

Toddler temper tantrums are a thing of legend as all parents of 2-year-old boys know. And not getting up in the morning is one of the most challenging of their behavioral quirks as they interfere with your morning routine and can make you late for work. Dealing with these issues requires a lot of patience, clever motivation, and perhaps even a rearrangement of your going to bed routine. Dealing with a Cranky Riser 3 Tips on How to Get Your Son Out of Bed

3 Tips on How to Get a Toddler Out of Bed in the Morning

1.     Find the root of the problem

The majority of issues with getting your child out of bed are caused either by their emotional outbursts or by the boy being genuinely too tired to rise. Your primary task is to determine if your child gets enough sleep.

According to NHS, toddlers should get 11 and a half hours of sleep at night and a daytime nap of an hour and a half. However, WebMD and many other sources claim that toddlers require up to 14 hours of sleep a day. At this age one 1-2 hour nap is the standard, so do some simple calculations to understand whether your kid is getting the sleep they need.

Don’t forget to consider issues like night terrors or other problems that can prevent the child from sleeping soundly. If your son doesn’t have such problems and is in good health, the problem is most likely caused by behavioral issues, most often it’s an attention seeking thing.

2.     Be calm and don’t waver

Learning not to react in anger to child’s tantrums and take a breath is one of the basic parenting tips for a 2-year-old boy. This skill will be most important when dealing with a child who doesn’t want to wake up in the morning.

What you need to do is to stay calm and follow your morning routine paying no attention to the pleas of ‘5 more minutes!’ and the like. Simply take the child out of the crib and proceed to the bathroom.

3.     Motivate the kid to get out of bed

Consider offering some incentives that will help you get a toddler out of bed faster. You can combine this with an educational lesson on using the clock. Have an electric clock within your child’s line of sight and explain that they will get a treat if they are at a breakfast table by the time certain numbers appear. For example, you can use watching an episode of their favorite cartoon as a treat and explain that if he isn’t up when you say, he won’t have the time to watch the cartoon.

It’s very important to use treats as a short-time measure and last resort only. While motivating your kid is good, getting them into a habit of getting treats is not good. That’s why you should use the healthiest and ‘non-treaty’ treats you can think of, like a walk in the park, educational show, etc. You should also slowly withdraw this kind of motivation so your kid gets used to getting up on their own.

Related Parenting:
Positive Discipline Techniques Every Parent Should Know
At What Age Can I Place My Child Into Daycare?
9 Things Your Kids Should Be Doing Instead Of Homework

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