Friday Favorites: 5 Baby Essentials
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It’s hard to believe that two years ago, my sweet girl was transitioning to daycare and I had just headed back to work from my maternity leave. In some ways it seems like so much has happened, but in others, I feel like I blinked and our infant turned into a chatty little toddler. Although we aren’t planning to have another child, I have a few friends who are expecting, so I’ve been contemplating shower gifts. That has gotten me thinking a lot about the essential I would recommend for those with a bundle of joy on the way, so I decided to share the items that made my top 5 list of baby essentials.Nose Frida – This is one item that seems to end up on every list of awesome baby tools I have ever seen! I mean, it seems so gross. You stick one end up your child’s nose and suck on the other end to pull the snot out. I’m sure everyone who has ever heard about it for the first time is convinced you end up eating your kid’s snot, but fortunately, that doesn’t happen. Number one, the syringe looking piece has a foam filter at the end to keep anything from entering the flexible tubing that connects it to the mouthpiece. In addition, as hard as I’ve had to suck on that thing sometimes, I’ve never even come close to sucking hard enough to get snot on the filter, let alone into the tubing. So, rest assured, use it. No snot in the mouth. We also had one of the bulbs from the hospital and it was great for clearing the mucous from the back of her throat when she was a newborn and still getting the gunk out of her lungs, but it was so much less effective than the Nose Frida for nasal congestion. Now that our girl is 2, sometimes she will grab it herself if she is really stopped up and regular nose blowing isn’t working. Of course, she hasn’t figured out how to work it herself yet. Oh, and I should probably mention that this one time she coughed while eating and a soba noodle ended up going up into her nasal cavity. The Nose Frida sucked it right out!LED nail clippers – This is one of those items that seems really ridiculous, but I couldn’t have loved them more. The lights made it super easy to see those tiny baby fingernails and ensure that I was getting the clipper under the nail and not pinching that delicate baby skin as I clipped. If you are really lucky like I was, your infant will be enthralled by the lights and spend he whole time you are clipping nails in an LED induced trance. Let’s face it, I really loved these for myself, but I used them on my thick adult nails one too many times and they bit the dust. Lesson learned. Baby nail clippers are really for babies!Fingertip toothbrush – It’s never too early to get into the habit of brushing baby’s “teeth”! This silicone fingertip toothbrush is perfect for little ones who are still all gums. It helps you develop the habit of brushing with your baby regularly and it keeps their gums clean. This one even has little bristles on one side, so we used it for a while after the first teeth came in until we were ready for a “real” toothbrush.
Infant Optics DXR-8 Video Monitor – I can’t say enough good things about this monitor. I feel like we looked at hundreds of monitors online and in stores before we decided on this one. We originally looked at using a Nest cam as our baby monitor, but we didn’t like that it didn’t have a physical monitor with it and that it was completely reliant on a wifi signal and the Nest network. This monitor is more like a closed circuit monitoring system. The picture is clear even when it is in night vision mode, we can talk to our daughter through the monitor, and it has a good signal range. I can do yardwork while Penelope naps even with her in the back of the house and me working at the furthest point in the yard from her room. In terms of security, this monitor works within a closed system and doesn’t tap into your wifi, so it is much more difficult to hack. In addition, while I have heard of having the ability to connect additional cameras to the one monitor, it does not seem to have the ability to connect the camera to multiple monitors. I can see this being a great buy for people who have more than one baby or plan to have more than one because the additional cameras can be purchased separately.Halo Sleepsack – We started out with blankets for swaddling because everyone at the hospital made swaddling look like a piece of cake. Let’s just say we got over that very quickly and I was glad I had some swaddle sacks in the piles of hand-me-downs because it was something I had not put on my baby registry. The newborn ones we had were fine, until our girl started to move around. Then, the little velcro tabs would come loose and we ended up with legs out and swaddles pushed up. Not good for a newborn. Then, we bought our first Halo Swaddle. The wrapping style ensures that the swaddle doesn’t come loose and the zippered pouch keeps legs from busting out and rearranging the fabric. But, the thing I loved most about the Halo is that once baby is ready to start sleeping with arms free, you can still swaddle them under their arms. That way, babies have more freedom to move around, but still feel the security of a swaddle across their chest. We graduated to the wearable blanket version as we moved into toddlerhood and kept those up until the summer nights hit just a couple of months ago.
It’s no mistake that babies require a ton of gear, but these 5 items really made my life easier as a new parent.
What did you love when you were the parent of a newborn?
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