I’ve had a couple of people ask me recently what my favorite baby products are as well as any advice that I have since I am a first time mom (FTM). I try not to be that person who gives unwanted pregnancy advice..but I just have so much to say!! I’ve thought long and hard about it and this is what I have come up with! (These are in no particular order, but the one with a * next to them are ones that I think you absolutely need to have have.) This could be a long post—so bear with me!
*Nose Frida: This one I recommend 10/10! When I was pregnant and doing my research, this product had 5,000 reviews with like 4.8 stars. WHAT?! When I first starting thinking about writing this blog, I looked up the reviews again. Never in my life have I seen a product with 4.5 stars out 9,447 reviews. NINE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND FORTY SEVEN. Y’all, that’s a big number.
If you haven’t heard about the Nose Frida you are missing out. I know you are opening another tab and searching it now, but just let me explain. I know it looks GROSS. But I promise you, it is not. Yes, you are TECHNICALLY sucking your baby’s boogers from their noses. Yes, there is a filter. Are you gagging yet? Don’t! I swear on my child’s life that this is one of the best products ever. When T was 2 months old he had a pretty gnarly cold. We couldn’t lay him flat on his bed because he would just have snot draining down his throat and then he’d cough and choke. I would put this beautiful product in his little nose and just suck in. I seriously got SO MUCH SNOT out of his little nose! Not ONCE was there so much snot that it even got remotely close to reaching the FILTER. Once I was done, I would take it apart and run hot soapy water through it and SHAZAM! Clean. My dad refuses to use this. Devin only will if T’s life depends on it. (My dad is an old fashioned bulb kind of guy.) If you do not have this—BUY. IT. NOW. You may feel like your sucking your child’s brain through his nose, but it is 100% safe. Read the reviews too. I couldn’t believe how many lives this little sucker has saved. (See what I did there? Haha!)
9,447 reviews came from here on Amazon on 03/06/2019.
*Gripe Water: When Tanner was almost a month old he got colic. His tummy would get upset and he would just cry and cry and CRY! Talk about breaking a mama’s heart! My little sister (who is now pregnant with T’s baby cousin! Woohoo!) recommended that I look into gripe water. Man, oh man! Am I glad I bought this stuff! Gripe water is used to treat hiccups, colic, general fussiness etc.. We lived off of this stuff for probably 5-6 weeks. In fact, he was super fussy at work last week and I had absolutely no idea what was wrong with him. I gave him some gripe water and he stopped fussing! Tanner has always had the hiccups too. When I was pregnant, every day between 10 AM and 2 PM I could feel him hiccupping. Whenever he gets the hiccups, if I can’t get them to go away after a while on their own, I give him gripe water and they’re gone within 5 minutes.
Usually I try to be a frugal human being when I shop. I never have to have the name brand stuff, and I’m fine with store brand. Since I shop at Walmart, their store brand name for baby items is Parents Choice. Normally when I buy medicine for him or usually any other products, I always buy PC. (Except for diapers! I like Smith’s Comfort brand the best.) Gripe water however I prefer name brand. This sucks for me because the Parents Choice is like $3.00 cheaper!! BUT I have found that the Mommy Bliss brand works much better, making the extra $3.00 totally worth it. (They have nighttime gripe water—I have personally never tried it.)
Baby Swing: I should put a * by this one, however I realize that not every baby enjoys swings. Thankfully for me, mine loves swings!! The reason that I am putting a swing on this list is because for the first 4 weeks, Tanner slept in his little swing. (GASP! I know. It’s bad. It’s controversial. Blah blah blah.) My baby slept and it was wonderful. (Now granted, he did not sleep A TON but remember…he was a newborn!) But I felt like he was safest sleeping in his swing which allowed ME to sleep. It worked for us. Tanner has tried 3 different swings and he has liked them all! My grandma Bonnie and lovely aunts bought me my swing for my baby shower. It works great. I even put him in it the other day while I did my batches of baby food and he just sat there and sucked his fingers! I have one at work that is just like the one that my mom has at her house. Love it! He sleeps in it while he’s at work with me when its nap time. I can throw a blanket safely over the top of it to make it darker and he’ll snooze for a couple of hours. Devin’s parents have a bigger one that is a little deeper. When Tanner had his big cold, they brought it over and he slept in it right next to me. I would definitely recommend buying one. If your baby doesn’t like it, that’s okay! Sell it or save it for your next one. :)
White noise machine: I didn’t buy a big white noise toy. In fact, I really didn’t start using anything like that until a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that Tanner loved his mobile that he got from Santa that hangs above his crib. Since he still sleeps in our room in his pack ‘n play, I couldn’t transfer the mobile. When we found out that we were pregnant, my mom bought me this cute little buggie-take-along toy from Walmart. It has an ocean/white noise button on it – works great! I’ve been using it at night time when I put him to bed. It’s quite soothing for me and Devin too! This is the one that I have.
*Humidifier: I feel like every family should have one of these, regardless if you have a newborn. Are they a plus when you have a newborn? ABSOLUTELY! When Tanner got sick, this really helped him not be stuffy. Especially at night time! I have a cool mist one which is fantastic. It’s in the baby section at Walmart. They have blue or pink. Because it’s a cool mist one, I can add essential oils if needed. I add lavender oil at night if I feel like it’s going to be a rough one. I’ll also add doTerra’s BREATHE oil when one of us has a cold. This is the exact one we have.
Regular/old fashioned swaddle blanket: I wanted so badly to be one of those mama’s that used a sleep sack or dream sack—heck I would have been fine with a potato sack! That just wasn’t in our cards. I bought numerous kinds of sleeping sacks/swaddles to try and help Tanner sleep through the night. HE HATES THEM. If you read my blog, you know that I’ve said that old fashioned is just best sometimes. I believe this to be true with swaddling my kiddo. I know there are moms who just swear by these sacks. Maybe I’m an idiot and I just don’t know how to work them. I would much rather swaddle T the old fashioned way than use one of those sleep sacks that have the Velcro crap that wakes him up every time you open it or if he adjusts the wrong way. (If your one of those mama’s that love them..GOOD FOR YOU!! I wish Tanner would use them.) He still enjoys being swaddled, so why mess with perfection? And not to toot my own horn—but I can make a mean baby burrito.
*Sleep gowns: If you have a tiny new baby and don’t have any of these, ORDER THEM NOW. I got hand-me-downs from my Aunt Kendra and Aunt Brandy. I don’t remember who had them, but somewhere in all those great clothes I came upon sleep gowns. It is literally like a night gown that has elastic at the bottom. When you are waking up every 1 ½ - 2 hours to feed a baby and then turn around and change them probably 2 times since said feeding—THESE ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS. No zippers. No buttons. No mess. Just slide the gown up their back, change those cute little bums and pull it back down. Since T was born in October, I kept socks on him and the gown and he was just fine temperature wise.
*Lay down toy: I know some baby’s only want to be held, but when you’re about to pee your pants and you feel bad for just leaving them in the middle of the floor, just put them under a lay under toy. (It makes you feel less guilty.) My recommendation for a laydown toy is this: Buy one that makes noise AND has lights! The toy that stays at our house doesn’t make any noise and doesn’t have any lights on it. Thankfully, I have a vain little child and he loves to look in the mirror. The lay down toy I have has a mirror so he can look up at himself. It’s the cutest dang thing I have ever seen in my life. My mom has one that lights up and sings songs. He’ll lay under it for hours. LaDawn’s toy is pretty cute in the fact that it makes noise and if you turn the lights off, it puts stars on the ceiling!
Gas drops: I actually quite like having gas drops on hand. If for some reason the gripe water wasn’t really helping when he was fussy, I would give him some gas drops. The brand I have (I believe it’s this one) is the best tasting thing I’ve given T too!
*Heating pad/rice bag: Again with the colic.. Tanner had a really bad episode one night. Devin’s parents came over to see if they could help calm him down so I could sleep for a little bit. When I woke up, they were gone. Devin was asleep on the floor and Tanner was asleep in the swing with a heating pad on his tummy. (GASP AGAIN! Don’t worry—he’s fine. Doc is fine with it. EVERYTHING IS FINE.) That heating pad was our life saver that night. We had it on the LOWEST setting possible and it was on a timer so it wouldn’t hurt him. To be honest, at first I was a little iffy about using the heating pad. I didn’t want to burn him. I had a rice bag, but it was adult size and a little heavy to be on T’s tummy. My mom made him a little Tanner sized rice bag. It has been great for him! Sometimes if I can tell his tummy is really hurting, (especially during naps!) I will swaddle the rice bag with him. Also nice to keep on hand for mom and dad!
*Stroller with bike tires: There are a million different options when you are trying to buy a stroller. For my baby shower Jedd, LaDawn and Derik bought us our car seat/stroller combo. (After our car accident, I will ALWAYS recommend BABY TREND!) I got the Baby Trend Expedition Travel System. I loved the reviews and I loved the bike tires! The strollers with the two little plastic tires just weren’t appealing to me. I can remember pushing my siblings in some of the strollers my parents had (before bike tires) and you’d go over a rock or a bump and almost dump the kid on their face. The bike tires are so much smoother! We are walkers too. No, not the zombie walkers—go on a nice walk in the spring/summer/fall kind of walkers! We have absolutely loved our stroller. (The carrying car seat clips into it, but since my child is a chunky monkey he’s now in a convertible car seat. We’ll have to see how he does in the stroller without the carrying car seat.)
*Diaper pail sacks: I do not have a diaper pail. Ok, well I do, but only at work. I don’t want to run to the dumpster every time Tanner has a messy diaper. Anyways—I don’t buy the name brand Diaper Genie or whatever else is out there. I buy my diaper pail sacks from Walmart. They’re Munchkin brand and these are the ones I get. They are supposed to fit any brand of diaper pail, but I’ve just decided that if I put the bag itself on the side of his dresser, no one sees it OR smells it! I will stuff this bag TO THE BRIM. It does not leak any smells at all. Of course, when you open it to put a new diaper in it, you may gag…but I could carry it around the house with no smells whatsoever. I would absolutely recommend these! I personally did not want to have to run outside every time Tanner had a messy diaper (especially poopy!) since he’s a winter baby. No way, Jose!
*Baby Monitor: Now, you don’t need to rush to the store the minute you have a baby and get a monitor. I didn’t use one for 2 months. I had a lot of people give me their opinion on video monitors. I wanted to be able to see him. Everyone that recommended a video monitor to me was recommending these monitors that were hundreds of dollars! Devin had a coworker who showed him his monitor. It is called the Wyze Cam. This is a product I always recommend to parents as well. It is $25.00 on Amazon. No monthly fee. It has two way communication and night vision. It just uses your wifi and all you have to do is download their app. Devin was going to surprise me for Christmas, but I was being a nagging wife and so he surprised me early. I literally love it! Find it here.
I will try and make this much shorter. Right now I really only have about 4 topics of advice to share.
1: DO. NOT. MOMMY. SHAME. Ugh. I hate that sooo bad! If someone decides to bottle feed instead of breastfeed—THAT’S OKAY. A fed baby is best. If someone uses cloth diapers instead of disposable – Bless that mama and keep your opinion to yourself! Co-sleeping or independently sleeping? Doesn’t matter what you think. They are trying to do what is best for THEIR baby. Not your baby. I bottle feed my baby and it made me so mad when people look at me and say “your baby is missing out on all those nutrients from you!” The heck he is! Have you seen my baby? He is 4 months old and weights 18.9 lbs. I would say he’s doing just fine. Somedays T will sleep the entire night by himself. Other nights, he needs his mama and he sleeps with me and D. I have no shame in that. My baby is happy, and you can tell that he already knows how loved he is. Please do not mommy shame.
2: Follow your gut. You’re mama (and daddy!) instincts are there. You will be surprised at how natural everything comes to you. If you feel like you should be doing something, do it. No shame at all.
3: When starting your baby on solid food, start them on their vegetables! My mama taught me that. If you start them with fruits, of course they are going to love the sweetness. Starting with veggies first will hopefully get them to eat them and get them used to them. Sweet T loves his peas!
4: I read on these pregnancy/mom apps about how much people hate their mother/father or their mother in law/father in law. WHAT?! I read about how they wouldn’t trust their child to them with a 10-foot poll, just because they don’t like them. Don’t be like that. If it is for the safety of your child to not be in contact with someone in the family, I get that. I really do. But don’t deprive your child of seeing either grandparent just because you don’t like them. Obviously they raised you or your spouse and they turned out alright. (I am assuming? I think D and I turned out okay! LOL!) They are going to give you advice. It’s what mothers do. (and what I am currently doing..haha) If it’s not something you like, just nod your head and move on. If they are doing something with your child that you don’t like, stand up for yourself and your child and say something about it. A decent human being will respect you and your choices as your child’s mother/father. Families are the best thing in this entire world. They are not kidding when they say it takes a village to raise a child. It is not a joke. (BTW—when people say “they say” or “when they say”..who is “they”??)
I hope you take this information and use it to make the best decision for YOU and YOUR family. These are what works for my family. They may not work for yours and that's okay!
