Sitting on that couch watching my 8-month-pregnant friend unwrap her many gifts for her baby daughter got me thinking about my own experience over the past four months. I read so many pregnancy and baby books, blogs, and articles and watched so many YouTube videos I can’t even tell you, but nothing quite prepares you for your own situation. My gifts were among the last to be opened and after reading my card, my friend thanked me for the practical items and advice.
Seven Most Useful Items for my Newborn
1. A swinging chair, a bouncing chair, and a playmat/gym. Anything that can offer a few minutes peace and distraction while also providing a safe space where I can leave the baby to do something with both hands. The swinging chair is the single most useful item for us because it helped put our baby to sleep countless times – priceless.
2. A wrap carrier. I’m sure slings and structured carriers are equally useful but I don’t own those. My wrap allows me to wrap my baby in multiple positions, including a sling for discrete nursing or napping and an upright position for curious baby to look around. I use my wrap every time I go out in public with my baby, and the one time I forgot it in the dryer, I missed it.
3. Wipes, and lots of them. I bought my friend a box of 800 wipes because my own box of 800 wipes plus all the single packets only lasted me 3 months. When there’s poop everywhere, I don’t stop to count how many wipes I’m using, I just keep grabbing.
4. A pack n’ play with a newborn napper attachment. Even though we set up the nursery with crib space, we moved the portable crib next to our bed immediately after she was born and there it has stayed and will continue to stay for a while. The newborn attachment lifts her mini bed to the same level as our bed, making middle-of-the-night rescues a piece of cake. I just roll over, lift her up, and roll back over to side nurse, barely having to move.
5. Electric breast pump. I’m thankful that I got it free through my health insurance. Despite using it sparingly, it was a life-saver when I really needed it. Especially when I was away from my 6-week-old for 36 hours, my breasts felt like they were about to pop and milk leaked out uncontrollably. I was in agonizing discomfort until I was able to have some alone time. With the breast pump, I was able to survive that trip. It was only after stimulating my nipples with the breast pump hours after my water broke that I finally went into active labor. I bought a cheap manual breast pump thinking I could use it in the car, but it was useless, making me even more thankful for my electric.
6. Swaddling/receiving blankets, especially the non-stretch cotton ones we got from the hospital. Swaddling her did wonders for helping to calm her and put her to sleep! It was routine every night to wrap her into a baby burrito until just a few weeks ago when she started breaking out so she could suck on her fingers.
7. Baby sunglasses, inexpensive at Target, the kind that wrap around the head with a cloth band and close with velcro. We live in Florida. Even out of the direct sunlight, the bright light reflects. Her head was too small for the band at first so I sewed a few more pieces of velcro on to have a tighter fit.
Seven Items that Weren’t as Useful as I Thought They’d Be
1. A closet full of baby clothes. Because we’re mostly cloth diapering and because we have an impressive spitter, we do laundry frequently. We didn’t buy any clothes, receiving lots as gifts and hand-me-downs. I thought that filling the nursery with more clothes than in my own closet would cut down on laundry. But instead it just meant that individual items of clothing were only worn a few times before she grew out of it. We also didn’t need any specific sleepwear at all for her; babies fall asleep in anything.
2. Little burp clothes. Our baby knows how to spit like a champion and unleash a waterfall. We still use those little towels all the time for minor spitting or drooling, but usually we use normal adult-sized towels to keep up with her messes. (And no joke, she spit up a pool of liquid just as I was typing this.)
3. Pacifiers/binkies. I envisioned our baby happily sucking herself to sleep with one of those every day. Instead, she preferred my real nipples, not taking to plastic at all. Only in the past month or two has she decided that she also likes her fingers and fist, though she hasn’t quite isolated her thumb yet.
4. Socks, shoes, and mittens. It was difficult to get them on a squirmy little thing. They didn’t stay on long. Then the weather turned and it became too warm. I keep her fingernails short so she doesn’t cut herself (or us!) up too badly. I’ll try shoes again when she starts cruising.
5. A baby audio, video, and breathing monitors. So far she has only slept close by. Maybe these will be great later on, but we just didn’t need them with this baby.
6. A nursing pillow, nursing pads, nipple shields, and other breastfeeding aids. I count myself lucky that I didn’t have much difficulty. Many of my friends did.
7. A stroller. I bought a carseat/stroller set and envisioned walking the neighborhood with the stroller regularly. I use the carseat almost daily, but she hasn’t taken to the stroller. She just wants to be held. To be fair, she hated the carseat in the car too, but it’s the law to use it. She has grown much more comfortable in the car, so maybe she’ll grow into the stroller.
These lists hold true for our baby girl and may not hold true for the next baby or anyone else's baby. Each baby and each family circumstance is different!
 |
| Josephine rocking her baby sunglasses this afternoon. |
No comments:
Post a Comment