6: Register

I got started on my registry the day of our first prenatal appointment. My husband and I headed over to Babies R Us, signed up, and started scanning.  The woman who signed us up advised us to put as much on the registry as possible from big items to little items. She also told us to put older aged items on the list such as diapers and strollers and activity centers. They have a pretty sufficient checklist they provide for you when you register. We also registered with amazon.com. I figured that since we live at least 45 min from any Babies R Us or Buy Buy Baby, I could register for a massive online store such as Amazon.  Even without getting everything on the registry, I loved having a list of the remaining items that I could get later down the road. Here are some of my favorites that I would recommend for your list:

For the hiney:

1. Wipes warmer: a definite plus, especially for winter time. Goes wherever I'm changing the baby in the house. If you don't want to tote it up and down the stairs, like I do, get one for each changing station.

2. Diapers if you want name brand, UPDATE 06 Mar 2013: up&up Diapers  if you want great value at great price: choose from every size

3. Wipes

4. Desitin

5. Diaper Pail: With refillable cartridges or With regular garbage bags I have the diaper champ.  The smell does get through when you open it, but not when closed. I like it because the refills are cheap, regular garbage bags.  I also have a small simple foot pedal garbage can that I recycle grocery bags with.  I have a pail for each changing station, one upstairs, one downstairs.

For downstairs or your bedroom:

1. Playard with changing table: keep this downstairs where we mostly hang out. I liked this one because I could use it for a boy or girl.  Now that she's getting older, I may use this next to my bed if she grows out of her bassinet.  I plan on having her in my room till 6 months.  Of course, can also be used for traveling. 
2. Swing: Good for boys or girls. 

For the dining area:

1. High chair: matches the playard, unisex

2. Bouncer or Rocker: great to use in kitchen, dining room, wherever. Easy to move, easy to strap in.  The Rocker converts to a toddler rocker which means more bang for your buck!

3. Booster seat convertible: Love it because it grows with your child.

For master bedroom:

1. Bassinet with changing table: I have this next to my bed for easy quick check and changing.

For the car:

1. Travel system: So far, I love this one. One of the reviews mentioned that the back of the carseat doesn't click into the base (rebounding or cocooning), which is true, and the reviewer felt it was not safe. But, when I had a police officer inspect my installation, he said they are making them that way for safety to prevent the carseat and baby from getting compressed, that it will move out of the way during impact.  Please see the following for more info: carseatsite   CPSafety 

2. Umbrella stroller: for quick go-to for get-in-and-out trips and for maneuvering in tight shops.

3. Convertible car seat: one and done.  Neutral color and grows with child from infant, up.

4. Car mirrors: for each car

5. Back seat organizer: for each car.  Great for backup diapers, wipes, receiving blankets.

6. Car seat cover and rain cover

7. Car seat play bar

8. Travel boppy pillow

9. Travel bassinet

10. Diaper bag for you and maybe one for daddy.

11. Portable bottle warmer

12. Portable wipes warmer

13. Changing pad: one that could suffice without diaper bag. For quick grab n go.

14. Hand disinfectant wipes: Great for cleaning your hands, stroller, changing stations...

15. Pacifier wipes

16. Boogie wipes

For outside:

1. Jogging stroller if you're a runner...
2. Stroller Rain Cover

For soothing:

1. Binkie holder

2. Scented binkies: loved the hospitals vanilla scented ones

3. Instrumental lullaby cd: for your bedroom

4. Lullaby cd: for her bedroom.  I also really like this one by Jewel 

For the nursery:

1. Two mobiles: one for crib and one for changing table 

2. Crib toy

3. Crib bedding set

4. Convertible crib with conversion kit: I have a friend who started with a convertible crib but later, as her daughter grew, didn't get the conversion kit and bought a new bed. Go ahead and get it and store under bed to make it easy on yourself and to save money. Besides, are you going to remember the exact brand to get the kit if you lose the owners manual?

5. Dresser style changing table: will grow with her

6. Changing pad

7. Changing pad covers

8. Night stand

9. Lamp

10. Toy box

11. Glider
12. Floor Cushion for Glider: My tailbone was killing me near the end of my pregnancy and about a month afterwards.  The floor cushion in addition to the glider cushion made sitting on my tailbone more bearable.  Make sure its the appropriate size.
13. Personalized wall decal

14. Closet organizer  for a girl and closet organizer for a boy or neutral

15. Coat hangars: like 50! Im still using the original coat hangar that came with some of the clothes!

16. Video monitor: not just sound. My friend, RS, had a sound-only monitor. One night she woke to the sound of her baby crying, then the sound of a man consoling the child. There was no man in the house with her at the time. After frantically running to the child's room, she found that the baby was sound asleep with no one else in the room. Turned out that her monitor picked up the signal of a monitor from a nearby house. She recommended the video monitor so that I could have a better indication of what's going on on the other end.  

For the bathroom:

1. Hooded towels

2. Hands-Free Towel:  nice to have while you're still trying to figure out how to properly hold 
your baby, much less, carefully pulling her out of a slippery bath and not getting yourself soaked in the process.

3. Medicine: be prepared for that first scary time you'll need it.

4. Shampoo: I LOVE the smell of this in my baby's hair!!

5. Bathtub: get one that can hold a newborn safely and grow with your child.
6. Bath Thermometer

7. Thermometer: always have a rectal one, but for quick and easy use, get one for ear or temporal temperature reading. 

8. Nail/grooming kit/file: need a file! I'm still too scared to use a nail clipper. 
9. Potty

For safety:

1. First aid kits: for each floor and diaper bag. Maybe even for each vehicle.

2. House safety gear

3. Mittens: babies tend to scratch themselves, especially the face. I'm always digging my daughters fingers out of her eyes!

For breast feeding:

1. Nursing cover: for diaper bag for those car feelings and for your home when family/friends are over. UPDATE:  Or you could try using a poncho.  I started using mine and it gives full coverage all around and is fashionable!  Those with pockets are useful to store your nursing pad during feedings. Poncho 

2. Nursing pads: I've tried several brands and this is by far the best!  No fibers stick to my nipples like others I've tried and the pad stays together when in contact with nipple cream.

3. Lanolin: this brand dispenses the lanolin quite smoothly.  I have a tube at each of my nursing stations in my home and in the diaper bag.  

4. Breast pump

5. Breast milk storage bags

6. Breast milk bag storage container
7. Nursing pillow: I brought a nursing pillow with me to the hospital, but the nurse recommended not to use it because it was like a crutch. She suggested learning how to nurse without it was best. In addition, to prevent spit-up, it is best to keep the child somewhat upright.  Many nursing pillows tend to position the baby horizontally. The only time my nursing pillow got used was to help me support her during the football hold and to give her height in my lap for Skyping with the grandparents.  If you really need one, I liked this one...
8. Serenity star: LOVE this! WANT this! It has everything! Nursing diary, room temp, sound machine, night light, clock!

For bottle feeding:

1. Sterilizer bags

2. Bottles: I like these drop in bottles because that's one less thing to clean.

3. Bottle liners

4. Nipples: Fast Medium Slow
5. Bottle warmer Also works for the bags

6. Bottle dryer

7. Dishwashing rack & Bottle brush

8. Sippy cup brushes

9. Sippy cups

For development:

1. My baby can read

2. Flash cards: Numbers & Letters Colors & Shapes First Words Numbers up to 100 Phonics

3. Books, lots and lots of books.  A couple of my favs: Blueberry Girl, Recommended by a wonderful friend; McKayla seems to love this book!  Beginner Books (Like 6 books in one!)

4. Activity center convertible 

5. Play Gym: Girl Boy

For comfort:

1. Baby pillow

2. Boppy pillows
3. Baby carrier
4. Baby Wrap

For teething:

1. Sophie The Giraffe 
2. Vibrating
3. Cooling 

For you: (Maybe not for registry, but highly recommended for you)
1. cocoa butter
2. tucks For vaginal delivery
3. dermoplast Also for vaginal delivery
4. adult diapers After fighting with giant pads that don't stick to the ridiculous huge underwear, these were a blessing and were easy to use.

I don't recommend for the registry:

Clothes: I received a lot of clothes from the showers and a ton of hand-me-downs from my friends.

Blankets: We were graciously given 10 handmade blankets from friends and family. In fact, I have several crib comforters that are handmade and better quality than the one we purchased from her crib set AND they're original! They were made to fit the theme and colors of her bedroom.

Receiving blankets: Received a ton at showers.  

Accept any and all hand me downs.  The following were huge items given by my friends:

Two Swings 

Clothes

Baby Carrier

Bassinet

Car Toys

Activity Center
Crib Mattress
BundleMe
Bouncer
Umbrella Stroller
Jeep Jogging Stroller
Toy Box

5: Stock Up

If you're going the disposable route, start stocking up on diapers and wipes while you're pregnant. Every time you go grocery shopping, or to Target, or to B.J.s, grab a pack/case of diapers and wipes. Buy varying sizes. Only get a couple packs of newborn sizes since you won't be sure how big your baby will be at birth. If you happen to have sizes you don't need, stores are usually OK with you exchanging them.  Do start with size 1 because they go up to around 14 lbs.  This advice was given to me by my friend, JB, and I started doing it immediately. It really helped us out a lot since you really go through a ton. And trust me, you won't get enough from your shower.  We had two baby showers AND a diaper shower AND stock and we still have to go buy diapers! My little girl isn't even 3 months old yet!

Don't worry too much about name brand.  MOST of the off-brands essentially do the same thing.  I received a lot of different recommendations: Pampers, Huggies, Luves, store brand. But from my experience, one of the name brands leaked on me with a full diaper no different than a store brand.  One thing I did like about Pampers is that it has a wetness indicator, but is only useful if your baby isn't wearing bottoms (like in the hospital or during warm summer months).  The off brand that I'm currently hooked on is Top Care Diapers that I get at our local grocery store. I always know if she's wet with just a pinch of her diaper through. If it moves between my fingers like gel, then she needs a changing.  The name brand diapers have this gel stuff too, but why pay more?  Update: I found another store brand of diapers that I love!  They're up&up brand and can be found at Target.  Now when second baby is on the way, I know what brand to stock up on to save cash and get good quality.  As opposed to the Top Care brand, up&up are more readily available since they are sold in the ever popular Target!

One piece of advice a mother gave me was to NEVER use store brand because they cause diaper rash.  Her son is 22 years old now and I am uncertain if he has sensitive skin or not, but this was not true for me. McKayla only had diaper rash once, but it wasn't from the diaper brand. (Will touch more on diaper rash in a later post.)

If you're still uncertain of off brands, stock up on name brands until your child is born and then you can purchase the off brands to see how they work for you when you have a baby around to try them on. Update: Also, my friend Elizabeth Gibson said that diapers you like now may not be good for baby number two. 

This picture is just part of the stock.  The rest are in other closets in the house! Thank you Grandma Smith for organizing them for us!!

4: Get Informed

When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't know anything about having a baby.  I always felt a little awkward around babies; wasn't sure how to hold them comfortably or how to talk to them.  My sister in law gave me some pregnancy books that she had when she was pregnant and I also discovered helpful websites and apps to help me along the way.  Reading up on being pregnant and having a baby made me feel so much more confident on becoming a new momma.  Some of the experiences would have been so frightening if I didn't know what was going on.  Educating myself on current practices also helped me to recognize inaccurate advice when it was given and the knowledge to support my inexperienced hiney!  Although, some advice was simply outdated,  getting advice from every mom I spoke to became invaluable to me.  I absorbed everything like a sponge.  So my advice to you is to read up on all you can, listen to all advice offered, and do things that feel right to you.  Here are some of my favorite sources to help get you started:

What to Expect When You're Expecting Book This book is the pregnancy bible. I had it with me everywhere. Always had an answer for my questions.

What to Expect the First Year Book I read as much as I could before she was born.  Now, after her birth, I've been reading for the associated month.  Super helpful if your clueless..like I was.  Provides information for every month about your newborn for an entire year; feeding, development, questions and concerns.

Baby Center This website was also extremely helpful with both my pregnancy and her development.  They also have an app that tracked how big she was in the womb and had daily tips and interesting bits of information.  Loved the graphics of what she may look like and it also compared her weight and length to that of a piece of fruit or vegetable.  I also enjoyed sharing her progress with my friends and family on Facebook.  In addition, I recommend the following app for your growing baby and the birthing class app.  In fact, my husband and I did not go to an actual childbirth class (that would have been an hour and a half round trip, $100, 8 hour class!) but we did do the free two hour childbirth video by baby center right in the comfort of our living room.

Total Baby App I tried a few apps to help me keep track of breastfeeding and this one was my favorite and easy to use.  I use it everyday to know when her last feeding was, how long it was, and which breast it was.  It also has recording options for diaper changes and baths and you can even add your own recorder.

WebMD Baby I have this website at the top of my bookmark list and I also have the app.  Yes, I have used it and yes I'm glad it was there!  Of course, in case of an emergency always call 911 or consult with your pediatrician for non-emergency situations.

CPR This may be the most important thing for you to learn! Don't wait till its too late.  Baby center provides an illustrated guide and also provides sources to get actual training which I highly recommend! If you take away anything from this blog, have it be to train yourself on how to perform CPR and first aid for choking!

3: Pink Little Bow

Before we found out what we were having, I bought a pack of hair bow clips that included pink and blue. When we found out we were having a girl, I wore the pink bow everyday till her birth.  Everyone seemed to get a kick out of its cuteness!  Anything can be used as a memento.  A bracelet, earrings, scarf.  Plus, I think it would be fun to one day show it to her and let her wear it on special occasions. 

In this photo (taken by my brother, Zack. zfsphotography ), I'm also wearing pink feathers I had put in at my last hair appointment before her birth and wore them till after she was born.  For my next pregnancy, I'm going to get blue and pink feathers put in when I find out I'm pregnant and the day we do find out, I'll take one color out and wear the feathers till he/she is born.  Then I won't have to worry about putting them in and the feathers can still be saved to give to him/her when they are older.

2: Prenatal Exercise

Exercise is important.  Try to stay active your entire pregnancy.  Of course, give yourself the needed breaks because you'll tire easily and don't push too hard. Staying active will improve the experience of your labor.  A friend of mine at work, JM we'll call her, told me the more active I am, the earlier she'll be born and the labor will be easier. It seemed to prove true with me; McKayla was born two weeks early and my actual delivery was only 24 minutes long.

Make sure you do an actual prenatal workout or pregnancy safe workouts and always check with your doctor before doing any workouts.  

The video I used was: Prenatal Video

If you don't already have a resistance cord: Light, Medium, Heavy Resistance Cord

And I just discovered the following that may be worth purchasing.  I may get this for pregnancy number two.:  Gaiam-Baby-Ready-Yoga-Kit

Another exercise that is highly recommended (pregnant or not) are Kegel exercises or pelvic toning. Kegel exercises work out your pelvic floor muscles and can also help with labor and the healing process(Eisenberg, Murkoff, & Hathaway, 1996).  See the following website for further information: kegel exercises

I worked out with the videos when I could, but the bulk of my workout was a lot of walking at my job.  From the parking lot to my building varied from 7 to 15 minutes one way.  I always took the stairs unless I wasn't feeling that great.

Normal weight gain is 25-35 lbs by the end of your pregnancy for an average woman (Eisenberg, Murkoff, & Hathaway, 1996).  I gained exactly 35 lbs! I was really getting nervous there at the end!  I believe that working out and attempting not to indulge in my favorites, sweets and potatoes, really helped me out.  In fact, my craving was for french fries (or any type of potato).  If someone said french fry at work, I was going to a fast food restaurant after work for a large fry!  That was mainly during my first and second trimesters, though.  Didn't last the whole time.

So, try to keep active.  It will be so much better for you and your unborn baby! :-D

References:

Eisenberg, A., Murkoff, H. E., & Hathaway, S. E. (1996).  What to Expect When You’re Expecting. New York: Workman Publishing.

1: Start a Journal

When I found out I was pregnant back in December 2011, I bought a journal, a big one, to start jotting down my experiences and memories along the way. It would be best to keep up with it daily or weekly, or as things happen.  You don't want to get stuck after your precious bundle is born and trying to remember every detail about the appointment when you found out the sex, or when you felt that first kick. (Which is what I did!) But if you are like me, can't keep up with a journal to save your life, then at least jot the date/time and a short note in the back of the book to reference later when you do have time to write. Even utilizing a note app on your phone to jot down those reminders since most of us always have it with us.  We  would just stop functioning if, God forbid, we ever left our phones at home! You could also make notes in your planner to refer to. I ended up using all three of these methods.

For me, the journal is for my daughter, McKayla, to read one day about her mother's pregnancy, her birth and her raising. Then, perhaps, later down the road, pass the journal down to her to continue her life story and her pregnancy! (I'm getting emotional now!)

In addition to your writings, add pictures to the journal such as your belly, her ultrasound, her first 30 seconds in this world...

Keep in mind that when you choose a journal, stick with one that can go both ways. When I bought mine, I didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl.  Planahead Jumbo Journal is the one I got.  I figured it would would work ok for a girl or boy: