This girl {and her fella} are having a baby.
And they asked Chris and me for baby stuff advice.
Take that in…someone asked me for advice. Ahhhh.
And I took this assignment very seriously. I pretended I didn’t have kids (while holding a screaming baby and watching Dora with a two year old) and imagined I had to go buy everything I needed this weekend (which was fun since I lovelovelove to spend money). And then I held a brief meeting with my baby daddy to get his thoughts (not something I do very often so at first he thought I was joking).
Here are our completely [non]scientific findings:
When you bring your babe home, really all you need is a bed, some diapers, and some clothes. It’s pretty simple. For a while.
Then the babe doesn’t want to sleep 22 hours a day. Boo.
And when that happens, here’s what else you need:
–a rocking chair or glider; we didn’t have one of these with Elliott. I told everyone I would be fine without one (and everyone gasped!) but we survived. When Harper came along, my mom gave us a rocking chair. Holy moley. It’s so great. Really. For feeding. For sleeping. For rocking. Now I completely understand why I needed something that rocked back and forth. Plus rocking is good for babies and adults alike. Who knew?
–a jogging stroller; we have a regular stroller that the car seat clips into and a jogging stroller (for jogging…walking). Two strollers for one baby. Yikes. So in hindsight, we should have just bought the jogging stroller that could hold our car seat and saved some moola. As long as you buy a jogging stroller that fits in your car, you can use it anywhere.
–a new(er) crib; I wanted an awesome, vintage nursery so I refinished and painted the crib Chris had when he was a baby. It looked awesome. Until my rambunctious baby learned to bounce. And then the 25-year-plus crib didn’t look so awesome. It was actually kind of fragile and unsafe. And one time the side of the mattress collapsed while Elliott was in it. Oops. And now the drop side cribs that we slept in as babies are illegal to buy, sell, or manufacture. Apparently, kids were dying because of those. Double oops. So buy a new crib, it’s definitely worth it. (And Walmart has lots of choices and they’re reasonably priced.)
–a pack-n-play; we use this all the time: when we travel, for Elliott to sleep in when she went to the sitters, when she spends the night at my parents or even when we have houseguests (little houseguests, we don’t make adults sleep in it…very often). It can also take the place of a bassinet. A lot of pack-n-plays come with tons of accessories like a canopy, side pockets and cubbies, a changing table, or a bassinet attachment that goes over the bed for little babies. Both our babies slept in bassinets next to our bed for about six weeks. And our room was small enough that there wouldn’t have been space to use the pack-n-play, but if you have the room and you plan on having your baby sleep in your room for a while, I’d just use that and skip the bassinet.
–a Moby wrap; again something I didn’t have with Elliott, but got with Harper and I’ve spent every minute since kicking myself for not getting one sooner. You can literally do anything with this while holding your fussy or sleeping baby. I didn’t get one earlier because it was kind of intimidating to see this long piece of fabric and somehow make it hold my baby safely. But that’s why there’s YouTube videos and a super-helpful instruction book. And boys can wear it also. Chris hasn’t yet, but he really wants to. He’s such a funny guy.
–crib soother; fancy talk for a music and light thing you hang on the side of the crib. At three months, Harper started noticing hers and she’s content to chill in her crib for 10-15 minutes while Mommy gets ready or eats lunch. Elliott still has hers attached to her toddler bed and listens to it when she’s having trouble getting to sleep. And it’s perfect for the middle of the night when your baby (who didn’t get the memo that we don’t need to be wide awake at 3 am) needs something to lull him back to sleep. Just stock up on C batteries because you’ll burn through them.
–a swing; I covet this thing. We own both a full-size swing and a vibrating chair (you’d think they’d come up with a better name…). The swing because there are times when a baby will sleep nowhere else and the vibrating chair because it’s easy to move from room-to-room. These are new so I didn’t have the option to buy one, but I wish I could have. This way you don’t need the vibrating chair and it looks like it’s small enough you can take it with you in the kitchen while you’re cooking dinner or set it in the bathroom while you’re getting ready. I’m pretty envious of this thing and it won’t take up half the living room like a full-size swing would.
–a Diaper Champ; they have all kinds of fancy-shmancy things to hold stinky diapers. Unfortunately, you do need something other than a trash can (unless you’re okay with taking out the trash multiple times a day) and it’s unbelievable how stinky a cute baby can be. I say the Diaper Champ over the Diaper Genie because of cost. I think the Champ might be a couple bucks more to buy, but you can use any trash bag in it. The Genie only uses trash bags made specifically for it and they cost a lot more than a regular trash bag.
Things you don’t need: a playmat (they’re neat, but they outgrow them sooo fast…just hold some toys over your kid’s head and it’s the same thing), a wipee warmer (I don’t even know what to say to that), or tons of clothes when they’re infants (again, they outgrow them so fast and sizes are weird; Harper is 3 months and she’s wearing 6-9 month sleepers but some newborn onesies. You never know if your baby will be super-long, super-chubby, or super-petite, buy them as you need them until you’ve got the sizes figured out).
Whew, I told you I was taking this serious. I’m exhausted. Of course, these are just the Grahams’ personal opinions. We seem to do things differently sometimes.
Oh, one more thing: don’t assume you have to have a changing table. We got ours at a garage sale and painted it to match the nursery, but you could just as well use a dresser and put a changing pad on top. It’d give you a lot more storage and save space if you need to.
Okay, I think that’s it for today class. We also need to discuss highchairs, making baby food, and the insane amount of toys you will start to collect, but that will have to be for another time.
Leave a Reply