This week we welcome guest blogger Megan F. from CLP-Squirrel Hill:
Yesterday was the first time I sat at an actual computer in nearly six weeks. On February 6th my adorable son was born. When we got home from the hospital, the downstairs of our house, specifically the living room couch, became my base of operations. I fed the baby on the couch, ate meals and snacks on the couch, slept on the couch and pretty much lived on the couch for several weeks. This was necessary because it turns out that having a baby makes your body feel like it’s been run over by several big rig trucks – so the least amount of moving around, the better.
What do you do while hanging out on a couch? Well, I’ve become very thankful for my smart phone (seriously, I might owe the guy who sold me the phone a gift basket). My phone has been my outlet to the rest of the world – thus the constant liking of every picture and post on Facebook. (Sorry, friends, I promise to stop stalking you really soon, just as soon as my life gets marginally interesting again.)
So, for me, as a sleep deprived mom of a newborn that mostly loves to sleep cradled in my arms, OverDrive was a lifesaver. I was having a hard time holding a sleeping baby – who I was trying not to wake up – and also reading a regular book. E-books worked much better. And, being able to check out a library e-book from my phone at 3 a.m., that luxury is truly priceless.
Happily, my son and I are getting out more and using a real computer so we have access to even more fun online resources. Here are a few other online resources for surviving life as a new mom (or dad)*:
- Freegal Music has old school Sesame Street songs that can be downloaded for free. I’m slowly creating a “kids songs that don’t drive mommy crazy” playlist.
- BookFlix provides picture books with slightly animated illustrations that you can watch like a movie with your child (sort of like how Reading Rainbow used to present the books).**
- The new eKids page pulls together all of the countywide online resources for kids and is a great place to start looking for content to share with kids as they get older.
Do you have any online resources that you love to recommend to new moms or dads or for when you’re stuck in the house? I’d love to hear about them!
~Megan F. (Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh – Squirrel Hill)
*Yes, the most important thing to survive being a new mom is sleeping when the baby sleeps – but that only works if the baby lets you put him down at 3 a.m. – otherwise, your best bet is having something good to read or having a dance party with your fussy little one.
**Okay, so I’m cheating a bit with BookFlix, since really it’s more of a 3-6 year old resource. But I love this resource – which also pairs nonfiction titles with the stories. I used to present an Online Playground workshop for preschool teachers and BookFlix was always one of the favorite resources, so I really wanted to include it. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should.
I hope you’re including some Raffi songs in your “kids’ songs that don’t drive Mommy crazy” playlist. I always wondered if my kids liked him as much as I did.
Hi Mary Lee,
I’m definitely including Raffi songs! “Baby Beluga” is one of my favorites! And “Mister Sun” was a song we used to play in the children’s room ALL the time as our happy song, so that’s been on my playlists even before I had kids 🙂
Megan
Thank you for sharing your experience with us and a way to still read when life becomes full!
Congratulations on the birth of your new son.
Recess Monkey is another good bet once your baby is a little older. Clever themes and lyrics. My children especially recommend Knoctopus and the entire “In Tents” album. Happily, they are available in Freegal.
I just downloaded “Sit and Spin” – I love that there is a song dedicated to this very silly kids’ toy that I loved so much 🙂 Thanks for the recommendation! I also downloaded “Happy” by Pharrell Williams – since it’s been stuck in my head all day, so I might as well have it on my playlist 🙂
Megan,
How did you find the “old school Sesame Street songs” in Freegal? I attempted to find them a few days ago and I was unsuccessful. I would love to share them with my children.
Thanks!
Hi Whitney,
I wonder how often Freegal changes what albums are available. When I wrote the post, I did a search for “sesame street” and there were several albums available. Since all of the albums were the older ones that I grew up with, I categorized them as old school Sesame Street. I just did the search again and this time a different set of albums came up – these are still the older ones, but they have significantly less well known (at least to me) songs. They do have “Sing” available right now – which is one of my favorites, as well as “Over, Under, Around and Through” which for some reason I get stuck in my head and I always picture the skit with Grover so it makes me laugh 🙂 So, maybe just keep checking in to see what’s available? I hope that helps!