What every mum needs in her bag

If you're a mum to a young child, you probably carry around a fairly big bag. It most likely contains some of the following: nappies, wipes, spare underwear, spare clothes, lotion / suncream, plasters, toddler snacks, emergency tools of distraction (ie. stickers, crayons).... I for one, hate having to carry so much stuff around.

Pre-children, I would always have small handbags, coordinating with my outfits, carrying the bare minimum and now those bags get an outing once a year if I'm lucky. These days, I rarely switch my bag. I was alternating between two until one of those broke recently so now it really is just the same one, day in, day out. It's big. It has multiple sections. It can hang over both handles of the buggy.

Between my son and daughter being born, there was a brief spell of being back with my smaller bags and not having to really carry things around for my son but then of course when my daughter was born, it was back to carrying more stuff again. I had somehow forgotten until very recently that one good way to organise the contents of your handbag is to keep the baby/toddler stuff in its own bag, in your handbag.

There are several benefits to the bag within a bag:

• It avoids a mass search in your bag for the clean nappy, the spare socks or whatever.
• It keeps the child-related items all together and separate from the other contents of your bag.
• You can take out the smaller bag and keep it in the bottom of your buggy and then carry a smaller handbag.
• If your child is at the age when they like to pull out the contents of your handbag, your bag within your bag will look a lot nicer to strangers than them pulling out a nappy for example. 
• It somehow makes you feel more organised!

The bag you use for your baby/toddler paraphernalia can be as plain or as pretty as you like. I bought a hot pink one recently for the simple reason it is easy to spot and contrasts with the dark brown of the big bag I carry. A roomy toiletry/make-up bag is the sort of size you're after.

For some or maybe most of you, this post will not be groundbreaking reading but in the event you too had forgotten as I had, I wanted to remind you that what every mum needs in her bag is.....another bag!

Do you already keep your child-related items in a separate bag in your handbag? Do you have any other handbag organisational tips to share?
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