Raising a child



Raising a child while attending Eastern Illinois University

Raising a child while attending any college can be stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. That’s why individuals that do have children need to know what kind of resources are out there to help them achieve their goals of getting a degree, while balancing a baby and money. Parents learn fast that they need to shop for deals and only buy the bare essentials, because the baby is only going to ruin a new expensive outfit. Buying clothes that are not name brands and supersized boxes of diapers is the way to go. In this day and age everything is accessible by the internet which makes having a child, shopping, and finding day care all a breeze.

Eastern has a great program intended to help parents who are trying to go to school and balance having a child called Child Care resources and referral (CCR&R). This program allows for people who live in the following countries: Clark, Coles, Cumberland, Edgar, Moultrie, and Shelby to receive help in paying and finding child care. The CCR&R offers referrals of child care providers to parents and families. This program is great; it also provides child care resources and technical assistance to parents, families, and child care providers. This program can even help families pay for child care. All of this information and much more can be found at the CCR& R website http://castle.eiu.edu/~ccrr.

If this program does not work out, there are plenty of other daycare centers that would be glad to help with child care. These following daycare centers are in the Mattoon and Charleston area: Heartland Childcare Center‎, Charleston Community Day Care, Stepping Stones Children's Center, YMCA‎ , and many more just click on any of the links and it will go to a map of the Mattoon, Charleston, and other surrounding areas with details of individual day care centers accompanied by directions and a phone number.

Other various ways that parents can save on a child is to shop around for the best deals. Shopping online can save money as well as present great opportunities for the user. For example every time a box of Huggies diapers is sold a rewards code is printed on the inside of the box. Huggies calls this the Enjoy the ride rewards program where the consumer can log on to the website and enter the code. These rewards often reward the consumer with coupons and discounts of future purchases of diapers and wet wipes.

www.couponmom.com is another website that is dedicated to helping parents and other individuals that are trying to live life on a budget. This site offers coupons on groceries, drugstores, restaurants, online coupons, and free samples. This site even has a feature that allows Kroger shoppers to load coupons directly onto a Kroger shopper card and use at the checkout.

Another great site is www.babiesrus.com.This site has a feature that lets the users apply for a registry. A registry is a great way to start planning a baby shower. This site allows friends of the person who applies for the registry to print off a list of items. This site also has a tab that takes the visitor to the clearance section and of course other tabs to allow the user to shop for baby. This site has clothes available in all sizes, colors, and prints.

www.jcpenney.com is a website that is dedicated to finding the whole family something to wear or use, but they also have a really great section dedicated to babies and toddlers. On this website a parent can find anything a baby needs from clothing, baby furniture, baby safety, and much more.

Essentially there really is no excuse for an individual to not go to school and have children. This is no longer an acceptable excuse to use, with the internet readily available to anyone anywhere. Now making sure that baby’s needs are met can be quick and easy. All a person has to do is log on to the internet browse a number of great shopping sites and pick what it is that they want. Sites now allow for the individual to pay on the spot with a credit card and their merchandise will be shipped and received by a particular individual.

For a map and various links to baby stores in the Charleston area click here

Other great websites to visit for deals on baby:

http://www.gap.com/browse/division.do?cid=6344

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/

http://www.burlingtoncoatfactory.com/

http://www.childrensplace.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/home_10001_10001_-1

http://www.carters.com/carters?cm_mmc=Google_Carters-_-Non-Brand-_-Baby_Clothing_-_General+-+Baby_Clothes_-_Broad-_-baby_clothes-broad-bidid40637

http://www.thechildrenswearoutlet.com/shop/index.php?gclid=CIzQ_NX8jqQCFZQz5wodNzj-JQ

http://www.overstock.com/Baby/35/store.html

http://www.babycatalog.com/

http://www.babygenie.com/

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