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The Only Baby Gear I Really Needed

I bought mountains of supplies, but really only ended up loving a handful of things.

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One of the most intimidating things about new motherhood that didn’t actually need to be intimidating was what stuff to get. I spiraled so hard about which stroller to buy, which car seat to get (in New York we only have enough space for one of each thing—some of my friends in other cities have multiple strollers for multiple scenarios).

Given that space is so limited here, I didn’t want to buy (or register for) a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t need or that didn’t work. Of course, I did anyway, and I’ve ended up giving away a lot of things that just didn’t work for us but hopefully would for another family.

However, there are a few things I’ve loved and feel like I kind of couldn’t survive the “fourth trimester” without.

One last piece of advice: Have diapers, wipes, formula (you never know if you’ll be able to breastfeed until you try it), and bottles on hand at least one month before your due date. Ellis was three weeks early, and we had NONE of those things, making the first night home quite stressful.

1/8
The Snoo: OK, yes, this is an insanely expensive bassinet, but it really, really helped Ellis sleep longer stretches, thus allowing me to sleep longer stretches, thereby saving my marriage. It has a gentle rocking motion and produces white noise, but also responds to Ellis’ fussing to help soothe him. It gradually escalates the rocking motion and the noise to calm him, and if in the end he won’t calm down, it sends an alert to your phone that you need to attend to your kid. However, if you can sleep through that level of meltdown, I’m not sure an alert to your phone would do much good.
It’s genius, and really, truly worked for us. Also! If you do buy it and your kid hates it, or it doesn’t improve their sleep, you can get a complete refund for 30 days after it was delivered. Plus, it’s beautiful.
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