Baby Products: A Parent's Guide to What You Should and Should Not Use

When my first child was born in 2005, I must admit, I was a little overwhelmed with all the things that I was told I "needed" to have in order to make my life easier once he arrived. Of those things, some we used, and others we did not. Below I am going to tell of the top things in both categories. Keep in mind that this is what we found most and least useful for our first baby, and every baby is different!

The top 5 things we found most useful were: LOTS of burp cloths, the vibrating bouncy seat, Prince Lionheart slumber bear, Boppy, and the automatic swing. Bur cloths were useful obviously for their main purpose, to wipe spit/puke, but in a pinch, they also double as a lovey (if they are clean of course!) or a wipe (for those imminent diaper "blow out" situations). If you have LOTS of them, you aren't constantly doing laundry just to replenish your supply of clean ones. The Fisher Price vibrating bouncy seat we chose was a life saver for us, once we decided to finally use it! It lulled our son to sleep within minutes of being put in there. Once he was old enough to interact, there were bubbles, fish & toys for him to look at while sitting there. Once we realized he loved it so much, we were left wondering why we hadn't used it before the time we did! The Prince Lionheart slumber bear was something that was given to us as a gift, not something I would have ever bought myself, but we did find it useful, especially at night. It had both a noise and movement setting, so that if the baby cried and/or touched it, it would come on automatically and play the womb noise for a set amount of time. Our son found this comforting enough (most of the time) to fall back asleep on his own. The Boppy was a great item even after I was done breastfeeding. Our son was able to use it as a pillow when lying on the floor, or to prop him up during tummy time. The automatic swing was a lifesaver just like the vibrating bouncy seat was. In fact, once our son was too big for the bouncy seat, we transitioned him to the swing, which worked just as well.

The top 4 things that we found the least useful where: bottle warmer, wipe warmer, bottle sterilizer, the infant carrier you wear. A bottle warmer was not something we had bought, but rather it was given to us. I figured I would give it a try at least once, but found myself thinking that it was more of a pain to use than a help. I made my son's bottles on demand, so they were already room temperature and didn't require heating. Pretty much the same with the wipe warmer. It wasn't portable, so only something that was used at home. I really didn't want him to get too used to it at home, because what would happen then when I used a "cold" one while we were traveling? Another problem with the wipe warmer is that it was hard to get the temperature at a happy medium where it wouldn't burn his bottom. When I inquired to my pediatrician about sterilizing bottles he let me know that it wasn't something that was typically done anymore (more of something that was done when I was growing up) because we have dishwashers that use extremely hot water and will therefore do the same thing without all the hassle. When I then told him we didn't have a dishwasher, he suggested we buy one!!!! Needless to say, it wasn't something we rushed right out to purchase, but simply used bottles using the drop in liners (then all you have to worry about "sterilizing" is the nipple every so often). I did spend some money to purchase an infant carrier that you wear, but used it only a very few times. My son was born at the end of December, so by the time it was actually warm enough to take him outside to use it; he was almost too heavy to want to use it.

There you have it, a down and dirty explanation as to why we did and did not use certain items when my son was a baby!