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I started Raising Intentionally during my third trimester, while preparing for how much life was about to change. I spent that pregnancy reading about the Montessori method, child development research, and STEM learning principles. What began as notes for our own family turned into something other parents kept asking to see.
Raising Intentionally has grown into more than a blog. I built a free mobile app that carries the research into everyday family life: a pregnancy tracker, a stage-by-stage development plan, 50+ milestones, care logs for feedings, diapers, and sleep, reminders, partner sharing, and a baby registry families can build and share.
Now that I'm a mom, I keep shaping both the app and the writing around the real, everyday experience of raising our baby. No perfection here. Just honest, evidence-based guidance and practical tools from a first-time mom learning alongside you.
First-time mom, based in North Carolina.
KristenI built Raising Intentionally to bring thoughtful research and useful tools together in one place: the stories and guidance on this site, plus a free mobile app that grows alongside your family from pregnancy through age two.
I started this site during my third trimester because almost none of the internet's advice for new parents felt calm. It was either selling something or scolding you. Now, as a first-time mom, I'm building a third thing: research-backed, Montessori-inspired writing and a practical mobile app, both grounded in real family life.
Montessori at home. STEM and play. Developmental milestones. Toy guides by age. Practical life skills (yes, from six months). Outings and sensory rhythm. Tantrum prevention. Sleep. All of it filtered through what the peer-reviewed research actually says, and what Montessori practitioners have known since 1907. I'm writing it as I learn it, alongside other parents who want to walk in prepared.
No miracle claims. No affiliate links shoehorned into every paragraph. No pretending to be a doctor or a developmental psychologist (because I am neither; I'm a first-time mom reading the actual research). When something needs a pediatrician, an OT, or your own intuition over my words, I will say so.
The best way is to download the free app or head to the contact page. Both land in my actual inbox, and I read every note myself (even when it takes me a little while between the rhythms of life with a baby).
Download the free app to count down to your due date, open the development plan, track milestones, and keep a daily log of feedings, diapers, and sleep with reminders.