Like most essentials of modern life, babies are delivered with few of the necessary additional accessories, mainly a placenta that ceases to be useful once it's delivered. So, just like a car, a house, or a husband, a baby must be properly accessorized to be fully functional.
Judging from the amount of time we spent on its selection, the single most important thing a baby needs is a car seat. Luckily, a car seat doubles as a bed, sling, prison, handbag, weapon, and catcher of bodily fluids. Properly utilized, a car seat can transform a newborn into a high-maintenance and occasionally noisy piece of luggage. At least that's the rumor; we have yet to see it borne out in practice.
Most manufacturers will try to talk you into buying a "travel system", which is a combined car seat and stroller package. At first blush, this sounds great - a two for one deal. We found that most of them make some serious compromises along the line, such as hauling around a 30 lb. stroller to carry your 12 lb. car seat that holds your 8 lb. baby. With many manufacturers, you end up with two sub-par pieces of equipment, such as a car seat that only handles a 20 lb. baby. (Little known fact: Your infant should be in a rear-facing car seat until they are both 20 lbs. and one year of age. Are you absolutely positive that your kid will hit one year before he or she hits 20 lbs?)
We decided on a Graco Safe-Seat car seat (good for up to 30 lbs.), and a "Snap n' Go" stroller frame to carry it. With 20-20 hindsight, this was an excellent decision. We ended up with the exact car seat we wanted, and a truly lightweight stroller frame that fits in the back seat footwell (as opposed to the trunk). And all for less total money than the travel systems. You don't have to go Graco, either; there are generic car seat carriers made for almost any car seat out there.
Car seat advice: Is the fabric part easily removable and washable? Can you get it in and out of the base while balancing yourself on one knee on your car seat, and holding the baby bag over one shoulder? Does it release the base easily? Does the buckle release easily (but not too easily)?
Strollers are a close second to the car seat in terms of the amount of time we spent standing in Babies R Us, comparing one against the other. Choosing a stroller frame meant that we'd have to choose a real stroller one once Erin gains enough neck control to move to a front-facing model. A couple of considerations: The stroller should be small enough to maneuver the stores in a shopping mall. It should have a pretty big cargo area that is easily accessible. It should be able to carry a bottle (and/or water bottle for the parents).
Strollers come in sizes from expedition-sized monstrosities to "umbrella strollers" that have the structural integrity of a toothpick, and which will fall over if anything is on the handles when you take baby out of it. We split the difference with a lightweight and cheap stroller for everyday tasks, and a big-assed three-wheeled Jeep stroller (complete with pneumatic tires) for outdoor excursions.
Next, you need furniture. You probably spent most of your life using hand-me-downs and whatever was on Craigslist, but everyone knows that a newborn's sense of style demands nothing less than an entire suite of classically designed, hand-made furniture that should last for generations. Resist this temptation, because new safety standards will make your baby's furniture obsolete before it's paid off. Or simply go to Ikea and get everything you need for less than $20.
A couple of notes on furniture: All the experts tell you not to use bumper pads, but if you pick a solid back or sides for your baby's crib, you can't use them anyway. Pick a finish that cleans easily with nothing more than a wet rag. Don't use 'heirloom' furniture; early generations were tough enough to survive finger-eating swing sets and the Charles Darwin line of "survival of the fittest" furniture, but it's apparently not considered safe for today's fragile and clumsy children.
Don't waste your money on bassinets or other baby ephemera. A simple Pack and Play (a/k/a play yard, baby jail, etc) is fine for the first few weeks, months, or years when Baby is living at the foot of your bed. That said, a "kidapult" or wire-frame bouncy chair is invaluable, if only as a place to but Baby while you're laundering (again) the padding to his or her car seat.
Whatever you put Baby in to sleep, make sure that you have plenty of sheets for it. We've gone through three sheets in one night before we found that Erin's diapers weren't exactly performing as advertised. (Write this down: Pampers for girls; Huggies for boys.) With her reflux, Erin now sleeps in the car seat, so we now have a massive Pack and Play sitting in our bedroom as nothing more than a hugely oversized changing table. Don't even ask about her fully-stocked bedroom upstairs...
Ahem. What else? We found these remarkable disposable multi-use pads that resemble a large, heavy-duty paper towel backed with a very thin waterproof plastic sheet. Wherever you're putting Baby, put one of these down first. Trust me on this (he says, having washed two sets of king-sized bedsheets in one night). If you're not into the disposable thing (and you have no problem with baby poo and pee in your washing machine), they make the same thing in a reusable form.
Bottles. Wow, where to begin? I liked the design of the Dr. Brown's bottles, but they used BPA in their plastic (at the time), and our tile floors aren't quite compatible with glass. We went with some cheap Evenflo bottles at first, as we were positive that we were going to breastfeed the vast majority of the time. But one of the wonders of parenthood is that the parents finally learn that
expectation has no actual bearing on reality. So we went with Born Free bottles, mainly because anyone willing to name a product after a 1970s feel-good movie must know what the hell they're doing.
Burp cloths, towels, receiving blankets, washcloths: These are all fancy names for "rag", and a simple cloth diaper will suffice for almost all of them. (Except for the swaddling part of a receiving blanket, but a big dish towel should do a fine job there.)
Speaking of swaddling - the blankets the hospital uses are perfect for the first month or so. Steal as many as your conscience allows. While you're at it, snag a few of their pacifiers and aspirators (snot suckers) as well. These are excellent, and hard to find outside the hospital.
If your expertise with Origami extends about as far as "wadded-up paper", look for the easy-to-use swaddles, complete with velcro closures. We strongly recommend them. For those of you with the ability to securely wrap a struggling three dimensional object with a two-dimensional cloth, look for muslin swaddling cloths; the ones we found were huge, and the muslin breathes yet sticks to itself quite well.
We haven't used them recently, because Erin is now sleeping in her car seat during the day, but Christine and I both bought baby slings. When Erin's reflux was really bothering her, and she needed to be held just about every waking hour, these were life-savers. I could put her in the sling, and actually get some stuff done around the house without my arm cramping up or going numb.
To schlep all this crap around, you'll need luggage. There are many factors to consider when choosing a diaper bag: color, style, fashion, designer name, number of pockets, etc. Forget all that, what you need is
volume. You'll be hauling around a half-dozen diapers, a full brick of baby wipes, three or four outfits, a few burp cloths, a swaddle, a blanket or two, extra pacifiers, some formula or breastmilk, a couple of bottles, hand sanitizer, a changing pad, Boudreaux's Butt Paste (don't laugh, it's the best stuff
ever for diaper rash), an aspirator, toys, etc... I have never wished I had a smaller diaper bag, but I've often wished I had a larger one.
If Mom ends up pumping, spend the money and get the Medela Freestyle pump. It's battery-operated and about the size of a Walkman (for those of you who remember such things). Yes, it has a belt clip. The flanges can be strapped to a nursing bra, so Mom can set 'em up and do something other than just sit there, strapped to a small suitcase.
Finally, if you're in the Austin area, go to Special Additions before you deliver. It's across Lamar from the Central Market at 38th, and is a great maternity store. They rent hospital-quality breast pumps, and have a great lactation consultant on-site.
