Keeping the right things in your everyday purse can make your life easier. Especially as a mom, you have to be prepared for anything that could come your way. Having the right tools in your handbag can help!
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Before we get into what to keep in your mom purse, let’s talk about the mom purse itself. We prefer a backpack to keep our hands free. We’ve tried our fair share of backpacks and this is by far our favorite one:
Why We Love the MARICLARO Backpack:
Here are our top picks for mom purse essentials:
Hand sanitizer is a must have, especially with kids. Our favorite hand sanitizer is the Touchland brand. The spray function just makes it much easier with kids and it dries super quick. This brand is also made in the USA. It comes in a bunch of different scents, but we prefer the unscented. It’s harder to find (we have to buy it directly from the Touchland website).
4. Hair Ties
Keeping extra hair ties on you, whether for yourself or your kids, can really come in handy. Plus, they take up so little room!
We always keep a tampon or 2 on hand. Make sure you’re not caught off guard and keep whatever period supplies you use in your mom purse!
We also bought a travel-size bottle of headache medicine to keep in our mom purse.
8. Mints
You don’t want to be caught with stinky breath! We always have breath mints in our purse.
We recommend always keeping some type of sunscreen in your mom purse at all times. You never know when you will end up outside and wish you had some sunscreen. Some people may prefer to carry a spray or stick sunscreen, but we like keeping this powdered sunscreen in our purse.
It’s super lightweight and convenient. Just brush it on. No rubbing in or messy hands. It’s also great for reaching tricky places like where your hair parts or the hairline.
10. Lip Balm
We always keep a lip balm in our purse. We like this non-toxic one from Follain. It’s super hydrating on the lips and smells nice.
View on Follain.com →
We bought this travel-sized deodorant from Native. It’s super tiny, but good to have on hand just in case.
12. Tweezers
Tweezers take up so little space so we go ahead and keep them in our mom purse at all times. You never know when they will come in handy, or when you’ll have time to pluck some eyebrow hairs.
13. Band-aids
Band-aids are a top must-have for any mom purse! Kids are clumsy. We always carry band-aids and they’ve come in handy more times than we can count. Whether it’s just to stop the tears of toddler who just scraped their knee, or it’s a deeper scrape and there’s blood dripping down their leg, you’ll be happy you have band-aids.
14. Neosporin
If you have accident-prone kids like we do, we recommend also having a small tube of Neosporin (or similar) on hand.
Tissues are another must-have item to keep in your mom purse. You never know when you’re going to need to wipe a snotty nose.
16. Compact Mirror
We like to keep a small, compact mirror in our bag. Perfect for applying any makeup or plucking eyebrow hairs.
17. Wallet
This is probably one of the most obvious things on our list. At minimum, you always need to keep your ID, money and health insurance card on you.
We love our wallet/phone case combo.
19. Sunglasses
Sunglasses are another item to always keep in your purse. We like to keep them in a protective bag or case to prevent any scratches.
20. Kid’s Sunglasses
We like to keep kid’s sunglasses in our mom purse. We also keep them in the car, where they’re most requested. You just never know when you’ll end up needing them and keeping our kid’s eyes protected from the sun is super important.
21. Baby Wipes
Even out of the diaper phase, keeping baby wipes in our mom purse is a must-have. We use these all the time to wipe messy and sticky hands and faces.
22. Change of Kid’s Clothes
If you have older kids, this likely won’t be necessary. But for younger kids, we like to keep a change of clothes in our bag. This is especially important if potty training. Our favorite kid’s underwear is Hanna Andersson.
Tip: At the very least, keep a change of clothes in the car. These have come in handy more times than we can count. Like the one time we came across a random splash pad 🙂