First Month Baby Products I Loved

I always thought posts about must have baby products were very helpful so I figured I would share some of my own experience with baby products here.  When I was pregnant, looking up baby stuff was SO overwhelming.  I told my husband it was like preparing to send an alien to summer camp, but really, you work with what you have and hopefully won't have to run out to the store too many times.

I'm going to do one post for baby supplies, one post for baby clothing/bedding, and one post for Mom and Dad stuff.  Stay tuned!

For our first month with Benjamin, I am grateful we had the following gear for the baby:

Benjamin at one week old

1. The Wubbanub - Our hospital is "breastfeeding friendly" and thus does not provide pacifiers to newborns.  Knowing this in advance and having a general knowledge of a baby's need to suck, I planned on packing some pacifiers in the diaper bag.  Then I went into labor before I packed the diaper bag.  My husband ran home the first night to grab some stuff and I told him to find a pacifier.  I had several regular Soothies and MAMs ready to go but he couldn't find them and grabbed the Wubbanub we had received as a gift.  And thus a love affair began.

Anytime we took Benjamin out in the car seat we made sure to have his pal the monkey with us in case he started to fuss.  He didn't really want it any other time but I think the monkey helped calm him when he's strapped into his seat.  As time went on we discovered that sucking on the Wubbanub also helped him fall asleep.  I'm sure a regular Soothie would work too, but the Wubbanub adds weight in the form of a stuffed animal to the pacifier so it doesn't fall out as easily.  Usually he falls asleep and spits it out so I go and move it down by his legs.

Benjamin at one month old

On the fourth of July we went to see the fireworks and lost the monkey and I was inconsolable.  My husband ran out to the store to replace it, only to find that there were no monkeys at the store.  Enter our new friend, the kitty.  I still missed the monkey, however, so I bought one off Amazon.  So new mom trick is to make sure you have two of everything you are attached to.  Not that your baby knows the difference between a monkey and a kitty because he's a baby, but it's amazing how sentimental you get about these things.  Monkey came back from vacation via our friend Amazon Prime free shipping.  Benjamin has started to hold onto it and it's too cute.  I die.

Apparently the pacifier is only designed for babies up to six months and I'm sad in advance of that day coming.  And, yes, my baby is improperly secured in his car seat in the picture to the left but we didn't go anywhere in the car that day so nobody panic.

PSA; Remove blankets after snapping photo

2. The Rock and Play -  I had heard a lot about the Rock and Play while I was pregnant. Some people swear by it.  Then there was a recall and people freaked out!  Then others resisted it because they said babies need to get used to not sleeping on an incline.  I thought I was in the last camp but put a Rock and Play on my registry just because.  And, we love it like woah.  Benjamin can sleep anywhere.  We are lucky that he can fall asleep in his swing, bassinet, car seat, etc. but we get the longest and best stretch of sleep when he is in his Rock and Play. It is also very easily portable so in the early days when we had to be in the same room as him all the time we could just carry it wherever we went.  We've also brought it when we've stayed with family because it's easy to take apart and throw in the car.  My sister's monster baby slept in his for 5 months so I'm hoping to get until month 6 with the Rock and Play being our primary sleeping device (we don't own a crib at the moment).

3. The Sleep Giraffe - Similar to the Sleep Sheep, a baby product that also has mixed reviews, we love our Sleep Giraffe.  This morning, in fact, turning on the Sleep Giraffe lulled Benjamin back to sleep when he was thinking about waking up and I got an additional half hour of sleep out of him.  Priceless.  We're also hoping to use it in our monthly photos to compare its size with Benjamin's size since it fits our jungle theme.

4. Wipe Warmer - I know, I know.  I thought wipes warmers were dumb until I had a baby who screamed whenever a cold wet wipe touched his butt.  It was so night and day after we got this warmer as a gift that we went out and bought a second one for our other changing area.

5. Vinyl changing pad - I spent a long amount of time selecting the cutest cover to go with my regular changing pad...and then I had a baby who made a bowel movement during every diaper change.  We went through a packet of the disposable changing pad covers every other day until my husband went out and bought this vinyl pad instead.  Now the bowel movements have eased up but we don't dare change a poopy diaper on a fabric changing pad anymore.  Ain't nobody got time to do all that laundry.  The vinyl you can just wash off!  Genius. 

The toy bar sort of sucks just FYI but maybe when he's older he'll be more interested in it.

Everything else (minus the car seat) I could have probably lived without our first month home.