Do I Really Need That? Mommy Must-Haves and Have-Nots

Our little man is 9 1/2 months old and we've (mostly) got our groove back. He's doing all sorts of cool things, eating EVERYTHING (but still nursing too), and finally winning over the dog. BUT, this particular post isn't about how awesome our little guy is (and he's pretty awesome). No, today's post is about all those things you think you need that we really didn't use, and what we did.

Mommy Must Haves

Things we used and loved the most

• Basic Bouncer (~$40)- We used our baby's bouncer beyond him really being too big for it (when he could crawl out of it). Our favorite basic bouncer features were the vibrating function, and the stationary mobile. We used our feet to bounce it while we relaxed in the evenings. It calmed him down, stopped screaming, rocked him to sleep, and freed up our hands. It held him outside the shower so we could shower ourselves. It was just plain fabulous and at 9 months, we gifted it to the newest member of the family, a nephew.
  
• Basic Bag- I got a small messenger bag as a gift with donation to the nature conservancy. It was khaki (so my husband didn't mind carrying it either) and had a zippered main body with a pocket on the front, a satchel flap with a zippered pocket, and a mesh pocket on the side for a water bottle. Ours currently has a full sized snack container, a bottle, a baby food jar and spoon, a teether/pacifier, 3 small toys, a onesie and a pair of socks, ~7 diapers, a medium pack of wipes, a "wet bag", diaper ointment that we never use, my epipen, my sunglasses, chapstick. 3 months ago it ALSO had zippered pajamas, a swaddle blanket, and a lightweight nursing scarf. I use a clutch purse that holds a phone and I always just throw it on top. You don't *need* some huge special bag. You'll be okay. 

  

  Top left: Full bag with bottle
  Bottom left: Size comparison of my tiny 12" bag beside a puffs container
  Bottom right: What is currently in our baby's bag.
  Top right: Full bag interior- notice that i folded down ~2" of the bag for a better view.
  That's a LOT of extra space I didn't use!
  
  
  

• Bottle Warmer- We did and still do use our bottle warmer all the time (even though our baby will totally drink cold milk). I pumped early so DH was always warming bottles to let me sleep and a few nights a week, a sitter puts our baby to bed (because we work at night). We also use it steam baby food and sanitize pacifiers. 
• A Good Breast Pump- If you're skipping the breastfeeding/pumping experience, feel free to ignore this must have. Insurance covered an electric pump (I had an Ameda) and i tried several manual pumps as well. My favorite pump, which i still use, is the Avent Comfort Manual Breast Pump. Why? 
• The valve that controls pumping is heavy duty and unaffected by milk entering the chamber. (Not so with the evenflo)
• The silicone flange cover has massage contouring to help stimulate let down which is nice
• The large chamber means that once i get let down going, i don't have to pump terribly much. I can hold the suction while the chamber fills and drop it into the bottle 1/4-1/2 oz at a time, which gives my hands a break.
• We used avent glass bottles, which fit this pump. i had adapters for my other pumps, but it's nice not needing one.
• Why didn't i love my electric pump? My electric pump worked fine, but sometimes i turned the suction too high and bruised my nipples. It also made noise, and was cumbersome to move around the house with me to a comfortable place. Small as it was, it took up space. Also, the suction valves seemed to blow out frequently. When my production was still building, it seemed stupid to use the double pump (and dirty 2 bottles) to get half a bottle from each breast. I needed a whole bag to bring my electric pump to work. i just need the tiny bottle cooler to hold 2 empty bottles and a my manual pump.
• The Very Basics- We used diapers, wipes, bottles and swaddle blankets. The rest is just stuff.
• A Good Toy- This is a little more difficult because who knows what your kid will like? Our baby's 1st Favorite toy was a crinkle book. He still loves it. It keeps him quiet on outings and was great entertainment. He also likes rattles, but for those early months, it was ALL about the crinkle book. He uses pacifiers (we used MAM) for about 3-4 months and then decided he was done.

Have-Nots

The list of things you think you need, but really don't. Save your money, Mommy, there's better things to spend it on

• Diaper Pail- We didn't receive or buy a diaper pail. We brought home the little blue bin they give you at the hospital and fit it beside the wipes on our changing table (though side note, you'll remember we don't have an actual changing table either- we used a desk/shelving unit built by my dad). The little blue bin holds ~5 dirty diapers and then we bag them up and toss them in the trash. Truth be told, We're a family of 3 and we take out the trash every few days anyway. The messy diapers haven't made the regular trash can stink even when we just pitch them in, so why you would want to wait to have a big thing of 2 dozen dirty diapers just hanging around until it's full i do not know.
• Big Diaper Bag- We bought the big fancy diaper bag, and i'm sure we'll use it when we go on vacation in september, but for the last 9 months, we've been using a satchel bag i got free with a donation to the nature conservancy. Something small and plain. It's all you need. Really.
• Refrigerated Bags- We have 3-4 of these. i use the tiniest one on the days i pump at work, but i actually have access to a fridge at work, so the bag doesn't even need to be refrigerated for us. I'm a waitress so i know that food products are allowed to spend 4 hours outside their safe temperature zones (roughly between 40 and 140 degrees fahrenheit). It's a rare occasion that we're going to be out for 4 hours and quite frankly, i got over the public nursing thing pretty quickly. 
• Butt Cream-okay, maybe some babies get oodles of butt rashes. Our baby has had a total of like 2 and we used antibiotic ointment (like neosporin). Mostly it's just important to make sure you dry his heiney off when you change him. We do use sensitive eco-friendly diapers- if your baby is getting tons of butt rashes, perhaps it's worth the cost to switch diapers. 
• Baby Oil- nothing against baby oil, we just don't use it. I used it twice, specifically for his cradle cap (and cradle cap is largely going to last however long it wants anyway)
• A Baby Bath- This may be a comfort level thing, but we've always just taken our baby in the shower. I have not found him to be super duper slippery, but when he was really little i would sit and wash him and then hand him to his dad outside the shower. As he got bigger, we parked his bouncy seat outside the shower and draped the towel over it to bundle him in while we finished our own showers. There is no part of me that wishes i had some big ass baby bath hanging around my house.
• Too many outfits- While I acknowledge that diaper leaks and blowouts are super real when you bring home a new baby (mostly because diapers have a real learning curve with leg holes and a top opening to worry about, and because milk leads to more liquid poop), they *usually* don't go through more than 3 outfits a day and you're going to have favorites. They grow out of stuff quickly, and we always find ourselves reaching for the cutest outfits. With the aforementioned blowouts (which always happen on your clothes and/or their blankets), the laundry needs done more often so their stuff is usually clean.