10 Baby Registry Must Haves

I originally was going to write this post last summer. In fact, it’s been saved as a draft since June 2020. I think now that I’ve been a mom for almost 9 months I have a much better idea of what we really used daily and what we didn’t. I’ll be honest, we definitely had way too many baby things. If I had it to do again I would definite minimize the amount. I’m sharing the 10 most essential things we’ve used that you should consider adding to your own baby registry!

  1. Boppy Lounger

This is an absolute must have for me. I cannot believe how much we used and still use it to this day! Essential it’s just a specially designed pillow for babies. They start at about $32 and go up to $44 for some of the special prints on Pottery Barn. We have the grey preferred one and it’s great because it’s neutral and doesn’t show dirt as much. You can throw the entire thing in the washing machine and let it dry. It’s not approved for sleeping but if he dozed off on it while I was next to him I allowed him to continue sleeping since I was supervising. Otherwise it’s just a great safe spot to rest them when you need a hands free moment. Do not ever set it on any elevated surfaces even when baby is brand new. Newborns are stronger than you think!

2. Burp Cloths

I vastly underestimated how many of these you use the first few months. I also tried to use the “cute” ones. I have some from Milkbarn and they don’t absorb hardly anything. Get the plain white old school ones from Amazon. I recommend 2 packs and keeping them everywhere in the house!

3. Pajamas

You will live in pajamas especially the first month or so. Zip pajamas or gowns are my recommendation! We personally loved gowns for nighttime sleep. You just whip it up, change the diaper and back down. We did zipper or magnetic pajamas during the day. Do not ever get the snaps. Just trust me. Some brands I like are: Magnetic Me, Milkbarn, Kissy Kissy, Magnolia Baby, and Little Sleepies. They’re all great quality and last through countless washes. They are definitely more expensive than most but I would rather have fewer pajamas and do more laundry. I’m a do laundry everyday person so it wasn’t an issue. If you don’t like doing laundry as much you probably will want more pajamas. I think 5-7 in their size is a good number. We were probably changing 1-2 times a day depending and then a night pair. For more affordable options on pajamas I like: Cloud Island from Target and Burt Bee’s because they both have cute prints and zip up.

4. A Way to Feed Baby

You’ll have to choose what you want to do whether it’s nursing or formula or a combination. We chose formula only so we made sure to have bottles, nipples, and formula before. I wouldn’t buy any formula though because we ended up switching week one but I was able to donate it. The hospital gives you formula bottles as well to take home. We also have the Baby Breeze Formula Pro which I’ve spoken fondly of and is still a real MVP for us but it’s definitely not a must. You can mix a bottle by hand with water! We also have a sterilizer but it’s not essential either. You can wash bottles by hand but it just adds an extra layer of cleanliness.

5. Monitor

You can go old school and get a sound only monitor for around $20 or get a video monitor. Technically this isn’t a must have but it does allow you to let your child sleep without you being in the room with them. I really like the Lollipop Camera since it can be used anywhere. It has a grip that you can mold onto anything so you can move it around your home or take it with you anywhere. It also has a user friendly app that can be accessed from your phone or tablet!

6. Diaper bag

You don’t necessarily have to get a diaper bag but you need to set up a bag with baby essentials. Namely, diapers, wipes, a change of clothes, burp cloths, pacifier, swaddle. I love my Freshly Picked backpack so much. You truly can use a bag you already have if you like! You’ll be the one carrying it so do what you want.

7. Sound machine

It’s not something you have to have but having it is very convenient. Especially once they start going to bed before you. We like our Hatch because you can even control it from your phone. There are also sound machines as low as $10 on Amazon. My husband literally was hammering a drawer in the other night and Turner never woke up. Thank you, Hatch!

8. Car seat

You must have one to leave the hospital and they will check it! Make sure if you get a used one that it’s newer than 7 years old because that’s when they expire. The date is often on the bottom. We love our Nuna Pipa Lite but it’s definitely more expensive than a lot of them. $50 is the lowest I have found for newborn car seat. You want them safe though so it’s worth it.

9. Kick ‘n’ Play Piano

It’s probably the ugliest baby item of all time but it’s perfect for tummy time! Babies love all the colors to look at. Turner would lay under the hanging toys in awe! He still uses it now at almost 9 months and the piano comes off for them to play with when they’re older.

10. Somewhere for baby to sleep

This is totally up to you! It can be a bassinet, pack n play, or crib. A lot of parents like to have baby in their own room at first and the AAP actually recommends it. We did it for 5 weeks and if we were to do it over I would’ve moved him to his nursery the first week. I slept so much better when I couldn’t hear his every move. We used the SNOO Bassinet the first 5.5 months but it’s definitely not necessary. As long as baby has a safe place to sleep you are good to go!

What’s the one thing from your registry you couldn’t have lived without? Let me know below in the comments!

My Honest Review of the SNOO Bassinet

We are officially a SNOO graduate as of this weekend. We started sleeping in the crib at night for good! Since the SNOO Bassinet is a newer product and technology I wanted to write an honest review about our experience with it. [I have zero affiliation with Happiest Baby – the creator of the SNOO. All of these opinions are my own as a first time mom!]

What in the world is a SNOO?

I got this question a lot. It’s still not widely known in the parenting world even though it was been around for a few years now! I heard of it before I was even pregnant and knew it would probably be what we chose for a bassinet for a baby. In short it is a WiFi enabled smart bassinet that mimics the sounds and movements of the womb. It is supposed to help the baby transition into the fourth trimester! (If you don’t know what that is Google it. It’s a thing.) If it your baby is upset and needs to be soothed the bassinet will use the sound and movement to help do that. It has a special swaddle sleep sack that clips in on either side of the bassinet that you place the baby in to keep them safe. It has an app that connects to it where you can view sleep logs and level the motion and noise up manually if you choose. It was also created by the Dr. Harvey Karp who wrote The Happiest Baby on the Block book which covers helping your newborn sleep more efficiently.

Why did you choose the SNOO?

We thought as first time parents that it would be helpful to have an extra set of hands. We also really liked the safety aspect of it. Additionally, anything that will help you get more sleep in those first few months with a newborn is priceless so we thought it couldn’t hurt!

Is the SNOO difficult to use?

Not at all. Truly anyone could use it. It only took minutes to put together. It was easy to set up and connect to Wi-Fi. It’s also easy to put baby in and and tak out of. The app is very simple and user-friendly as well. You can have the app on as many devices as you like so you and your partner can both have it on your phone as well as an iPad or any other device you would like. If you do run into any issues they have a number you can call or you can email them whether they’ll help you troubleshoot.

Did you feel safe allowing your newborn to have that much motion?

[Disclaimer the pillow pictured in the snow with Turner is not recommended by happiest baby. In fact they recommend that nothing is in the bassinet with the baby other than the baby itself and the swaddle. We chose to use this in order to help combat flat head and the loss of hair on the back of his head but it didn’t work. We quit using it after a couple of months. I probably wouldn’t use it with another child because it was just a waste as well as it’s technically not safe sleep practice.]

Honestly at first, no. They are swaddled with a Velcro band and zipped into their sleep sack so they are in there very safely. The first time that you see this new level up to help soothe the baby it is a little surprising. They don’t have much neck control at first so it looks like it’s moving a lot more than it really is. You can turn motion limiter on at any time which just means that it will not go over level two when soothing your child. We actually turned the motion limiter on for the first month and then turned it off until month three. At month three we found that he was getting much more upset when it would go to level 3 and 4 and could not be consoled and we would have to intervene. He was still responding well to levels one and two though so we just put the motion limit her on so it wouldn’t go up any farther. You also have the option to completely lock it on baseline so it won’t level up at all but I personally don’t see the point in doing that since the point is for the bassinet to help with the soothing process!

Did the SNOO make you feel like you were a lazy parent? 

Not at all. I really thought it would but you still do have to get up to feed and change them and sometimes even soothe them when the SNOO can’t. It just gave us an extra set of hands that could try to soothe him before we had to step in. It’s certainly no miracle worker which I didn’t expect it to be. If your baby cannot be soothed by the motion and sound of this new within a few minutes it will completely shut off and alert you to go to them. You can feel confident that you’re not neglecting your baby because it’s going to let you know if they really need you.


Do you feel like the SNOO really made your baby sleep better?

This is such a loaded question because I really do feel like it is somewhat dependent on how well the baby naturally sleeps. For Turner we have only had to intervene once when putting him down for the night and he’s 5.5 months old now. It’s obvious to me that his drive for going to sleep is very high and it comes easily to him. The first two weeks he was sleeping three hours and we would have to wake him so he could eat. Once we were given the go ahead to stop waking him to eat at two weeks he started sleeping 4 to 5 hour stretches before his first wake up of the night. This is much longer than the average baby this age sleeps at a time! The wake ups typically were 10 minutes or less where he would get changed and have a bottle, burped and back down. At about two months he started sleeping six hours but still doing 1 to 2 wake ups during the night to eat. He gradually pushed his wake up time each night a little further and tell there was only one wake up for a bottle. At four months he slept fully through the night for the first time randomly and then started doing it consistently a few days later. Typically about 12 hours give or take about 30 minutes. This is still what he is doing even having moved to the crib. Overall I do believe that Turner is naturally a good sleeper and I don’t have any other experience with other bassinets to compare it to since he’s my first child. Do do think this new helped especially at first when he was brand new but I do think his sleeping has been a combination of just his natural sleeping temperament and then also the snoo.

Do you have anything that you regret about the SNOO?

I only have two things because I went into it with super low expectations for sleep because I knew it wasn’t going to be a miracle worker and I knew that he was a baby. The first thing that I regret is not moving him out of our room sooner. Happiest baby and the AAP recommend rooming in otherwise known as keeping the baby in a bassinet in the parents room for the first six months. Turner was a very loud newborn sleeper and was waking me up literally all night. I was getting very little sleep and we even had our hatch sound machine on. At five weeks we decided to move him to his own room since we have the outlet sock and camera. The only other regret that I have is not allowing the SNOO to do it’s thing. What I mean by that is a lot of times I would go to him because it was quicker and easier to soothe him before I really let this new intervene in level up to try to soothe him. Sometime after three months I started allowing it to work first for a few minutes before I would step in and it made a world of difference. He quickly started sleeping longer and needing less motion to soothe him and less often.

Did you do all naps in this new like happiest baby suggests?

We tried to at first. They suggest doing all sleep in the snow exclusively until they transition to the crib full-time. For the first month to probably six weeks I tried all day every day to get him to nap in the snow and he would only sleep for about 20 minutes. Finally I gave up and started allowing him to take swing naps or in a carrier etc. basically anywhere where I could supervise him sleeping to make sure he was safe. At a little before three months I moved him to the crib in a Magic Merlin suit for naps. He has done all of his naps in there since then. Recently we moved him to a Kyte baby sleep sack during naps. I know they say that it doesn’t matter but I do believe that having him nap in the crib for that long has helped our transition be a lot easier. As a parent you just have to do what works for you because sometimes it doesn’t matter where they’re getting the nap as long as they’re getting it!


Were you worried about the transition from the SNOO to the crib?

This was like my biggest source of anxiety even though I had read everywhere that the transition is basically seamless and babies don’t have a problem with it. I literally put off transitioning him from this new to the crib for a month and a half. Truthfully, the only reason we finally transitioned him is because he’s in the 99th percentile for height and he was running out of room. The transition so far couldn’t have been smoother. I literally stressed over nothing. 

Does the SNOO sleep train your child?

It does not. Sleep training is essentially helping babies learn tools to help put themselves to sleep or back to sleep when they wake up throughout the night. Turner is not sleep trained as of yet because you can’t begin the process until they are out of the SNOO since the bassinet itself is referred to as a sleep prop! (Something that helps baby fall asleep. Swaddle, pacifier etc are also props.) At this time we will wait until we need to sleep train him since at this time his nighttime sleep is good. Now, naps are a different story for another day!


Is this new really worth the price?

It’s definitely pricey. Currently the price for a brand new SNOO to purchase is $1395. You can also rent it by the month for $129 which for how long we used it would’ve came out to $774 which is still cheaper than purchasing it. We were very blessed to have been able to borrow it from my brother and sister-in-law who had my nephew six months earlier. I’m confident however that we would’ve chosen most likely to rent it anyway if we hadn’t had this opportunity. We really don’t have anywhere to store the SNOO when it’s not in use plus we’re not planning on adding to our family for a couple of years so purchasing really wouldn’t make sense for us. The resell value for the SNOO is extremely high as you can pretty much resell it and get all of your money back if you decided to do that. Overall, I do think for the safety aspect and first time parents it’s worth it. Is it a must have for all parents and babies? Absolutely not! Your baby will be just fine in a regular bassinet or pack and play to sleep their first few months. It’s definitely a splurge item that will make having a baby a little bit easier and I definitely would choose it again for a baby in the future.

I’m thinking about doing an in depth post about our journey with the SNOO plus the transition, would you guys be interested in that? Let me know below!

Love,

Megan