One rookie mom’s 5 favorite baby items

Meredith is a grad school dropout, military wife, stay at home, over-thinking mom who started a podcast and blog over at overthinkingmom.com to amuse herself and, hopefully, others. She shared her five favorite babycentric inventions with us.  If you’d like to share yours, send an email to moms at rookiemoms dot com.

I’ve been a mom for less than eight months, but I’ve already donated six or seven trash bags full of baby items and clothing. This purge was not a result of my anti-consumerist tendencies, not in the least. I’m a sucker for a good marketing campaign and the ever so subtle bad mom guilt that creeps upon us when we don’t buy every possible piece of baby gear. When my daughter was four or five months old, I had a horrible vision of turning into a mommy hoarder (Wouldn’t that be a lovely reality television show), hence the trash bags full of unneeded baby stuff.

After getting rid of three out of five baby slings, one out of three strollers, a co-sleeper, a bouncy seat, and more, I’m now more in love than ever before with the material items we decided to keep. Looking back on the last eight months, these are five of my family’s rookie mom essentials.

1. Fisher Price My Little Lamb Cradle ‘n Swing: My daughter had colic and the only saving grace was this swing. We bought every imaginable “colic cure,” including a compact disc with the sound of a vacuum cleaner on repeat, but I repeat, ONLY THE SWING WORKED. We used it to help her nap until she was six months old.

2. Ergo Baby Carrier: A lot of people laud this carrier and for good reason. It saves your back, and your baby can cuddle up to you
without a lot of complicated wrapping. I only wish I had purchased the infant insert so I could have used it from birth.

3. Chicco Travel Seat Hook On Chair: Colic equals months of not leaving the house with your screaming baby. This means no peaceful restaurant trips or outings. I thought our public eating moment had passed us by, but then I saw a cousin using this chair. As soon as my daughter started solids at six months, she became our travel eating companion.

4. Evenflo Exersaucer: Immediately after buying the exersaucer off Craigslist, I felt guilt. I assumed this was another new mom trend I was blindly following in an effort to overstimulate and distance my child. Boy, was I wrong. Sometimes a baby needs to be corralled and amused while a mom takes out laundry, makes dinner, or uses the restroom. It will be a sad day when the magic of the exersaucer wears off.

5. Boppy (plus extra covers): This is the one and only baby item I used hours after giving birth and still use multiple times a day eight months later. I refuse to travel without it. Whether I nurse or my husband bottle feeds, the boppy makes our laps cuddly and comfortable! Why extra covers? After a legendary simultaneous poop and spit-up incident, I learned sometimes more is better.

What are your favorite tools of the trade? See ours (Whitney + Heather) here.