Mom Purse Essentials | What to Keep in Your Mom Purse

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!

Keep in mom purse

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Mom Purse Essentials

The Best Mom Purse

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:

  • Made with upcycled upholstery and leather diverted from landfills
  • Handmade in Toronto Canda
  • Unique design
  • Comes in multiple color combinations
  • Extremely durable! (we have used ours for several years)
  • Slender design (we like that it’s not too bulky, but still holds everything we need)

What to Keep in your Mom Purse

Here are our top picks for mom purse essentials:

1. Small Bag

We keep a cosmetic case (similar to this one) in our backpack to hold the smaller items. This helps keep everything contained and well-organized.

View on Target.com

2. Hand Sanitizer

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).

View on Touchland.com

3. Tide to Go Pen

Having a Tide pen is great for those inevitable spills!

View on Target.com

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!

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5. Period Products

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!

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6. Tums

You can buy a tiny bottle of Tums, which is perfect to keep in your purse.

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7. Headache Medicine

We also bought a travel-size bottle of headache medicine to keep in our mom purse. 

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8. Mints

You don’t want to be caught with stinky breath! We always have breath mints in our purse.

View on Target.com

9. Powdered Sunscreen

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.

View on theDetoxMarket.com

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

Follain Lip Balm Must have

11. Travel Size Deodorant

We bought this travel-sized deodorant from Native. It’s super tiny, but good to have on hand just in case.

View on Target.com

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.

View on Target.com →

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.

View on Target.com →

14. Neosporin

If you have accident-prone kids like we do, we recommend also having a small tube of Neosporin (or similar) on hand.

View on Target.com

15. Travel pack of Tissues

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.

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16. Compact Mirror

We like to keep a small, compact mirror in our bag. Perfect for applying any makeup or plucking eyebrow hairs.

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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.

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18. Phone

If we’re not holding our phone, it’s in our purse.

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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.

View on Target.com

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. 

View on Target.com

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. 

View on Target.com →

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 🙂

View on HannaAndersson.com

23. Keys

Don’t forget your keys (house keys, car keys, etc.). We like to keep our keys on an easy-to-find keychain that doesn’t get lost in our mom purse – like these from the Etsy shop VivaGuate.

View on Etsy.com

24. Pen

Last but not least, a pen! You never know when you’ll need one. 

View on Target.com

More Things You Might Want in Your Mom Purse

  • Diapers (if your child is still in diapers)
  • Plastic grocery bag
  • Snacks 
  • Kid’s water bottle 
  • Your water bottle
  • Makeup products (lipstick, powder, eyebrow pencil, etc.)
  • Apple AirTag
  • Air Pods or headphones
  • Any medications you need or might need
  • Lotion
  • Paper or notepad
Hopefully this list was helpful in stocking your mom purse!

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