“This post and giveaway were made possible by iConnect and Dreft. I was compensated for my participation in this campaign, but all opinions are 100% mine.“
Parenthood. It’s really something else, isn’t it? It’s hands down the hardest, but most rewarding job I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve been “Mama” for almost 18 months now, and every single day is a completely new journey filled with joy, struggles, learning, chaos and a whole lot of messes. Just the other day, my little one decided to dump an entire (large) box of animal crackers on the floor, and then proceeded to stomp over them while eating them off of the floor. Mind you, all of this happened in the 3 seconds I took my eye off of her while peeling myself an apple.
I got frustrated. I got discouraged. I got upset with her. I had a moment of weakness, and it doesn’t sit well with me that I got to that point. I’m not going to bash myself for feeling that way, because I’m a human and my feelings are real and valid, but I had to take a step back and realize that I needed to try to embrace the messes, because she’s only this small for today and today only. Tomorrow she’ll be a little older, and she’ll grow a little bit bigger. I need to relax and enjoy the gift of parenthood and not sweat the small stuff, like if I’ll be able to get ketchup out of her dress, or if I have to vacuum animal crackers out of the carpet 3 times a day.
So this afternoon as she ate her lunch, I let her go as crazy as she wanted with the ketchup and just let her be a baby. I decided to turn these little messes into memories, and in doing that, my day became so much brighter. Who cares if she makes a mess? That’s how babies learn! That’s how they discover joy and happiness, and who am I to put a damper on that just because I don’t want to take a few minutes to clean it up? I’ve been working on realizing that a messy baby is a happy baby, and that means more than gold to me!
As a newbie stepping into this parenting gig, I felt a lot of pressure. I obviously had no idea what I was doing (do we ever really figure it all out?) but I wanted to make people think that I really had my stuff together. I guess I was scared that if people saw my child getting dirty or making a mess, they would assume that my child wasn’t properly disciplined, or that I didn’t care about her, her clothes, or her surroundings that she was dirtying up. But let me just say what I wish I had learned from day one: Ain’t nobody got time to care about what other people think! Messes = memories, and I’m choosing to cherish every last one of them!
One way that I’m able to let go of my worries is by choosing a laundry detergent that I know is going to get the mess out the first time, but is still safe and gentle on my baby’s skin. For the longest time I thought that Dreft was just for newborn/infant laundry, but I have been jumping with joy since I discovered their Stage 2: Active Baby line! It was specially formulated for little mess makers just like mine, and for busy moms who don’t want to carry the stress of cleaning up messes and getting stains out.
Plus, the new Dreft Blissful scent beads are simply ah-mazing! I just sprinkle them into her laundry to give it that fresh and heavenly baby scent. I could smell it ALL day! Did you know that Dreft actually removes 99% of stains caused by food or other outdoor messes? It’s also the #1 baby laundry detergent choice of pediatricians, so you know it’s good stuff!
If you’ve got a messy little one on your hands like I do, here’s a few helpful tips from Dr. Hes, the Medical Director of Gramercy Pediatrics in NYC, to help you encourage your baby’s messy side and to embrace the mess with little stress:
- Get Outside: It’s great to get your little one outside to learn and embrace nature and all it has to offer. Little ones tend to start creeping (pulling their bodies with their arms) before crawling and this can get their clothes quite dirty. This is all part of their learning process though, so feel free to let them explore and point out animals, plants, and the various sounds they may hear in nature so your child starts learning new concepts while having fun!
- Splish Splash in the Bath: Bring fun toys and activities into the bath and let your child splash around and have fun. Make sure to use warm water (vs. hot) and use a mild cleanser to keep skin soft and itch-free. Gently pat skin dry and end with an after-bath moisturizer to seal in moisture and protect baby’s soft skin.
So get out there and enjoy the messy moments, parents! There’s no need to stress about the mess at all when you’re using Dreft! 🙂
Messy Baby? You Could Win Big!:
Do you have a messy baby on your hands, too? If so, snap a photo of your little one ages 6 months to 2 years old doing what they do best (making a mess, of course) and submit it in the Messiest Baby Contest hosted by Dreft and Parents Magazine! TEN finalists will be flown to NYC to participate in a professional photo shoot, and one grand prize winner will be featured on the May 2017 cover of Parents Magazine! You can submit your photo here, or you can upload it to Facebook or Twitter using the hashtag #messiestbabycontest.
Actress, model and mother-to-be Molly Sims hosted a Messiest Baby play date with Dreft in NYC on October 25th, 2016 to formally kick off the #MessiestBabyContest going on right now. Go ahead and let your little ones dig into that spaghetti and keep your camera on hand. You’re definitely going to want to enter! And FYI: A little birdie told me that there’s going to be a Twitter Party with tons of amazing prizes on Monday, November 14th from 9-10PM EST! You can RSVP for the party here!
Happy mess making! 😉
Win it!:
One very lucky Southern Made Simple reader is going to snag a $50 AMEX gift card + a Dreft laundry product to try for themselves! Just enter using the giveaway form below. Must be 18 or older to enter. Giveaway ends on November 15th, 2016 at 11:59 CST.
I would like to try the Dreft Portable Pretreater Pen
I visited Dreft and would love to try their Dreft Laundry Stain Remover!
I visited Dreft site and would love to try the Dreft Blissfuls In-Wash Scent Booster! Looks like an amazing product.
I’d like to try the scent booster.
I want to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover
I would like to try the Dreft Portable Pretreater Pen.
My messiest experience thus far has been my husband gave her a purple iced cupcake while she was in a pretty white with red flowers outfit! With Deft it all came out though!
For my son’s second birthday we had a messy art party for his birthday. We had apainting, a water table, stamping, and a table with shaving cream in it. We had a little girl cover herself from head to toe in shaving cream!
The messiest experience I’ve had was when my middle son was 3 and my husband thought it was a good idea to let him help change the oil in his car.
Well this one time my husband thought it was cool to buy silly string for our four year old.
I would really like to try their Dreft Portable Pretreater Pen.
Dreft products are fabulous. I’d like to try their Dreft Laundry Stain Remover.
I want to try the Dreft Blissfuls in-wash scent boosters.
I would love to try the Blissfuls.
I would soo love to try Dreft! I’m very fond of powder detergent, and I have my eyes on Dreft Powder Detergent!
One of the messiest experiences I had with my daughter is when she fed herself spaghetti for the first time.
I would like to try the Dreft Fabric Refresher & Odor Eliminator. I just got out some of my winter clothes and it would have been great to have this to freshen them up.
I would love to try the Dreft Gentle Clean Multi-Surface Wipes!
I would like to try the Dreft Stage 1: Newborn Liquid Detergent.
I would like to try their Dreft Portable Pretreater Pen.
I want to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover!
When I was ill my three young sons had a spinach, yogurt and oatmeal fight
My messiest moment is when one of the kids spilled kool aid on the living room carpet.
thank you
I want to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover.
I Would love to try the scent booster;)
I love Dreft. I have 2 boys and girl on the way due in March. Dreft always gets those tough stains out. If this new baby was a boy, my boy clothes would have made thru amother baby because of dreft.
I would love to try the Dreft portable pretreater pen.
This slime stuff they make at school. It has borax and glue along with other products. My daughter spilled it on our carpet but we didn’t know about it right away because it didn’t have any color. It ended up making a huge hard glob on the carpet. My husband had to go over it with a steam cleaner about 20 times to get it all up.
I would love to try the Dreft Gentle Clean Multi-Surface Spray
Thank You
I would love to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover
I WOULD LOVE TO TRY THE DREFT PEN.
Dreft Gentle Clean Multi-Surface Spray I’d like to try this one
When my kids were little, a long, long time ago, they got a hold of some Vaseline-they smeared themselves with it from head to toe, and then poured baby powder on their heads! Not fun to clean up!
The Dreft Stage 1: Newborn Liquid Detergent is what I would like to try out.
Messiest experience was when my son got sick in the living room.
I visited the Dreft site & would really like to try out the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover! 🙂
I’d love to try Dreft scent booster!
When I make spaghetti, it’s always a pretty big mess for my 1 year old.
I’d love to try the Scent Booster for sure! Thanks
I’d love to try their dreft laundry stain remover.
I would like to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover. 🙂
I LOVE Dreft products! They smell really good!
My twins are always a mess lol.
The messiest time was when my daughter drew with marker on her face, her clothes and the wall!
I want to try the pre treating stain pen and the scent boosters. My grandsons first ice cream cone was a crazy mess.
Oh I would love to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover!
I would try the pretreater pen.
I would like to try their DREFT LAUNDRY STAIN REMOVER.
i would love to try the dreft blissful in wash scent boosters i have always loved the scent of dreft
I would like to try Dreft Portable Pretreater Pen. Having an instant stain remover to go would be awesome!
My messiest experience was when my daughter ate spaghetti for the first time and had it everywhere. I don’t think I ever got those stains out…
I would like to try the Dreft Stain remover as I am always picking up stuff at garage sales and throwing them in the washer and some have pretty tough stains to get rid of. Thanks for the nice giveaway.
I would love to try the Dreft Gentle Clean Multi-Surface Wipes. It would be handy to clean surfaces without harsh chemicals. thanks!
i love to try the stain removal it not just for little one the other kid could use it
My son got into the baby powder….. my living room looked like a winter wonderland ?
There were a lot of messy mealtimes but grape juice was the hardest to get out of her clothes.
I have 9 grandchildren and yes ! there is alway s a mess, from food, or spilt drinks , as far as Dreft goes, I know
its such a great product and I love the way it cleans and freshens the baby clothes.
@tisonlyme143
I would like to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover for those really hard stains.
I’d love to try the Dreft Blissfuls In-Wash Scent Booster!
My messiest experience came while babysitting, he had a diaper explosion, it was all over the back and front of his diaper, down his leg, up his back, in his hair, all over the seat, etc.
My messiest experience was when my son ate pudding for the first time at about 5 months old.
I don’t think I can even talk about the grossest/messiest thing my toddlers have done on a public forum. Lol
Yes Im the baby .teenage …people watcher I help out when I can Its hard at times because I have Fibramialgia (nerve Pain) usually I’m a giver
I don’t have any little ones yet but I do have a very messy boyfriend so anything with stain remover would be used here! The scent boosters would probably be great too!
If you are grossed out easily, don’t read this! When I was in the Navy, I spent time as charge nurse in a pediatric ward. The kids were basically all in recovery status from whatever had caused their admission and this was before the push for early discharge that occurs most of the time these days. During nap time one day, everything was quiet; the littlest ones were all (supposedly) asleep. It was a large unit in one of the oldest buildings on the campus, so there was quite a line of cribs. When it came time for all the children to be wakened, changed, fed, whatever, I started checking the kids closer to the desk, and the staff started at the far end of the cribs and all of a sudden there was a cry of ‘Oh, yuck!!”. I am certain that the words would have been stronger if it hadn’t been in a peds ward where some of the kids were definitely old enough to copy what they heard. Anyway, one of the corpsmen came walking down the aisle holding a 1 1/2 yr old out in front of him while touching the smallest amount of the child’s body as was possible for safety. That child had evidently spent the quiet time painting his body (and the crib and the wall that he could reach, etc–you get the idea) with the contents of his diaper. Just about all you could see was his eyes and a grin–he couldn’t reach all of his back though. There was some nose holding, a fair amount of laughter, and a quick rush to the tub room! One of the unsung joys of nursing!
I want to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover
I really want to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover for those stubborn stains
I would like totry the Dreft Blissfuls In-Wash Scent Boosters. I’ve been meaning to get some but haven’t yet.
Like to the the scent booster
I’d like to try the Dreft Laundry Stain Remover.
Thanks for the contest.
The messiest experience I have ever had was when my daughter discovered that she could make a neat trail using the toilet paper.It took me hours to clean it up.
My 1 year old likes to feed himself yogurt, which always starts out with a spoon and ends up using his hands and ends up in his hair and everywhere else.
My daughters first birthday cake was the messiest moment but what great memorys.
I would try the scent booster, thank you for the chance to win
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the one day I woke up to a up the back diaper blow out. I found poo everywhere for about 3 days I think!
Our messiest moment was when our daughter was eating spaghetti & decided to play with her hair with her dirty hands! What a mess we had!
I’d love to try the multi surface wipes.
Have you ever seen a dinner time food domino disaster? That’s when the milk tips over onto the bowl of mac n cheese which has a big spoon in it which catapults up & out of the bowl landing in the middle of the floor & the dog eats it!
You simply can’t make this stuff up! 🙂
I love scent boosters!
My son eating a chocolate ice cream cone every time will get it every where. I just do not understand how he gets it in his ears.
THE DREFT LAUNDRY STAIN REMOVER WOULD BE GREAT.
With 3 messy little girls, I’d love to try out the Dreft Powder Detergent.
My son decided to finger paint with his dirty diaper! Yuck!
I want to try the Dreft Blissfuls in-wash scent boosters.
I’d love to try the Dreft Blissfuls In-Wash Scent Booster or the Dreft Stain Remover!
My daughter put a bowl of grits over head while sitting in the high chair one day. Then she continued to play and squish the grits on her clothes. That was a big mess that day!
I would love to try the Dreft Blissfuls In-Wash Scent Booster.
I would love to try the Dreft Stain Remover! With four kiddo’s I sure could use it!
One of the messiest experience was with my daughter. It was her baptism day when all of the sudden she poured all the milk she was drinking on to her new and unique dress. We did not have time to wash it and we had to buy a new one. Hard to forget about that moment. Thanks for the chance to win such an amazing giveaway.
The very messiest is when during a diaper change my daughter projectile pooped. It went ALL OVER. New Mom, poop all over… it was an ugly thing 🙂
I love the way Dreft does such a good job. They really make a great product.