A good friend of mine is having her first baby! She asked me and a few other of our mom friends for some advice on brands and products to put on her baby shower registry. As I was writing this out for her, I realized someone else might benefit from it too. When I did my registry, two of my friends who were already moms came along with me and steered me in the right direction. I know everyone is not that fortunate though so hopefully this helps.
Infant Car Seat
I have the Britax B-Safe and I love it. It looks like there’s a newer version now, but it’s basically the same thing. When she gets bigger, you’ll probably buy a convertible seat, but this one should easily last you until she’s 25 or so pounds. I like it because it easily clicks in and out of the base which you leave in the car and the stroller. Just don’t forget to get an extra base so you have one for each car.
Stroller
Britax B-Agile. If you know you’ll have more kids soon, you may want the B-Ready instead because it converts to a double in several different configurations.
Rocker
I swear by our Fisher Price Rock ‘n Play. It is reasonably priced. It’s lightweight so it’s easy to move around the house. It has rocker legs, but doesn’t rock on its own. We used this same one for both Ace and Bea and it’s held up well. They slept in it in our room for the first few months and they also take naps in it or just sit in it while I’m cooking or busy. I also like that the back is inclined, so while they’re still learning to swallow and control their internal reflexes, they’re less likely to choke on their own spit-up.
Bottles
Whether you breast feed or formula feed, at some point, you’ll probably need bottles. I like Dr. Brown’s glass bottles. They have that blue tube insert in each bottle to reduce extra air intake. Chunk never had any problems with gas. I’m surely it’s not only because of that, but I’m sure it helped.
Bottle Rack
Get the OXO one with the individual pegs instead of the Boon Grass one, simply because it’ll be easier to clean.
Bottle Sanitation
Medela steam bags. Just put them in the microwave to sanitize your bottle parts
Clothes
People will buy clothes for you, especially in the small sizes. I say hold off on buying them yourself, other than a couple things you really love.You don’t know what size she’ll need when she’s born (newborn or 0-3months) so you don’t want to buy too much of the wrong thing. For other sizes, you should wait until you see how big she is and how fast she’s growing, so you don’t end up with a bunch of clothes in the wrong sizes for the wrong seasons.
Playpen
We have our pack ‘n play but don’t really use it as much as I thought we would. Ours happens to have a built in changing table and we actually use that more than the actual pen part. With Ace, it ended up just being a toybox and he hated being in there for more than a couple minutes at a time.
Crib
It took me a long time to figure out which one I wanted. We were going to get it from Ikea, but I read some reviews at the last minute about the particular one that I wanted that said the kid would kick his feet on the footboard panel and it made a ton of noise. We ended up getting the Babyletto Modo and I love it. It cost more but it’s solid and has held up perfectly from Ace to Bea. Don’t forget the crib mattress and we have a waterproof mattress pad too.
Changing Table
We got one from Ikea. And we never used it as a changing table. It’s become a storage unit for the room.
Diapers
We use Honest diapers. I knew I wanted a “natural” brand and tried a couple others early on (Babyganics, Seventh Generation). They were cool, but I like the monthly subscription for Honest because I never have to worry about running out.
Tub
The blue molded plastic tub has worked well for us and we still use it for chunk. Ours came with a sling that hangs on top for infants and Bea loves taking a bath in it.
Other things to consider registering for
Other Notes
Register for very small items and very big items. Even if you do an all-in-one baby shower registry like BabyList you may still want to do a baby shower registry at an individual store so you can get the completion coupon. Basically after your shower, you’ll get a coupon for a percentage off anything that wasn’t purchased.
Sign up for the mailing lists for Buy Buy Baby and Babies R Us so you can get the 20% off coupons. Those will really come in handy on the big ticket items. And they both take competitor coupons which comes in handy if you bunch of gift cards for one store but only have a 20% off coupon for the other store.
You may want to check Craigslist/eBay for NIB (new in box) items.
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After posting this I thought of a few more things that I’ll detail in a baby shower registry follow-up post: baby monitor, diaper bag, high chair…
If there’s anything else I should talk about, add it to the comments!