Five Harry Potter essentials to make new parents lives easier

Reading and being a new parent, they don’t go together. When in god’s name do you ever find time to read books when you are looking after your little bundle of joy? Despite this well know fact, I managed to read Harry Potter all through breastfeeding my kids; while I was breastfeeding them.

Harry Potter became an essential part of my day, and an essential part of my parenting. Yes, there are many traditional new baby essentials out there, and I am sure you will need all of them. However, have you ever considered what Harry Potter could do to help with some of the chaos that the new little lives have brought you?

I did. Breastfeeding a child with infant reflux can be a long, painful and messy process. It gives you a good deal of time to be thinking about stuff that perhaps would be best left alone. Despite that, I am sharing my ideas with you all…just because. I am pretty sure you will agree that some of Harry Potter and JK Rowling’s creations are nothing short of parenting genius.

Time Turner

We have all wished when we look after our babies to be able to turn back the clock, preferably to the time JUST BEFORE our gorgeous little one’s nappy exploded all over our car or pushchair. Even better, right before our little boy peed directly into our eye. Why does that always have to happen, eh? Take the nappy off, and boom, wee everywhere. The Time Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban could be a jolly addition to the change bag, or indeed the nursery if we managed to use it right. We know it only allows time travel for short instances, but nappy disasters only need a little rewinding and you are safe again. No more poo or wee everywhere.

Invisibility cloak

Forgive me, but sometimes I really didn’t want to go and sort out the crying, I just wanted to lie there, huddled under my warm duvet. If my partner couldn’t actually SEE me, then he’s going to have to get up in the night, and sort out that wailing. Popping that invisibility cloak into the bedside table, to be deftly drawn over my sleeping self, BEFORE the other half wakes up, could have given me slightly more unbroken nights of sleep. And that, my friend, is worth having. Harry Potter; send me your cloak NOW…I am so worth it.

Weasley’s wall clock

Having kids can create a little bit of confusion as to where everyone is, particularly as parents’ memories are challenged by the addition of someone, and so many other things to think about. Oh for a clock that didn’t tell the time, but just gave information about what each member of the family was up to, just like the Weasley’s clock. Options on the Weasley clock are:

Home,
School,
Work,
Travelling,
Lost,
Hospital,
Prison, and
Mortal Peril.

I am pretty sure we wouldn’t need all of those on our clocks, but I bet it shouldn’t be too hard to change them to be suitable for the member of the family, so it might even be able to tell you when the new baby’s nappy needed changing, or that your son was a football club so you didn’t need to have to go and collect him right that minute and make a fool of yourself at the school gate. Maybe?

Wand

Oh to have a Harry Potter wand; but only with the lovely, warm and fluffy spells of course. I don’t want to be Avada Kedavra-ing about the house. However a quick Expelliarmus when the baby is reaching for mud to shove in their mouth could very well be extremely helpful. Imagine what we could all do with some of these Harry Potter spells available to us all? That unlocking charm would have been awesome when I accidentally locked myself out of the house with the buggy, or perhaps the bird conjuring charm for when you are faced with yet another competitive mum situation and you are dying for a distraction.

I do have to admit to a slight reservation here though of course, can you imagine what would happy if the baby got hold of your wand? *beyond scary* I suspect you would need a bit more than just our next Harry Potter magical fixer after that happened….

Spellotape

We all love a bit of Sellotape, but imagine magical tape that fixes everything? Wouldn’t that be awesome as a parent? Just use the Spellotape and hey-presto, everything and anything is fixed. As we all know, when kids are introduced to a household, things tend to get broken a tad more often….

Harry Potter could truly revolutionise parenting. I am sure that JK Rowling didn’t quite realise she was giving us a wishlist for becoming a magic parent, but she did. Who knew?

Written in collaboration with Smart Insurance, but I really do want a Time Turner. Anyone got one?

Helen

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, and website editor; and this site is (we think) the only Social Enterprise parenting magazine!Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time.KiddyCharts has reach of over 1.1million across social and the site. The blog works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10.It gives 51%+ profits to Reverence for Life, who fund a number of important initiatives in Africa, including bringing running water and basic equipment to a school in Tanzania.Helen has worked as a digital marketing consultant (IDM qualified) with various organisations, including Channel Mum, Truprint, Talk to Mums, and Micro Scooters. She loves to be creative in the brand campaigns she works on.Get in touch TODAY!