Review & Giveaway! Mother Load Organizational Bags

Happy Monday, and Happy November!

I am trying to get back into the swing of blogging frequently now that some of my fog is lifting (a post about that soon), but first, we have a fun review and giveaway for you featuring the organizationally clever Mother Load baby changing bags!

Mother Load bags were invented by Zara Merbaum when she felt that her life quickly erupted into organizational chaos after the birth of her son, Noah. Zara had been using large Ziploc bags in order to easily find diapers, wipes, creams, toys, pacifiers, and bottles inside her already compartmentalized diaper bag, but the bags all looked similar and became dirty easily. She decided to invent an easier and more efficient way of staying organized by putting her textile and fashion background to work. Five bags make up the Mother Load collection, each color-coded with an embroidered icon to represent a different use: Diapers, Snacks, Clean Clothes, Dirty Clothes, and Toys. You can read more of their story here.

The vivid colors are backed by an amazing flexible-stretchy, mesh material, with the exception of the dirty clothes bag — because no one wants that one to leak! The bags are made from a machine-washable, water-resistant nylon, and are the perfect alternative to using Ziplocs and creating more waste.

I was sent The Mother Load collection for my thoughts and use, and recently had an excellent chance to try them all out during a week-long, 18-hour-long-distance road trip. All of these thoughts are mine and I am excited that Mother Load is offering a giveaway to a reader who can use their “functional alternative to childcare chaos!”

As I laid everything out for taking this road trip, the first half solo driving with just myself and my 22-month-old toddler son, I quickly saw how easily it was to organize everything within each bag. Since I was packing a suitcase, I didn’t have a need to use the Clean and Dirty Clothes bags for that specific purpose, but instead packed one with health and first-aid supplies and the other with snacks for my son.

As you can see here, each bag held a lot of items. The blue diaper changing wristlet bag was perfect for running in and out of restaurants and rest stops along the 18-hour drive. The bag includes a changing mat of its own (shown in the matching blue), which would be great for a smaller infant and cleaner space, but since my son is older and I anticipated using larger, possibly dirtier public spaces, I swapped it out for my larger changing mat from a Nest diaper bag. It still fit in the bag perfectly, along with travel wipes and at least seven size 4 Pampers diapers, and two size 5 Huggies Overnights. Impressive!

With driving to my hometown in northern Illinois, and anticipating being outside in the fall all week, I packed more than I had if we had stayed locally in Florida, including bug spray, allergy tablets, and medicines for my husband and I since he joined us later in the week and we always seem to get sick when we venture to drier climates during the colder months. Our bodies have become used to moisture living in humid Virginia and Florida it seems. I am happy to say that this bag held a lot of “what-if-needed” items, but we luckily didn’t need to use anything from it. The orange Clean Clothes bag held road trip snacks for my son, and the green Toys bag held just that — toys I could carry into a restaurant for entertainment or pass back to him one at a time in the car to keep him happy during the drive. This bag was a HUGE lifesaver and space saver for me!

It is ridiculous the amount of items the Toys bag fit. The Snacks bag held (mostly) healthy road trip snacks for myself in case our son fell asleep in the car and I could keep making good time by driving through a meal time.

I dumped out the Toys bag when we returned home and took a photo of the random items that it had collected along the trip. A stop to Target was made with picking up a few of their $3.99 brand trucks for surprise toys along the drive, random snacks for us both, a few blabla finger puppets, restaurant crayons and paper, trains, vehicles, and items from my dad’s house all easily fit inside.

These bags were a lifesaver all week. With traveling between my parents’ homes, friends’ homes, local outings, restaurants, and the actual drive itself, these brightly colored bags made it incredibly easy to refill each one when needed, grab only the bag(s) needed for that day/outing, and stay keep my giant diaper bag organized and clean. TO be honest, when I was first sent the bags, I thought that I wouldn’t find a use for them since my diaper bag has many pockets for these uses, but I was surprised and excited to find myself even more organized and having one less thing to think about when on-the-go. I’m still using the Toys and Snacks daily now and more for weekend trips.

Let’s face it, when you’re on a long road trip and your front seat is full of loose projectiles like this (gulp, shamelessly admitting this photo) returning from a trip with a LOT more than you arrived with (thanks to awesome Grandma’s gifting groceries and presents, cleaning out parents’ homes, etc.), being able to just grab the blue changing bag or orange bag for snacks when we stop to stretch your legs and re-fuel yourself and the vehicle, makes everything MUCH EASIER. It helped me maintain my sanity and put a stop to digging through my diaper bag like I had constantly found myself doing on previous vacations and trips.

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GIVEAWAY!

Mother Load is generously giving one Little Brim Baby reader THE Mother Load collection (all FIVE bags, a $75 value!). This giveaway will be open from today, Monday, November 4, through midnight EST Friday, November 8, 2013. I will use Random.org over the weekend to choose and contact a winner.

In order to enter this giveaway, simply LIKE Mother Load on Facebook and leave comment here on this blog post stating that you did so. Only one comment needed to enter! Good luck!

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This giveaway has ended and the 8th comment (Lindsey D.) winner has been contacted! Thank you all for being Little Brim Baby readers!

If you can’t wait until next week to get your completely organize your chaos, you can purchase The Mother Load collection of bags here, or each bag individually to fit your specific clutter needs. Mini Load Sets are available to purchase several bags for several needs. They’re worth it!