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As a nurse, I am a firm believer that there is no single "wonder-food" that will magically cure all ills. There is no one food that, if eaten, can compensate for a diet that is primarily composed of "junk food." It is both my experience and my research-based opinion that a balanced diet of mainly nutritious whole foods is the best fuel for our bodies and one of the biggest contributors to overall health and wellness. With that said, there are certain foods that have received a lot of attention recently due to their ability to provide great nutrition and possibly even help to heal preexisting health issues. Bone broth is one of these foods.

What's so special about bone broth?

There is no standardized way of measuring the nutrient profiles in bone broths since there is so much potential variability.¹ However, we do know that the process of simmering bone broth slowly over time can pull minerals, proteins (such as collagen) and amino acids out of the bones themselves. These nutrients are all part of a balanced diet.

Bone broth has gotten a lot of hype in the health food sphere recently, and some claim that it is beneficial for the gut microbiome and can help decrease inflammation, but at this time, there is not a lot of scientific research out there to say for sure. However, some animal studies have shown pretty impressive benefits to the animals who consumed bone broth. A preclinical study in 2016 found evidence of improving gut microbiota in rats who consumed chicken broth.² And a study on mice published in 2021 by the National Institute of Health suggested that bone broth actually prevented inflammatory damage to the gut lining of mice with ulcerative colitis.³ If that also applies to humans, that's huge!

Some cite heavy metal exposure as a potential risk of consuming bone broth, but an analysis of three different bone broths in 2017 suggested that risk is fairly minimal.⁴ My personal opinion is that if the potential benefits outweigh the risks of including a certain food in our diets (and in this case, I'm cooking chicken anyway for our family), it can't hurt to include it in our meals. So, instead of cooking our chicken and just throwing away the bones and broth, I put the bones back in my crockpot and start it simmering. 🙂

How I make bone broth (the easy way)

"Grandma's old fashioned bone broth" prepared painstakingly over a vintage stove might be the ideal, most delicious version, but for me personally, I'm so busy chasing after a rambunctious toddler, potty-training said toddler, and caring for her little sister that if I waited to do it the perfect way, I would probably never get it done. So, I figure that it's better to have sub-optimal bone broth than no bone broth at all (or to spend ridiculous sums of money on the yucky bone broth cartons at the store ... no thanks!).

I like to make bone broth in the crock pot. It cooks slowly on my countertop, doesn't interfere with whatever I need to make on the stovetop, and can just simmer in the background while I go about my day. The first step is to cook the chicken. My recipe calls for a whole chicken, and I typically get the organic ones from Aldi, which is very affordable. Buying the whole chicken is the most cost-effective (usually), and it also gives you both cooked chicken meat and leftover bones for your bone broth (which also helps you save money!).

A word of caution:

Making this from scratch will take time, so please don't start this in the morning in the hopes of having bone broth in time for supper. This is the easy way, but it is not quick! Please, please, please make sure you have something planned for the next couple lunches and dinners while this slowly cooks in the background. 🙂

Step by Step

I start by placing my whole chicken in the crockpot. I usually open the bag with the organ meats (from inside the chicken) and drop the organ meats in with my chicken. This is totally optional, though. I only do it for the health benefits. Organ meats are controversial due to possible high levels of chemicals and heavy metals as well as being high in cholesterol and saturated fat, but they are also rich in iron, vitamin A, choline, vitamin B12, alpha-lipoic acid, and niacin, along with smaller amounts of other nutrients (which include zinc, magnesium, folate, and selenium).⁵ Personally, I just try to get the highest quality chicken that our family can afford, and I try to limit our exposures to toxins and heavy metals in other ways, as well, so hopefully that offsets any potential exposures through organ meats. I try to focus on maintaining a "low-tox" lifestyle, but there is no way to eliminate all toxin exposure entirely.

Once the chicken is situated in the center of the crockpot, I add my seasonings, fat (oil or butter), and water. I like to vary my seasonings based on what flavors I would like to emphasize and what nutritional benefits I am looking for. Today, I added two tablespoons of salt, a tablespoon of pepper, a teaspoon of organic turmeric powder, a sprig of fresh parsley (I bought the cheap plant from Walmart for less than $3, and it has given us parsley all summer), one garlic clove (I just separated the cloves ... I didn't even cut or mince them), one chopped onion, about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and two cups of water. That's it for this portion of the process. I shut my crockpot lid, and started it cooking on high.

Timeline

On Tuesday, I put my whole chicken in the crockpot with all the fixings listed above and started it on high at about 11 am. I then made lunch, fed my 21 month old, put her down for her nap, nursed my 5 month old, and started writing this blog post.

I went back into the kitchen around 2 pm to flip my chicken (still in the crockpot) with a fork and make sure there was still enough water in there to keep it from burning. I reset the timer on the "high" button (my particular crockpot times out after 6 hours on high and then just switches to "warm" - not what I want).

I then just let it continue cooking on high until around 6:30 pm. By that time, the chicken was tender and falling off the bone. I gave it a stir and continued cooking on low for another 2 hours (I'm one of those people who would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to cooking meat).

At about 8:30 pm, we were getting our little ones ready to go to bed, so I actually didn't take the time to pull the chicken meat out from the broth right then (what I would usually have done). I turned it off, let it cool for about 20 minutes with the lid off and then put the whole crockpot in the fridge until the next day, when I finally took the chicken meat out of the pot and prepared the bones to simmer for bone broth.

On Wednesday, I removed the chicken meat from my crockpot (see video above). This part is probably the most hands-on, time-consuming part of the process, but it goes faster if you do it while the crockpot is warm enough that the fat is liquified but still cool enough that you can use your fingers if needed to pick out the meat from the bones. In this video, the pot was still a little too hot for me to use my fingers (thus, I used a fork, but it still only took a few minutes to pull out the meat).

I saved the chicken meat in a separate container to be used for chicken salad, chicken casseroles, and toppings for pizzas etc. I left the bones in the crockpot and added water, some more salt and pepper, distilled vinegar (to help extract minerals from the bones), fresh thyme, and some carrots and celery for flavor. Then I turned the crockpot on low and left it simmering for 12 hours. At the end of 12 hours, I poured the bone broth through a colander (to catch the bones) and put some of the broth in the fridge while the rest was frozen into small cubes for later use in recipes.

How do I use bone broth once I've made it?

One of my favorite quick and easy recipes for lunches and no-fuss dinners is chicken salad sandwiches. I use the bone broth in the recipe, as well as some of the shredded chicken that was also prepared during this process. We spread our chicken salad on homemade sourdough bread or make tortilla wraps with it. The options are endless! I will include our family's favorite chicken salad recipe below.

I also use the bone broth whenever a recipe calls for chicken broth or vegetable broth. It is so flavorful and adds depth to any recipe I've used it. You can sip on warm bone broth when you're feeling unwell (it's one of my favorite things to have on hand for that early postpartum phase when you're still healing and feeling exhausted).

Bekah's Homemade Chicken Salad

• 6 ounces shredded, cooked chicken
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 stick diced celery
• 2 tablespoons bone broth
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans and/or walnuts
• 1/4 cup diced pear

Mix all ingredients together and serve on sandwiches, crackers or wraps. Enjoy!

1. Hsu, D., Lee, C., Tsai, W., Chien, Y. (2017). "Essential and toxic metals in animal bone broths." Food and nutrition research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080%2F16546628.2017.1347478 ↩︎
2. "Inclusion of Chicken Broth AAC1 as a dietary supplement modulates the gut microbiome: results of next generation DNA sequencing." Federation of American Sciences for Experimental Biology. doi: https://doi.org/10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.854.3 ↩︎
3. "Analysis of the Anti-inflammatory Capacity of Bone Broth in a Murine Model of Ulcerative Colitis." Medicina (Kaunas). (2021). Link to article ↩︎
4. Hsu, D., Lee, C., Tsai, W., & Chien, Y. (2017). "Essential and toxic metals in animal bone broths." Food and nutrition research. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080%2F16546628.2017.1347478 ↩︎
5. "The Pros and Cons of Eating Organ Meat." Diet, Food & Fitness (August 4, 2022). https://health.clevelandclinic.org/organ-meat-benefits ↩︎

One thing that is guaranteed to cause me stress is a messy, cluttered house that I feel is out of control. When I was pregnant with my first daughter (we'll call her ZB), I was so excited to be having a baby girl, and I collected all the cute, frilly accessories to put in our sky-blue Peter Rabbit nursery. After she was born, I struggled to keep up with her laundry, and her little closet frequently overflowed (even though a good 25% of it was clothes she had outgrown). I couldn't rotate the old clothes out quickly enough before it was time to change sizes again.

Something's gotta give

It wasn't until her little sister (we'll call her IZ) came along 16 months later though that I was forced to wake up to this new reality: something had to change. With 2 babies so close in age and the younger one receiving the older one's clothes without much turnaround time between, there were baby girl clothes everywhere! Even with my perfectionistic standards, I could not keep up with either the laundry (so many blowouts from the younger one and so many food disasters from the older one) or the clothing rotation between putting away the older one's clothes once she'd outgrown them and then pulling those same clothes out again just a few short months later when her sister grew into them.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the overwhelm was not limited to my girls' clothes. I found myself in a weird transitional phase where I was too big for pre-pregnancy clothes and too small for maternity ... oh, and let's not forget, half of the clothes that I did fit into would not work because they were not nursing friendly. Nevertheless, my closet and drawers were stuffed with clothes, and I found myself feeling negative every morning when I would go to pick out my outfit; more than half of the clothes that I saw were clothes that I couldn't wear. In desperation, I scoured the internet for advice on handling the wardrobe dilemma that is "newly postpartum and nursing."

Enter the Capsule Wardrobe!

I listened to a TED talk by Jennifer L. Scott on "The ten-item wardrobe" and was applying the principles from that into my own wardrobe (that's another whole blog post lol) when it occurred to me ... why can't my girls have a capsule wardrobe? As it was, they were outgrowing their clothes before getting a chance to wear all of them, so why not narrow their wardrobes down to our favorite outfits that look really cute and are also really comfortable and functional? Why do I have to push hangers of "not my favorite" onesies to the side every time I pick out an outfit?

In my experience, the 80/20 rule is true for baby clothes as well. We all have our favorite outfits that we love for our babies to wear, and - at least in my case - those are the ones we reach for most often. Before the capsule wardrobe system, I was washing and redressing my girls in the same 10-15 outfits (only about 20% of their respective wardrobes) again and again, while about 80% of their clothes were just hanging there and not being worn. So, why in the world did I have all those extra clothes in there just to have the toddler eventually pull them off their hangers and get them dirty so I'd have to wash them again?! I decided to completely rethink the way I was managing their clothes, and as a result, I actually enjoy dressing them again. And I don't feel overwhelmed by baby clothes anymore!

Strategies for decreasing overwhelm

If I could speak to pre-second-baby-me (heck, even pre-first-baby-me), I would advise her to do the following from the get-go:

1. Minimize way, way down. Especially if you have two babies close in age who are passing clothes down to each other, the more minimal the better (within reason).
   • With babies and toddlers, I can't be quite as minimal as I am with my own clothes, just because they're messy and they still have pretty frequent blowouts and food messes. So, I do keep some extras, but not a ton of extras.
   • Personally, I found it helpful to keep count of how many onesies/sleepers/pants etc. we were going through every week, and I used that number to set a hard limit for how many items to keep in each respective category. For example, we always have seven onesies (that all fit!) for my younger daughter. And we always have five rompers/dresses for her (see more on the individual categories below).
   • I keep more than seven total daily outfits because accidents happen, and although I generally do laundry every day, I want to have the freedom to go longer and still have clean clothes. Set a limit that works for you and for your family's lifestyle.
   • Also, when you're minimizing, if there's a pair of pants (for example) that doesn't coordinate with any shirts or onesies, it may be time to rethink that pair of pants. I have found so much relief by just keeping clothes that go well together, so I don't have to think so much every morning. 🙂
2. One load of laundry a day.
   • With very few exceptions, I wash one load of laundry a day. I don't try to do multiple loads in one day, and I try to avoid skipping a day as well.
   • I have simplified my sorting into 2 basic categories:
     • 1. "Laundry items that are delicate and can't be thrown in the dryer" (i.e. bras, delicates, and clothing with stains)
     • 2. "Laundry items that are not delicate and can be thrown in the dryer" (i.e. towels and washcloths). I run kitchen and bathroom towels laundry in the same load. I know that may be controversial, but I figure it's better to wash them together than to get behind and have wet towels just sitting there breeding mold and microbes. Occasionally, I will break a particularly nasty load up and wash it separately, but for the sake of not getting behind, I generally try to just keep things simple so it gets done.
   • Our laundry pattern generally goes "Clothing one day, towels and washcloths the next."
3. Finish that load of laundry before going to bed.
   • This means dry, fold and put away everything. This is why I avoid trying to do multiple loads in a day, because inevitably, I forget to put a load in the dryer or I leave it sitting in the basket, and the next day it's still sitting there and has to be done in addition to the next day's laundry. You see where I'm going here?
   • Little tasks done to completion on a consistent basis are more effective than sporadic laundry marathons - at least in my experience.
4. Minimizing will help you to complete step 3, because your loads will be much smaller. Just had to put that piece of encouragement in there, because I know how daunting that felt when I first tried to implement it and how easy it is now 🙂
5. Simplify the rotation process. I originally thought I needed to have big rubbermaid tubs for each individual size. Picture: 1 tub for newborn, 1 tub for 3 month, 1 tub for 6 month, and so on and so on .... Let me just save you the trouble by letting you know now: That is way too complicated for an overwhelmed mama, and it takes up way too much space. Don't get me wrong here -- I love organized spaces, and I tend to actually be a microorganizer with very detailed categories. But with two babies so close in age, I had to drastically simplify it.

My Clothing Rotation System

My system is three large bins lined up in my basement (with labels):

• Box A: Things for ZB to grow into

• Box B: things for IZ to grow into

• Box C: Things that are too small for either of them.

When my oldest outgrows an outfit, the second I realize it's too small, I immediately put it in Box B (things for IZ to grow into). I then look in Box A for a similar item that she can now wear instead. When my youngest outgrows an outfit, I immediately put it in Box C and reach for a similar replacement item in Box B.

This process is uncomplicated enough that I can just do it on a daily maintenance basis. Eventually, Box C gets overfilled and I'm faced with the more complicated emotional task of going through that box (that's another whole post, and I will be happy to share my system for doing that as well). But on a daily basis, I just pull items out of rotation and swap when I first notice they're too small.

What do I do with all of the extra baby clothes?

Okay, so you've minimized your baby clothes down to the basics, but now what? In my case, after I had completed this step, I had piles and piles of clothes and now I had to figure out what to do with them. That is enough to make any mama overwhelmed. I get it. In my experience, it's important not to overthink it. Handle each item only once, decide which pile to put it in (I suggest dark trash bags so you can't see the items and second-guess yourself), and then move on to the next item. Once you're done, handle the piles - without looking at the items again! - and take them to their respective homes.

1. Stained or damaged clothing
   • I get it. This is most likely sentimental clothing that has been quite literally worn out. It's SO hard to declutter these types of baby items. But it's also really hard to be overwhelmed on a daily basis.
   • For me, this meant that I only kept THE very most sentimental items (and I set a hard limit at 10), and the rest of this pile ended up going in the trash. And even when I think back on the items that I sent out, I don't miss them! Life is so much easier now that they're gone.
   • Some people send these sentimental baby clothes to small businesses that incorporate them into quilts or t-shirts etc. You do what makes you happy. I can only say what worked for me, and I don't regret it. 🙂
2. Clothing that is still in good condition, but belongs to someone else (and they want it back)
   • This category can be overwhelming to tackle too. You have this pressure to make sure the items don't get damaged, because who wants to be that person who borrowed someone's sentimental clothes and ruined or lost them?! My best advice is to just get it back to them ASAP. Get it out of your house and off your mental to-do list as soon as your baby has outgrown it.
3. Clothing that is still in good condition and can be sold or donated
   • It's your choice what to do with this pile. I have sold "sets" of baby clothes that all are within a certain size (example: a bunch of 0-3 month baby clothes for $10). Depending on your level of overwhelm, you may or may not feel up to the challenge of finding a buyer etc. When I'm particularly overwhelmed, I find it much easier to just get it out of the house. Sometimes it's better to see improvements in your home sooner, and it's not always worth the hassle of trying to get a few bucks.

My Babies' Capsule Wardrobes

Now that I've shared my tips, and explained my system, are you ready for the summer edition of our current capsule wardrobes for 2 under 2? 🙂

For ZB:

• Three footed sleepers (one not pictured) & one nightgown

• four t-shirts (one not pictured)

• four onesies (one not pictured)

four pairs of pants (two pairs not pictured)

• eight sundresses

• one swimsuit/watersuit

• one lifejacket

• six pairs of socks and one pair of breathable slip-on shoes

For IZ:

• Seven onesies

• Five rompers/dresses

• Two shirts

• Four pairs of baby bloomers

• Four pairs of pants

• Two coveralls

• Seven sleepers/nightgowns (two not pictured)

• Four pairs of socks & one pair of booties

A word on accessories:

They share a basket of bows, and they each have a sunhat of their own. Realistically, the toddler doesn't keep any bows on her head even when I do put them on, so I generally limit bows to the baby (under close supervision ... I never can get over my anxiety around strangulation risks) or on them both during picture time. We always have just what we need, even if there is only one red bow, for example. There is always a complimentary color for the other sister to wear.

Key Takeaways

When you say no to one thing, you're saying yes to something else. Do I miss all the cutesie patterned socks and baby shoes that were adorable but didn't match any of my baby's outfits? Actually, no! I enjoy the heck out of the adorable baby booties that we do have and the socks that actually coordinate with everything else in her wardrobe!

From one busy mama to another, baby clothes don't have to make you feel overwhelmed. By minimizing our baby clothes, simplifying our clothing rotation process, and consistently doing one load of laundry a day, I have finally gotten to the point where I am excited about their little clothes again ... something that I couldn't have said six months ago.