Baby Registry
Welcome back to the Parent Digital Duo.
In this edition we dive into the details of building a baby registry to include the most helpful and important items.
You may build a baby registry with a plan to host a traditional baby shower or be on your own to select what baby items fit in your budget before you welcome your little one into the world. This edition may help you save some time, energy, and resources when exploring the many baby products that are available.
I was incredibly fortunate to have a supportive community of family and friends to help guide me through the early stages of preparing for parenthood. We created a traditional baby registry in the height of the pandemic where many items were unavailable and were forced to reschedule a baby shower to meet social distancing demands.
I hope your journey begins with a few less bumps. Even when considering the massive generosity of friends and family to gift items from our registry, I now understand we could have made some better decisions. The latest, trendy products that every parent needs, often aren’t the most functional or comfortable for a baby. Reviews are helpful, but often fall short of verifying a product as a success for all children. Newborns vary in size, sleep schedules, eating habits, and behavior. You may overlook this when being locked into a portal to select products based on availability, pricing, or reviews.
One of the best items you can pursue is a try-it kit with multiple brands of a product type for you to test with your baby.
We researched baby bottles, then chose a top brand excited to be stocked for the upcoming feedings! We unpacked them all, cleaned, and got set up with a station and our baby hated them. The flow rate was too high and all of the top of the line bottles… sat in our cabinet. We bought many brands after that to try to find the right fit.
Instead of placing one brand’s full set of bottles and accessories on your registry, research a try-it kit. You can try feedings with a few bottle brands that vary in grip, flow rate, and capacity. Once you find a brand that works best for your feeding routine, you can go all in on buying that brand to meet your needs. This strategy applies to binkies, diapers, wipes, and skincare. As your baby grows, you will most likely need to change products and having a few testers on hand is a game changer.
Favor lower cost items with the understanding that they will be out of commission or totally destroyed.
It is exciting to imagine having the top rated chair with 10 settings to rock your baby to sleep with different motions. That is until your baby spits up, wets or soils the padding rendering the chair useless until properly cleaned… or it eats batteries like a fiend to provide the soothing sound and vibration combo when not plugged in. These products are great ideas and I am sure work for some people, but they are not the most practical.
Pursuing lower cost items with the intent to purchase multiple could be a strategy that gives you an edge when building a registry. Let’s stick with the chair example, you can get a fancy one for $100 with features but it may be clunky or hard to clean. On the other hand you can purchase one for $40 and a different brand for $50. I would buy the two lower cost items. You will be able to utilize one when the other is soiled, give your baby variance in positioning, have a backup for travel, and give your baby options for comfort depending on their size at birth. Utilize this strategy when it comes to clothing, toys, bath items, and padding. Give your baby options and they will choose a favorite.
Keep your registry simple when it comes to tech, apps, and subscriptions.
Baby products come loaded with advertising around features. Many of these products come with restrictions like requiring internet access or an active subscription. There are plenty of promises of biometric tracking, alerts, status updates, and application use with mobile devices. In my experience, you can just avoid this all together. Some of the most expensive products with the “best features” have the worst application and customer support. They do not integrate with all mobile devices, they do not have functional apps, and you end up returning them after a frustrating set up. Basic monitors with sound and video are great. Formula mixers and bottle warmers are a huge help. Lamps and sound machines are ideal for creating a great sleep atmosphere. When building your registry, consider selecting simple items that will help keep things organized, clean, and functional so you can focus on spending quality time with your little ones.
I hope this edition was helpful for starting your baby registry. As we dive deeper into preparing for parenthood, these editions will get more detail oriented. If you are enjoying the Parent Digital Duo, please consider sharing or commenting.
Thanks for reading and keep an eye out for the next edition!
-P.F.
