My Top 10 Favorite Baby Items

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If you’ve been here a while, you may have already seen my list of my Top 5 Baby Must-Haves. Now I’m here to talk about a few of my other favorite baby things. Here’s my list of my top 10 all-time favorite baby items!

I really would have liked to put these on the must-have list because, to me, these things are indispensable! But, I figured that you technically could get by without these items, but really, why would you want to? These products have been life (and sanity) savers for me. Raising tiny humans is hard! These things can make the job just a little bit easier.

Boppy Pillow

We use our Boppy pillow so much that it’s taken up permanent residence on our sofa. We’ve used it with both of our girls, for feeding, lounging, and even as a prop for tummy time. It’s totally multi-purpose and worth every penny! Plus, there are a vast array of covers to fit whatever your style may be. I also highly recommend a water-resistant pillow cover. Babies drool and spit-up . . . a lot! It’s way easier to wash a cover than it is to wash a pillow. Just sayin’.

Carrier

While plenty of parents get by without ever putting their child in a baby carrier, I don’t know how they do it. Babywearing has been a HUGE part of my parenting journey! I loved wearing Emma from the get-go, but it became more of a practical necessity for me once I started venturing out of the house with her. The full-size stroller was large and cumbersome to maneuver, plus the seat needed to be all the way back to accommodate the infant seat, which rendered the storage basket below unusable. I eventually bought a lightweight stroller frame which worked well with the infant seat, but I couldn’t do any major shopping (like grocery shopping) because the storage basket didn’t hold that much. Why didn’t I just put the infant seat on top of the cart? A) It’s not safe (even the car seat manufacturers discourage it) and B) I couldn’t see over the car seat well enough to not run into things with the cart. But with her strapped safely to my chest (or, once she got older, to my back), I could shop to my heart’s content!

Now that Charlie is here, it’s become even more of a necessity! I can comfort and snuggle the baby while still having my hands free to take care of things around the house or help Emma with the potty. Plus, it’s a great way for her to nap on-the-go when I have to leave the house during her naptime. It’s become my sure-fire way to sooth her when she’s fussy. Just pop her in my wrap (my carrier of choice) and within a minute or two, the crying has stopped and she’s back to being the calm, chill baby she normally is. What parent wouldn’t give their left arm to have a tool like that in their arsenal?

Butt Paste

Before kids, I didn’t understand the importance of a good diaper cream. I also was under the misguided impression that diaper rashes came on slowly, so if you’re baby had a bad one, it was because you hadn’t attended to it properly. How naive and ignorant I was! Emma’s worst case of diaper rash literally developed over the course of one diaper, approximately 2-3 hours. One diaper change, her butt was totally normal. The next, it was fire engine red and actually had a couple tiny spots that were starting to bleed! Teething baby poop is the worst! After letting her go diaper-less for a little bit, I slapped some Maximum Strength Butt Paste on her poor, raw little bum and barely slept all night, I was so worried about what to do. But come morning time, the raw spots had scabbed over and her skin was it’s normal, fleshy pink color. After that, I swore I’d never buy a different diaper cream again! I also make sure to give a tube as a gift at every baby shower I attend. This stuff is the best!

Diaper Genie Elite

With Emma, we had a regular ole hand-me-down Diaper Genie. And that worked fine, but I always kinda hated having to shove the diaper down into the chamber. It always felt kind of gross. And then I discovered the Diaper Genie Elite. It has a peddle that not only flips open the top, but opens access to the stinky diaper chamber as well. Just push the peddle, toss in the diaper, release the peddle, and walk away. The more smashing dirty diapers with your hand. Hallelujah!

Toy Links

These plastic toy links are such a cheap, versatile item! Use them to link baby toys to strollers, car seats, excersaucers, and more! Or, just do what I do and link a bunch together and give them to the baby just like that.  One of Charlie’s favorite things to play with is just a length of links. Babies are easy entertained. Thank goodness.

Infant Sitting Chair

If your babies are anything like mine, once they’re a couple months old, they start being less content with just laying around and more interested in sitting up and checking out their environment. As much as I loved holding a baby sitting in my lap, I couldn’t stay like that all day. Insert an infant sitting chair. I’m talking about something like a Bumbo (which we have for Charlie) or a Boppy Baby Chair (which we had with Emma, since she had giant thighs that wouldn’t fit in the Bumbo – no longer available – here’s something similar) or even a Fisher Price Sit-Me-Up Floor Seat. These help your baby sit upright so they can better play, observe, and interact with their surroundings. With this, Charlie can hang with me in the kitchen while I cook, watch Emma and I as we play outside, whatever. These chairs are smaller and very portable so you can take them wherever. The Boppy Chair even came with straps to strap to a dining chair so it can be used as a small make-shift high-chair. We’ve loved having these chairs with both of our girls.

Swing/Bouncer

Now, you don’t need both of these (although I do), but having a swing or bouncer to set your baby in for a time is so darn handy! Emma loved the swing. She was in there all the time. Charlie? Not so much. But she’s cool chilling in the bouncer for a while. Both of ours have sounds and hanging toys, just something to keep a babies attention for a bit, which is all you really need. All parents need a place to put them down for a bit when they need to. Because dinner’s not gonna take care of itself! Same for the laundry or the cleaning or the yard work. As much as I love holding and cuddling and wearing my babies, sometimes Mama just needs to set the baby down!

Oball

When baby begins to start trying to grasp things, they’re also developing eye-hand coordination, tracking, finger muscles, and the ability to move objects from one hand to another. With 32 finger holes, the Oball is the perfect toy for helping tiny, uncoordinated fingers figure this grasping thing out. Plus it’s super light and made of flexible plastic, so I don’t have to worry about baby getting too upset when they drop it on their face. Because they will. Trust me.

Fresh Food Feeder

Fresh food feeders are a great way to not only transition your baby from purees to solids, but also allows bay to enjoy fresh fruits and veggies without you worrying about choking. The gnawing motion can also help with teething pains. Just throw in some cold fruit for added “numbing” power and let baby go to town! We had these inexspensive mesh ones when Emma was an infant and they worked great. She loved them! But I didn’t love trying to clean all the food particles out of the mesh. Still, it wasn’t bothersome enough that I didn’t plan on using them again with Charlie. But, before I could buy some more, a friend gifted me one of these silicone feeders. Same great idea, way easier to clean. I was sold! I bought 2 more and am super excited for Charlie to get big enough for us to start using them again.

Buckle Buddy

This is a brand new discovery for me this time around and I’m in love! We all know it gets hot in the summer, but here in the Sonoran Desert, it gets HOT! I’m talking cooking-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk hot. Baking-cookies-in-your-car hot. Don’t-get-hit-by-a-car-while-biking-because-you’ll-cook-to-death-on-the-pavement-before-the-EMTs-get-to-you hot. So, naturally, one of my concerns during the extreme heat has been how to not give my kids second-degree burns while putting them into their car seats. I usually have towels in the car to cover the seats when not in use, but the buckles can still get pretty hot. Then I found the Buckle Away Buckle Buddy! Besides being adorable, the Buckle Buddy has a locking mechanism that keeps the buckle out and away so you don’t have to dig for it under the baby’s butt. It also acts as a barrier between the buckle and your child, preventing their legs from being pinched or burned. This has been so amazing for us! I have enough on my plate trying to load and unload 2 kids. Accidentally burning my children is one less worry to occupy my already overloaded brain.

There you have it! Two babies and countless amounts of baby stuff later, these are 10 favorite baby items that I wouldn’t want to live without. Fellow mamas, did I miss anything?

What are your favorite baby items?

Linking at: Skip To My Lou, Tatertots & Jello

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