I know it is early to be thinking about this, but I can’t help it! We won’t register yet for a few months, but I want to know.
What do I need for this baby?
All of you experienced ladies out there, please tell me.
- What should I register for?
- What don’t I need?
- What am I likely to forget?
I will say up front that I am not the minimalist type so I know I want more than a car seat and diapers.
- What is your favorite non-necessity that you wouldn’t want to be without?
- What did you receive as a gift that you thought you would never use and now you would replace it the same day if it broke or was lost?
- What were you sure you would want and you ended up selling it on eBay?
And while we are on the topic of shopping, where are the best places to look for nice but not outrageously expensive maternity clothing? I realized a few weeks ago that I have no idea where the maternity departments are in the stores around here. Good places online to shop? Great tricks or insights when shopping for maternity wear? I will have some casual things for around the house, but I also want some nice things for church and business meetings over the summer.
I look forward to gleaning from your collective wisdom!
“Pride and Prejudice” (2005) Review
Hey this is Emily again. . . I have such terrible luck with my “quicktags”.
If this helps, here’s some notes:
Find BOB Strollers at http://www.bobstrollers.com.
Find BuggyBaggs at http://www.buggybagg.com.
Find Swedish Mocassins for baby at http://www.hannaanderrson.com.
Find Kipiis Clips and disposable table toppers at http://www.onestepahead.com.
Sorry for the mess!
My babies both loved the johnny jump up. My first loved the vibrating bouncy chair, the second not so much but we still used it fairly often–both are a must in my book even though you only use each for 4 months–they are months when not much else makes them happy.
We also second the Baby Bjorn. The others are less expensive, but you can’t use them as long and aren’t as nice on your back.
We just strapped a changing pad on a dresser and that’s worked fine, but if you’re buying anyway, the ones that are made for both are better.
I liked the “My brest friend” better than the boppy. You can actually walk around with it or nurse and work on the computer. It also makes it easier to nurse and read. I got a lot of reading done when nursing–I’d read a little from the Bible first, then another book. If you want, you can just rest and think and stare at the baby, but that’s for you, not the baby. Think about it–when you’re eating, do you want someone playing with you and talking to you or do you just want to eat. Of course, both of mine were fat little babies who loved to eat, but they seemed equally happy if I was reading or looking at them when they were eating.
I found I liked the maternity pants at Kohls with the wide strap. Unless you find something really cheap, I wouldn’t buy too much maternity stuff ahead. When you start showing, people will usually offer to lend maternity clothes, and also, some if it that looks good just doesn’t work with you. I’m fairly small and normally also small chested, but I got huge everywhere, including my chest. Some things I bought ahead I was never able to wear or wore once or twice only because they just weren’t comfy. You might want to consider a cape. I got one with my second. I’d always wanted one, but could never justify the expense when I had plenty of jackets and coats. They have room for up to 9 months of baby, and you can use them afterwards as well. They’re highly impractical with toddlers, however. I’m currently loaning my cape to a pregnant friend, along with the rest of my maternity clothes. I also found I like to wear normal sweats or flannel pants with elastic pushed down below my belly around the house, I found that more comfy than maternity pants. Dresses were also more comfy than a skirt/top combo. With my first, I wore a lot of overalls (starting with a regular large pair, then progressing to maternity overalls) but for some reason didn’t find them as comfy with my second.
I’d also recommend a portable plastic strap in chair instead of a high chair. It’s cheaper, takes up less room, and can be used longer. They’re yellow, red, and blue, and can be used as a high chair with a tray or a booster chair later without the tray. They cost about $20. You can use a stroller or feed them in your lap until 6 months when they can sit in the strap in chair. Also, you can put it in your car and take it to friends or a restaurant.
Finally, about size and too much stuff–you need 1 to 2 of the following, but not all 3: a swing, an exersaucer, and a walker. Neither of my kids used a swing. We did Babywise and were very happy with the results in our kids and us (you get more sleep!). The main reason for a swing is to rock them to sleep. These 3 items all take up a lot of floor space. You need 1 to plop them in when you need to cook or get something else done that requires 2 hands. We had a walker with our daughter when we lived in a house with no stairs. Our current house has stairs, so we gave away our walker and got an exersaucer four our son. I like it a little better than the walker, especially with 2 kids. With toys all around and no fear of being run over, both my kids will play with it at the same time.
The book “On Becoming Babywise.” is also a must. There is some controversy surrounding the book and its method: some people are very against it, but I’ve seen the results with and without using it, and all the babies and Moms that used it seemed happier and healthier. With Mom more well rested, everyone’s happier.
I wouldn’t stock up on too many baby clothes unless you find them really cheap, either, except for footed jammies. Everyone likes those. Until you find what’s easiest for you, you might just be buying stuff you’ll never use. My son lives in his jammies, no worrying about socks falling off, easy to change the diaper. I’d keep the tags on everything until you actually use it. They grow so fast, they might outgrow an outfit before you even notice. If you keep the tags on until they’re actually in it, you can use it as a gift later, or, it’ll be more appreciated as a donation to a church or thrift store as a new with tag item.
Finally, don’t buy a single toy! They just multiply, people will buy them for you. And, they have more fun playing with your tupperware, pots and pans, DVD cases, etc. than anything you might buy for them. Eventually, you might buy some duplos (big non-chokable legos), a cooking set, and a play stroller and a doll house (my sister in law even bought a play stroller and a non-pink dollhouse for her 2 boys!), but I’d wait until they’re at least 8 months old, they don’t need many toys until then anyway. (The boys play a little differently with their dollhouse than my daughter. The dinosaurs play there and bang it up and knock it over.) I do, however, recommend a play gym with little dangling toys. They love batting the toys, and you can take the toys off and use them once they’ve outgrown the play gym. My son started liking the play gym at one month, my daughter didn’t like it until 3 to 4 months.
Sallie:
Here are some things that we have found helpful:
1. An exersaucer. Watch the sales and you can get a really nice one for not a lot of money.
2. An umbrella stroller. For trips to the mall, or short jaunts, they are invaluable. They are small, compact and lightweight. Along those lines is a jogging stroller. We got a jogging stroller travel system (stroller and carseat). The jogging strollers are less bulky than the 4 wheel ones, and the wheels come off for easy packing on long trips.
3. Avent bottles. They are expensive, but worth the money. They are the closest to the breast, and Ryan won’t use any other bottle than those.
4. I second the Avent Express sterilizer. In only 4 minutes, you can sterilize bottles, pump parts, pacifiers, etc.
5. Bibs. And lots of them. When baby gets to the teething stage, he or she will be drooling ALL THE TIME. If you think you have too many bibs, you don’t. We go through 2-3 bibs each day.
6. Gowns for when baby is a newborn. You can get them either with elastic at the bottom or a drawstring. Ryan lived in those the first month or 2 he was born.
7. Sleep sacks. The long sleeve fleece kind are great. You can put a lightweight sleeper on baby and put the sleep sack over it. It acts as a blanket, without the worry of baby pulling the blanket over his or her face.
8. A Sam’s Club membership. This is invaluable for buying diapers, formula, and baby wipes in bulk.
9. A Medela Pump in Style breast pump. Even for occasional use, you can pump both sides in 10 minutes or less. You can freeze that milk for up to a year. Also, if you have Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, they will pay for 80% of the pump.
10. Boudreaux’s Butt Paste. It is the best diaper rash cream on the market. A little pricey, but a little goes a long way.
11. Mylicon drops (or the drugstore version). This is good for when baby gets a gassy tummy.
12. A bouncy seat. The cheap kind with no bells or whistles will do just fine.
13. An extra carseat base. That way you can put one in your car and one in David’s, and you don’t have to keep switching the carseat base between cars. You can just pop baby into whatever car you want to use and go. I highly suggest Baby Trend carseats. Be careful of Graco stuff. They have recalls on their products frequently.
14. Sassy rings. These rings are separate in the package, but you can connect as many together as you want. They are great for hanging on swings, carseats, or even putting other toys on them.
15. A floor gym of some sort. This is wonderful for when baby is able to play, but can’t roll over or crawl away. He or she will be able to play on the floor while you get some stuff done.
16. Cloth books. Great for church.
17. A lactation consultant. Have one lined up BEFORE you give birth, and get her to the hospital as soon as possible after baby arrives (we learned this the hard way). If you need some referrals for lactation consultants, I can give you the names of the women I saw.
18. A bath seat of some sort. It will make giving baby a bath in the tub much easier.
19. Sav-A-Lot food stores. If there’s not one in your area, move to an area where there is :). They have baby food really cheap, and it’s a name brand.
20. A breastfeeding class (separate from your birthing class). It won’t make much sense at the time, but you will have some information to take to the hospital.
We only bought the basics before our son was born, and we only buy stuff as we need it (or we let grandparents buy it for us). We have found that less is more. There is so much stuff that the stores will tell you that you NEED, but it ain’t so.
As far as maternity clothes go, I bought a lot of stuff at Target when they were having a decent sale. Another place I found had some nice casual clothes was Old Navy. But, only buy when they are running a sale. Their clothing can be really expensive.
Hope these suggestions help.
I am bit of a minimalist, so take this for what it’s worth. After 7 children, these are the things I absolutely love:
pack-n-play – We still use the one we received as a gift from our church when our first daughter was born. I gave up the full size crib several babies ago and use the pack-n-play exclusively.
baby gowns – So easy to use before the baby loses the umbilical cord! They’re not usually as cute as the baby jammies, so I didn’t discover these until our 3rd.
cloth diapers for use as burp rags
Don’t really care for…
Bassinet or cradle – the beautiful rocking cradle always left my baby squished against the side. And rather than a bassinet, I love using a table-top bed of roughly the same size. A friend told me they used to be called “car beds,” before the days of carseasts?
Baby sling – love or hate; my babies and I all hate slings. I recommend borrowing first and trying different models to make sure you’ll really use and like one.
Swings – some of my earlier babies enjoyed swings (maybe cuz there were fewer people to entertain them?) but we’ve not missed swings at all for the last several.
pump – I breastfeed exclusively and try to plan around baby (very young ones just stay w/me), but for emergencies I keep a baby bottle and a can of formula in the house. I don’t think we’ve ever needed to use it, but it’s there in case. A high quality pump that will likely never be used seems to me a rather poor investment. 🙂
The last post reminds me to second the medela pump in style breastpump and the lactation consultant.
People (ok, women!) have been breastfeeding for thousands of years, how hard can it be, I’m a collage gal (and a threat to society! plus, I plan to double my threateningness by staying home and homeschooling!!).
Well, it was tough. If I hadn’t had the electric pump, I don’t think I could have breastfed my daughter. When my milk came in, so much came in, she couldn’t get any out. I pumped for a half hour with a manual pump, and got maybe a few drops out. I fed her those with an eyedropper (I couldn’t seem to get her to take a bottle, either!) and then went out and got an electric pump. After pumping off a little milk and repeated tries, we finally got it to work. A lactation consultant would have helped, but we were in Germany at the time. I probably could have found one if I had tried really hard, but I was not up to finding one at the time. (Tired and hormonal.)
Also, the first few weeks of breastfeeding with both kids were painful, but worth the effort in the end. It’s so much easier and better for them once you get the hang of it.
We’re homebodies, so I didn’t use the pump much, but I really did need it. With our son, he got a flu at 2 or 3 months that made him throw up anything but pedialyte. So, I had to pump for a few days while he got over it. The manual pumps just don’t cut it. You’d have to spend all day pumping. My husband also appreciated the peace of mind of having a bottle of breast milk as insurance when I did occasionally go out.
I’m a huge P, so I never worried about how much milk my kids were getting (especially since they were chubby little things), but many of my J friends wanted to know and worried about this. Some of them liked to pump and then feed from a bottle so they could measure how much milk was coming out. To me, this seemed like twice as much work for no apparent reason, but hey, whatever works for them. I consider breast milk to be God’s manna for babies. They love it, and it’s always there in the perfect amount. However, God also made people able to figure out how to make formula. Some people make an idol of breastfeeding. I don’t hold it against anyone if they’re feeding their baby formula, especially after my struggle to be able to nurse my daughter.
Make that 2 posts ago! One snuck in.
Three cheers for David!
All I can say is WOW! I’m overwhelmed by all of the great information. I’m glad I have a few months to check all this out and make decisions. I may email some of you in the future for more details.
One thing I will never get used to in blogging is the fact that I can’t respond to every person who leaves a comment. When people take the time to comment, it just seems like the polite thing to do to respond to each person individually. It feels to me like getting a letter from someone and then not responding. But do know that I appreciated every piece of advice here!
For all its faults, the internet and blogging can be such a great thing. How many first time moms get to have 30+ experienced ladies give them helpful advice within 24 hours? You can’t even get this at a great church. God bless each and every one of you! 😀
Oooh, just remembered something.
Baby and pregnancy books: I’m kind of interested to see what others say on this topic myself as I have only read the basics (someone at church gave us ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ and ‘What to Expect the First Year’) but there is one other book that I enjoyed very much-
A Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy. I bought this book shortly after finding out our #1 was coming along and I have reread it several times since then. It makes no claims to be scientific, but it is just so much fun! I used to read late and would wake my dh shaking the bed with laughter. She is another person who knows what is considered ‘ideal’ but has no problem with medical intervention or formula. Warning- this lady isn’t a Christian and sometimes gets crude, but since it isn’t something I’m going to let my kids read, it hasn’t bothered me too much. 🙂
PS maybe you could start another discussion sometime on lullabies and other baby music. That might be worth giving its own space.
Happy shopping, Sallie!
Sallie,
I have 3 kids, and money was always tight but the things I loved the most were the thick cotton blankets,my favorite is Gymboree, and Gap. You can get these on sale or at ebay used. They are so soft and snuggly and are very good quality. For girls I also love Gymboree’s onsie t-shirt paired with their leggings. So Cute. You can get these on sale and end up paying about the same as something from kmart. Also, Walmart has decent quality baby clothes, and very cute but their cotton shrinks in length and the neck stretches out. I did have a wipe warmer for our last baby and really like it. So if you get it as a gift try it!
Oh and you will want lots of blankets, and cloth diapers.
When the baby is sick and you can’t wash the bedding fast enough the extra will really come in handy.
If you thrift shop, look at the clothes that are in good condition, and note their label and material. This will tell you what is worth buying and what will hold up.
Congratulations! I always loved baby and maternity shopping!!
Sally,
I have to add about the breastpumps– as I think a few ladies have mentioned, it is totally dependent on your own situation as to whether it would be beneficial to actually buy one. I would check out and keep handy the number of a rental place and the pricing info before you deliver. I have yet to buy a big one, but rented one from a lovely lady in my town who is not only open on Sundays ( the day I called to get one) but also delivers and picks up from your home. She will give demonstrations on how to work the pump too. I would try to find something like this in case you and your little one are having a difficult time nursing. Pumping literally saved my breastfeeding “career” with my two during those first two weeks.