My Top 5 Must Have Baby Products

When I started making my baby registry with my first child I was instantly overwhelmed with the amount of baby products on the market. It’s so easy to fall for all the marketing tactics and thinking you need the best and newest things, but that’s not always the case. With my first kids I registered for every gizmo and gadget there was and soon realized that I didn’t need half of it. By the time I had my second kid I knew what I needed and what I didn’t. 

There are so many great products that I could go on for days but I will keep this short and sweet with just the top 5 baby products I own that I couldn’t live without.

Sound Machine

The first baby product I couldn’t live without is a sound machine. Get them, get them all! I specifically use the Skip Hop brand sound machine but there are so many great ones for every budget. I have one for both kids rooms, portable ones for the car seats and strollers, ones for the grandparents houses, I have sound machines everywhere. Getting your babies desensitized to sound early on is so important for their sleep. When babies are in the womb they are hearing the loud whooshing of the mothers blood circulating and her heart beating, so it is soothing for them to have similar sounds once they are born. One of the worst things you can do for yourself and your baby is to think that it needs to be quiet for them to sleep. If you do this then you won’t be able to live life while your baby sleeps. Because I have desensitized by kids to loud sounds while they are sleeping I can now vacuum their rooms while they sleep, they can sleep while we are out and about, and they don’t wake up when there are loud noises around. I don’t have to tiptoe around them while they sleep, I can continue life as normal.

Owlet Dream Sock

The second baby product I would highly recommend is the Owlet Dream Sock. It is a wearable baby monitor that tracks your babies heart rate, oxygen level, and sleep patterns while they sleep. They are a little on the pricey side but I promise they are 100% worth it. 

As a first time mom I had so much anxiety wondering if my baby was breathing in the middle of the night that I couldn’t sleep. Not that I would’ve gotten much sleep those first few weeks anyways, but once I bit the bullet and bought one I was actually able to relax knowing that I had something monitoring them at all times and that I would be alerted if something was wrong. Luckily we never had anything go wrong to make the alarms go off but I had  peace of mind knowing that if something did happen in the middle of the night I would know. 

Nasal Aspirator 

The third (and grossest) baby product I couldn’t live without is the Nose Frida Snotsucker. It is exactly what it sounds like, it is a nasal aspirator that allows you to suck on a tube using your mouth and you literally suck the snot out of your baby’s nose. I was absolutely terrified to use it for the first time but there are safeguards put in place to eliminate the possibility of you getting snot anywhere near your mouth. You are probably used to seeing the typical bulb aspirators like the ones they use in the hospital when the babies are first born but you will quickly learn they don’t have near enough suction to actually do a good job at clearing out congestion. The Nose Frida is a quick, easy, and effective way to clear out your babies congestion, I highly recommend it. 

Pack ‘n Play

The fourth baby product I recommend is a pack ‘n play. This is a product that can be used from birth all the way through toddlerhood. I have three of them and they are all well loved. There are many different styles of pack ‘n plays but they one I like the most is the Graco Pack ‘n Play Care Suite Playard.

 I like this one the most because  that allows you to get the most use out of it is the kind that has the bassinet and changing pad attachments. This design allows you to use it as a bassinet while your baby is a newborn and the changing pad attachment is convenient to have right next to the bassinet for quick diaper changes. Then once your baby outgrown the bassinet you can remove that attachment and use it as a crib or playpen that is easy to take anywhere with you. 

Sleepsack

The fifth product I recommend is a sleepsack. A sleep sack is a wearable blanket for babies since it’s not safe for babies to sleep with loose blankets or any other items in their cribs until at least after their first birthday if not longer. There are so many brands and designs that I could make a whole other post just about that but for the sake of time I will just talk about the best newborn sleep sacks I used. I loved the Love to Dream brand of sleep sacks when my babies were newborns.

They have a transitional design that can be worn with the baby’s arms swaddled in as well as with their arms out. The main reason I loved this brand of sleepsack is the fact that it had tightened fabric in the midsection of the baby’s stomach area to give a slight pressure or swaddled feeling to help them sleep better. I also liked the position it allowed the babies to keep their arms in. Instead of them being swaddled with them tightly down by their sides, they had their arms out to the sides of their head and could still move them but they were secure enough that their Moro reflex wouldn’t startle them. 

Do you have some other baby products that are on your must have list? I would love to hear about them in the comments!