Wow, it's been more than a year since the last post! Crazy how time flies, and the phrase "the days are long but the years short" rings more true than ever with a toddler!
Here are a few additional favorites that we have when it comes to baby/toddler stuff:
Monitor
There is a huge variety of baby monitors out there, and you can spend a lot on it! I would consider our monitor a vital registry item simply because we use it every night. I like to have it near me, especially if we go outside, because Connor goes to bed a few hours before we do and I like to see his sweet self sleeping in the crib:)
We found this monitor via a baby book we were given, and it worked splendidly for us for 17 months. Tip: don't let the baby/toddler play with the monitor. Connor LOVED it, pressing the buttons, making it beep. The antenna thing was pulled off and eventually went caput from too much 'handling.' However, at $99, it was still definitely worth it.
We ordered the next generation of that same monitor on Amazon when the first monitor stopped working. Just a little bit more at $159, it's proved to be pretty great over the past few weeks. The picture is pretty clear, it has the battery levels and room temperature, and you can zoom in/scan the room - which I'm sure will come in handy once little man is in a big boy bed. We would definitely recommend it.
Breast Pump
Check with your insurance! Blue Cross Blue Shield completely covered the Medela Pump. The OB wrote a prescription for it (common practice), we took it to a local pharmacy that was recommended by the doctor's office, and the pharmacy handed over the pump, no questions asked! I don't know much about other brands, and the Medela worked fine for me and lots of friends that nursed.
Bottles
Someone gave me advice to not register for a ton of one brand's bottles because you never know what baby will like or not like. Looking back, this was great advice. I registered for a starter set of Dr. Brown's, and we had random others that we tried (Motherhood Maternity gives you a free bottle when you check out so we ended up with three of these that were good back-ups). Connor ended up digging the Dr. Brown's, and I like the fact that they have the little doodads that help keep babe from getting gas/swallowing air. In fact, we just recently cut out bottles completely so we used Dr. Brown's for almost 17 months!
Note: We also registered for a bottle warmer and never used it.
Newborn Sleeper
We registered for the Fisher-Price Rock 'n Play without knowing how valuable it would be! Connor slept in this next to the side of the bed for the first 5ish weeks of his life. It's also super light, so I would bring it out to the family room for his naps while I was maternity leave. This thing was so wonderful in the early months! There's other cute patterns out there, too. There are some cool basinets out there, but for the price and ease, this is what worked for us.
Blogs
I LOVED reading blogs by other pregnant women or mamas when I was preggers. They always had awesome advice, and most of them did reviews of baby items and 'best of' registries.
Mint Arrow is one of my faves (still is!). Here's her 'BEST baby registry list ever!' - she also let her readers know about a sale Amazon was having on the BOB stroller, which is how we were able to get it 40% off! We couldn't live without our BOB.
Holy City Chic is another one, she has a baby boy and published some great must-have lists and now does baby favorites.
Random Tip: I checked out other people's registries, it was helpful in making sure we weren't forgetting anything important and also just to be nosey and see the variety of baby stuff that is out there!
