FREE STANDARD SHIPPING, ALWAYS
5 Real Tips for Raising a Toddler in 2026 (From One Tired Mom to Another)
Published 1/28/26
New Moms
If you're a first-time mom like me, having a toddler is equal parts shocking and magical. That cute little noodle of a baby you were snuggling last year? Yeah, they're now running away from you at full speed while screaming at the top of their lungs in the middle of a restaurant. Welcome to toddlerhood.
But there's also the magical part: getting to see them truly experience things for the first time. Just this past month, I watched my son discover his first snow day, and that made every tantrum and sleepless night worth it.
Here’s a Trick To Boosting Your Mental Wellness in Just 3 Minutes
Looking at printed photos might not be something that comes to mind when you think of mental wellness practices, but it has proven to increase feelings of connection, confidence, belonging, and happiness. Not bad, right!?
When was the last time your day went exactly the way you expected it to? Never? You’re not alone! Life is full of constant curveballs, especially when kids are in the mix. Taking these twists and turns in stride requires resilience, but the stronger your mental wellness baseline is the more flexible you can become. Chatbooks can help you boost that baseline, and it’s easier than you think!
What’s a Mental Wellness Baseline?
It’s your starting point! All aspects of health fluctuate, but your baseline is the average of all the different factors like physical health, mental health, relationships, and all the other things that play a part in your overall wellness. The stronger this baseline is, the better equipped you become to navigate the craziness of life—no matter what is thrown at you. Don’t stress, boosting this baseline can be done quicker than almost everything else on your to-do list. Thank goodness.
Getting into a routine is the most dependable and sustainable way to see a difference in your overall baseline. Moving the needle is not impossible! Building a mental wellness routine might sound overwhelming, but Chatbooks is here to do the heavy lifting for you.
Creating a routine that meets you where you are and takes you where you want to go is best achieved through small and positive efforts. No one has endless time to invest into new habits and no one wants to maintain a routine they hate. It has to be fun, quick, simple, and impactful. We got you!
Improve Your Mental Wellness in 3 Minutes a Day!
It’s time to take all of this out of the abstract and make it work for you. Neuroscientist, Dr. Jaak Panksepp, proved the power that three-minute touchpoints with your kids can have each day. Three minutes! Want to level up the ease and impact even more? Use those three minutes intentionally doing something proven to strengthen connection, belonging, and confidence. You guessed it, spending three minutes a day looking at printed photos with your child will leave both of you boosted! More good news? 91% of parents agree that their children love looking at photos of themselves. Something that’s good for them that they love! Finally! It won’t even be a battle to make it happen.
When your day fills up and the mental load gets heavy, spending even three minutes intentionally focused can be a goal that just gets lost in the shuffle. Having a specific planned activity takes the pressure off. You already have a plan! Attaching the practice to something physical like a book lightens the mental load even more by giving you and your child’s hands something to do, which helps the brain and the body get on the same page. Talk about being fully present!
Time to make it your own. The more specific you get the less your brain will have to carry. Give your beautiful brain a break.
First up, get those printed photos flowing! A stream of photos always on the way will ensure you always have a book to reach for. Remember, be precious about your memories but not about choosing where to start and which pictures to fill your books with. It’s the everyday moments that matter most! No need to go back to some starting point or let perfection paralyze your photo printing progress. Did you take any pictures yesterday? Perfect! Print them!
Next, pick a time. Times of transition have shown to be particularly powerful—waking up in the morning, around nap time or school pickup, and bedtime are all great options. What matters most is that it fits into your life your way. Whatever you choose, aiming for a similar time each day will create more of a routine and habit, boosting your chances for success in boosting that baseline.
Time to make a stash because accessibility is everything. Put the books where you need them! Getting settled in only to realize you have to get up and go find a book from across the house, or from the car, (or even across the room, let’s be real) might just be enough to cause defeat. It’s tough out here! Probably best to be safe and just stick one anywhere and everywhere you might need it. Proximity also sparks spontaneity—get ready to start going above and beyond just because you can! If it’s there you will pick it up, and so will your child. Tight on space? We have just the thing!
Give the routine a name! Invite each child to claim a name for this special time together. Naming it out loud makes it more of a tangible event, almost like a family ritual. Naming it makes it easy to talk about and get excited for. If the day is coming to a close and it hasn’t happened yet, your child will be sure to remind you that it is “Chatbooks Cha Cha Time!” Just an example, you can definitely do better than that, but you get the idea.
It's go time! You are prepped! You are prepared! You are prioritizing the mental wellness of you and your family! Enjoy that deep sigh of relief as you sit back and bask in those three magical minutes every day.
Add a Splash of Self-Care
You’ve put the family mental wellness routine into play because of course you have, you make things happen! But now can we talk about you for a minute? Your mental wellness is directly tied to your family’s, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need your own personalized routine. Your mental health matters because you matter. Sometimes a crazy amount of suffering is a little too normalized. You deserve confidence, happiness, and belonging too. What if you put your own plan into play? Something that’s just for you? Three minutes is all it takes!
You don’t need more to do, so what about a swap instead? Do you ever find yourself scrolling through photos of your kids or your day after everyone else is asleep? Or maybe you linger in your car a little longer than normal before carrying the groceries in while you indulge in a little unwinding scroll time? No shame! What if instead of reaching for your camera roll to scroll through, you reached for some printed photos first?
Looking at physical photos rather than digital photos has been proven to leave people feeling more happy, loved, grateful, connected, and fulfilled. Even more wild, when looking at digital photos rather than printed photos people were left feeling 14x more jealous, 9x more anxious, and 3x lonelier. Relatable! The things you do habitually have a compounded impact on your life, let’s compound the positive! This small habit swap can have a huge impact on your overall mental wellness baseline.
Choosing to look at physical photos instead of digital ones means you get to fall asleep or head into your house feeling more confident and connected to your life and your family. Now that’s something worth self-caring for. It's time to prioritize your own mental wellness in a way that lightens your load rather than adding to it.
You Are Doing It!
You are carrying a lot, and we aren’t talking about the fifteen grocery bags you got all the way in from the car in one trip. Mental wellness can feel really heavy, but these small and simple everyday shifts really add up. They boost your baseline! You will become more and more equipped to make the jump from where you are to where life is expecting you to land. Little by little you will notice your confidence growing, your connections deepening, and your family relationships strengthening—and all it takes is three minutes a day enjoying the memories you have already put in the work for.