When you’re pregnant, everyone has opinions on what necessities you need to register for. Of course you need a crib, diapers, bottles, and clothes, but each mom has a list of “extra necessities” that she found to be lifesavers during those first few months. Taking the advice of many friends and a few anonymous internet ladies, I created a Babylist registry (highly recommend!) with lots of these “necessities.” But were they all worth the hype? Let’s find out!
When you have a baby, you learn that convenience is just about the best quality in any gadget. If it’s not convenient, I don’t want it. Charlie is 5 months old and I’m just now getting to the point that convenience is not always my number one goal. For example, I just started making my own baby food, which has been an adventure, but saves a ton of money.
Keep in mind that this is just a list of what worked well and what didn’t for our family. I know moms who swear by some of the products I didn’t love, and I know moms who think some of my “necessities” are not worth it at all. To each his (or her) own!
Diaper Genie – This one is pretty self explanatory. Charlie is nicknamed “Toots” at daycare and my dad often calls his smell “toxic,” so keeping all that stank in is super important in our household. Yes, the little miniature trash cans with lids are adorable, but trust me, you want something that seals it all in.
Owlet Smart Sock – Best $300 I ever spent. Seriously. This thing is single-handedly responsible for my ability to sleep. We knew we wanted to do the Moms on Call sleep training pretty early, and we learned after the second night home that having Charlie sleep in our room just wasn’t working for any of us. But I was a little neurotic early on about SIDS and Charlie needing to be monitored while sleeping. (Please tell me I’m not the only one! I made my mom and Charles take shifts watching him sleep through the night for the first week. #sorryitsthehormones) During one of my postpartum hormonal meltdowns, Charles ordered the Owlet. It fits right on baby’s foot and monitors his heart rate and oxygen levels. The app shows me all of the info on my phone, so I can check any time to make sure he’s ok. And if for some reason he’s not breathing or his heart rate drops, an alarm goes off, both on the base in the room and in my phone. Luckily we haven’t had any false alarms. I’m sure that would be quite unnerving. Having the Owlet in those early weeks allowed me to rest easy with Charlie in his own room and know that if something was wrong, I would know.
SwaddleMe Swaddles – After struggling with the swaddle blankets (see below), we switched to these wrap around velcro swaddles and they were magical. Charlie hated being swaddled from the get go, but these helped him to get used to it and allowed us to get a really tight swaddle for our active boy. He did start to break out of them at 10 weeks, but we continued to swaddle below the arms for a few weeks after that. These swaddles definitely relieved us of a daily struggle.
Boppy Nursing Pillow – I know, I know. I’m getting the stink eye from a lot of moms right now. But for me, this pillow just wasn’t worth the hype. I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding early on (mainly due to a painful infection), so trying to wedge this huge, awkward pillow around me in the glider was just an added stress. I ended up just using a small throw pillow instead to wedge under Charlie’s head, and that worked beautifully. I still use that pillow today. I wanted to love the Boppy so badly, but it just wasn’t for me.
Dreft Detergent – All I have to say about Dreft is that they are genius marketers. Because of my sensitive skin, I have been using Tide Free & Gentle detergent for years. We registered for and received Dreft because everyone said that’s the best and safest detergent for babies. After comparing the ingredients to Tide Free & Gentle, we learned that the only difference is that Dreft actually adds a fragrance. But all moms buy Dreft because you’re not going to not buy the safest detergent for you baby, right? I mean, what kind of horrible mom are you? Like I said, genius marketing. After we went through the first bottle, we just continued using Tide Free & Gentle for all three of us.
Swaddle Blankets – Oh how I wanted these to work because they are so adorable. But our little man was super active from day one, and no matter how tightly we swaddled, he broke out. Save yourself the headache and just go with the velcro version. (Side note: I still love these blankets for wrapping up baby or play time on the bed or floor, just not for swaddling.)
Just to be clear, this is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to share the products that really worked for us and the ones that didn’t live up to the hype.
What are some of your favorite baby products? Which ones could you do without?