I’m finishing this post at 2 months postpartum. I drafted this around 8 months pregnant and then took a nap and never went back to it… gotta love pregnancy exhaustion right? Anyway, this has allowed me to review what we haven’t used from our registry and what we’ve purchased or heavily relied on in these first two months. Basically Baby Registry Must Haves.
When I started my registry I was at a loss. I didn’t want to start it too soon but my mom kept asking if I had created it yet. Around five months I finally caved and sat down to do it. My goal was to keep it simple, we don’t have a lot of storage space (I realize saying that while living in a house and not an apartment is hilarious) but there’s not a lot of closet/storage. I knew baby stuff/gear was going to explode in our living spaces but I wanted to keep it to a minimum. Even with that mindset, you end up needing a lot of freaking stuff. More than I thought and more than I wanted.
After I started adding things to our registry I had a MASSIVE FREAK OUT that I wasn’t adding what we needed and our baby was going to left without something important. The amount of times TM had to remind me that Amazon/Walmart/Target does next day delivery and it would be fine, is a little embarrassing but if you’ve been having those freakouts just know you’re not alone and damn do pregnancy hormones f you up.
I ended up only having one registry; I know people choose to have multiple at different stores or you pick one site that links to different stores. Honestly, I did not want to have to deal with a third party site and I wanted there to be one registry/link so I landed on just having an Amazon registry. I don’t regret it at all. You get a welcome gift, make sure to go in on the registry and “purchase” it (it’s free). It’s nothing special but hey free baby stuff is free baby stuff. One of the best parts about it is you can return items and the credit goes to your account. I had a friend who bought us a swaddle we had on our registry about a month after baby was born but he hated being swaddled so I returned it and used it to buy more pacifiers. Oh AND you get a 15% registry completion discount for everything YOU end up buying and you can continue to add things : )
Here is a link to everything on my registry and what we’ve purchased and used since baby was born. AKA Baby Registry Must Haves.
Items Not on Amazon that We Bought and Love:
Tips for Your Baby Registry
Put diapers and wipes on your registry. Put multiple sizes (size 1 through size 3), someone is going to get your something and not look at your registry – they will get you newborn diapers and you don’t need too many. Also heads up that your baby might have a allergic/negative reaction to some diapers. We’ve tried five different brands and two of them cause our son to get a rash. We are love Coterie, Millie Moon, and Pampers Pure. You can return unopened diaper boxes at Walmart even if they weren’t purchased there. I ended up donating all the diapers, including the opened box to our local diaper bank. I did some research about diaper pails and this one kept coming out on top – we love it. Make sure to register for refills because why not. Oh and the keekaroo changing pad is worth the hype. It’s already been wiped down from pee, poop, and spit up. Also surprisingly, our son loves just laying on it and looking at the black and white cards we’ve taped up next to it.
You can see on my list is this liniment diapering lotion; we apply it with these cotton pads. Yall, this stuff is great and even my husband who could live without shoes and in a tent agrees. It’s the French equivalent of baby wipes, which sounds boujee but IDGAF if it’s better for baby. It’s organic and think of it as the replacement for wipes and diaper cream. Two months in and I’ve never had to put diaper cream on him. We still use wipes for poop diapers but end with the liniment wipe and for pee we only use the liniment. We have wipes in the car emergency kits and diaper bags.
Don’t register for too many clothes except for pjs. And for those magnetics > two way zippers > zippers > snaps > buttons. People will buy you clothes that you didn’t register for and honestly our little guy mainly stays in his rompers. Old Navy has affordable two way zipper PJs and they’re soft (after a wash) and they usually go on sale.
I added these three items: cabbage cream, roll on stick, and boob ice packs because I had made the decision to only formula feed (FF) and besides packing formula in my hospital bag(s) I totally neglected everything else about it. Four days later my boobs HURT and I was like oh sh*t. If you’re making the decision to start FF from the jump. Bring formula to the hospital (they should provide you small sterilized bottles and distilled water) but also bring and start with the cream, roll on, and wear a tight sports bra immediately. I also started adding these to my bras because leaking is no joke. Do not feel bad about adding only mom things to the registry – if you’re breastfeeding you would add a pump and pump parts right? So mama things are also baby registry must haves. Another thing you need to add to your hospital bag is this mini light – we used it in the hospital and have used it every day since coming home.
We decided to start our son on a goat milk formula. Neither of us are lactose intolerant but I just kept reading stories of babies who couldn’t get formula to stay down or they ended up being allergic to soy and honestly to start on goat milk seemed the safest and best way to go for us. I loved the brand we choose and we’ve had zero issues. We have since added these probiotic drops and we think those have made a big different in his gas issues, even better than gripe water or mylicon. We tried both of those but I felt like it didn’t make a difference. Don’t forget to add Vitamin D drops! Oh and these are the only burp cloths we use; they’re so soft! Register for three sets.
If you’re going to FF at the beginning or ever then do yourself a favor and get the brezza. I’m typing this as 1:23AM and going to have to make him a bottle in 10 minutes. I have zero bandwidth to boil or measure anything. Use distilled water and get extra nozzles. The brezza reminds you to change/clean the nozzle after every four bottles and it’s important to do this because it can affect the amount of formula in the bottle. We did not want to be washing a nozzle every four bottles, so we bought four nozzles so we always have at least one washed and dry and ready to go. Four sounds like overkill but we don’t regret it.
Another thing we don’t regret is the sterilizer and dryer. We run it once a day; we do a quick wash, leave them on the drying rack, and then sterilize/dry them. We used distilled water in here too. Your dishwasher might have a sterilizer function, which is awesome, but we don’t run the dishwasher everyday so it’s just not feasible for use to only rely on that. Sometimes I wish we had gotten the washer/sterilizer/dryer but you honestly don’t need it.
The sunshade for the stroller is a recent find and one I wish I would have added to our registry. The pull out shade on the car seats don’t cover all of your child and using sunscreen when they’re so little isn’t recommended so this has been a wonderful addition. I should have added some stroller accessories to the registry. This stroller organizer is legit and I love it for when we go on walks or when we’ll be in the stroller for a longer period. This phone mount is also a cool find that makes it easier to have your phone while you’re maneuvering a stroller. The magnet is strong!
We registered for three different kinds of pacifiers. I know people have differing views on pacifiers or not but my thoughts were, I’d rather baby have a pacifier that we can take away than choose his thumb that we can’t take away. We registered for three different kinds to see which ones he would prefer, if at all. Ended up being a good decision because he only likes one kind. We started with two and have now ordered a ton more. I think we have 12 around the house and in different bags/cars.
This bath thermometer is a $15 way to calm fears. I didn’t want to have the water be too hot and hurt him and I didn’t want him to freeze. Simple solution. We were also told by our pediatrician not to bathe him in the kitchen sink because there’s can be bacteria around the kitchen sink (think raw chicken etc) even if you clean it so we use this bath seat and put a muslin towel down in it before we put him in. The towel stays wet and we wrap him in it so he doesn’t get cold. Just unwrap limb by limb to wash him. The extra piece you don’t need but it’s nice to have is the kneeling pad because umm your back and knees hurt when you’re bathing babies so this will at least protect your knees. We only use the aveeno shampoo/wash and lotion. Unscented since babies have very sensitive skin and added scents (even “baby ones”) can irritate it.
Black and white cards are awesome – I ended up buying extra ones (the original ones we had were from the play gym – that we love) and we have them all over the house. Everywhere his bouncer “parks” we have the cards up. We have them in the little basket of baby stuff in our living room and next to the glider. This set has cards for each different stage of sight and mind development. Another completely random item we use with the cards and the bouncer are these chip clips! Ha! He would kick off a blanket but now they stay on! We’ve also used the clips to hang the black and white cards in different places – see them in the car? Sounds silly to put on your Baby Registry but I seriously count them as Must Haves.
We registered for our baby mattress and two mattress covers. There’s a waterproof mattress option and the great thing about the mattress is it’s breathable and you can spray/wash it off. We didn’t get the waterproof option and my reasoning was if he pukes or has a blowout that would require a hose down means me or my husband would be up at 2am trying to wash a mattress and that was not ideal. So we registered for two waterproof mattress covers and multiple crib sheets. So far we’ve haven’t had a midnight spit up attack but we had one in the middle of the day and it was super easy to pull the sheet and protector off the mattress and replace with the extras we had while the dirty ones went in the washer. I ended up buying these “sheet suspenders” because I was freaking out that the crib mattress was going to somehow come unsecured and cover his face. Mom freak out. Again, can you make it without those ‘suspenders,’ absolutely, was it worth the $10 to calm my anxiety, a million times yes.
I credit two things for the fact that I’m actually sleeping during postpartum: my husband who is actually a partner and the nanit baby monitor. I am so happy we decided on this monitor. We researched a bunch of different ones, looked at reviews, and product testing sites and decided on the nanit. It monitors baby’s breathing using a fabric strap you velcro over whatever baby sleeps in and it has this small square printed on it that the monitor ‘watches’ move with each breath. You view it on your phone/tablet through the app and it alerts you if he stops breathing. It was an absolute must have for me on our baby registry. Our baby absolutely loathes a hands down swaddle, he wouldn’t stop screaming every time we tried it. A friend told me about this hands up swaddle sack and the kid loves it! We call it the starfish because he looks like one when he’s in it. We keep our house cold so we put a sleep sack over the starfish. So he has PJs+Starfish+Sleep Sack+Nanit strap and boom he’s off to dreamland.
We registered for three different baby carriers: a wrap, a faux wrap, and a ‘heavy duty’ carrier with buckles. We canNOT get the wrap down. We’ve watched videos and it just doesn’t work for us. The faux wrap was better but when I would moved around the house with him he kept almost slipping out if he started to wiggle. The ‘heavy duty’ one will be great but for right now he’s too little for it. I found this one, it’s specifically for infants up to 6mo and has buckles so he is firmly in place. It’s easy to get on by myself and he feels very secure. I originally didn’t want to buy one he was only going to use for 6mon but he kept slipping out of the faux wrap and I finally bit the bullet. So happy I did. (excuse all the random furniture in the photo, we were moving stuff around)
One last thing that is totally not for baby but for you mama is this desk/table. I used it during pregnancy and I’m still using it postpartum. When I was in bed/on the couch for the first two weeks recovering from my csection this never left my side. I got the small size but if I had to purchase again I might spring for the large. Highly recommend!
