Baby Gear

As I was going through and labeling all my blog posts, I found one that I never published!  Here is a very old post back from 2010.  Have fun reading!

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I always loved reading people's advice on baby gear that they loved and hated. I found it extremely valuable when I went to register and subsequently buy all our baby stuff. We have a premium for space so the gear we bought had to fit and not be overkill. You can't put a lot of baby stuff in a 720 square foot house.

Here are some things that we LOVE and things that we don't love so much.

Gear we LOVE!

* Bottle warmer. Seriously, no judging. I never thought I would buy one of these. I thought they were ridiculous. But when you have a baby that absolutely refuses to wait for a warm bottle, it's a necessity. We love our First Years bottle warmer. It's the best $29.99 we ever spent.

* Swing. Jack loves his swing. He spends many a nap time in his swing. It's a Boppy Rock In Comfort Travel Swing. We love it because it's compact (ahem, 720 square feet), can be folded up to take with you and because it's just cute. It's super soft and easy to use and takes batteries. I would never have a swing that plugs in because we have a cat that chews cords. The swing is great. You can put him in the swing if you need to run to the bathroom quickly or if you need to put him down while he's napping. Great product!

* Swaddle Me blanket. We don't swaddle often (only when he goes down for bed at night) but this blanket makes it VERY easy. Jack has Houdini hands and can escape from a swaddle made with a regular blanket. He cannot get out of this one. It's great because he's secure and doesn't startle himself awake with his little arms. We call it his baby straightjacket. It's warm and he sleeps great when we use it on him.

Things we don't love

* My wrap. I won't name names but I don't love my wrap. I want to disclaim though that it's probably operator error. I have tried and tried and tried to wrap and put Jack in it, but he fusses and I can never get it to work right. I have watched the YouTube videos and I can wrap it just fine. But the baby is just not comfy in it. Oh well. At least I bought it used and didn't spend a lot of money.

* Avent bottles. They leak. And Jack gets more gas when we use them. Enough said. I know a lot of people love them, but we don't.

* My diaper bag. I was very very excited to get this diaper bag. It was custom made off of Etsy and at first, it was great. However, I quickly realized that it wasn't big enough. It doesn't have enough space to hold extra diapers, wipes, my changing pad, extra clothes, burp cloths, blanket, toys and other random stuff. It's really too bad because the bag is super cute. I ended up buying a super big tote bag from Costco that is stylish and has enough room to store all his stuff. Big waste of $50 on the original bag. I will still keep it and use it as a cute tote in the summer time.