8 Unusual Items that you Need on your Baby Registry

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If you’re like me, you were not spending your time looking at baby items on Amazon before finding out your wife was pregnant. Thankfully, my wife was. This meant that when it came time, we had an extensive list of items for our baby registry. However, even she missed a few items that we picked up along the way. I had no idea that we should be adding some of these unusual items to the list.

None of these items are necessarily essential to have when your little one arrives. However, each of these items improved our lives when our son was born. Let’s take a look at 8 of the most unusual items that you should add to your baby registry today.

Sleeping

I’m going to start with the sleeping category because these are some of the more common items. It’s a good idea to add these items to your baby registry because you will need them at some point during your baby’s first year.

Velcro Swaddles

One thing that every baby class seems to teach is swaddle technique. You will find swaddle blankets on every baby registry that’s been made. Swaddling your baby is important, and while it feels awesome to get your baby nice and snugly wrapped up in their muslin blanket, there are easier alternatives. One such alternative that made things much easier with our son were Velcro swaddles. These swaddles are the precursor to sleep sacks, but they’re more snug for the earlier months. You just slide your baby’s feet in to a little fabric sack and then you have two flaps that Velcro down on top of each other, leaving your baby snugly swaddled.

Sleep Sacks

Sleep sacks are a gamechanger when it comes to your baby’s sleep. In the early months after your baby is born, they will need to be swaddled up when they are sleeping. However, once your baby is starting to roll over, he or she is going to need their arms free to ensure they don’t get stuck in one position. This is where the sleep sack comes in to play. The sleep sack gives them the comfort and warmth of a swaddle but allows them to have the ability to move in their sleep. We used one with a tiny builtin bean bag. This can be placed on the baby’s chest or back for added comfort. It’s a great addition to any baby registry.

Audio Monitor

No baby registry is complete without an audio monitor. This one may seem like a no-brainer, but hear me out. As technology has improved over the years, it seems like more and more parents are going with WiFi connected cameras to watch their baby sleep. These cameras have seemingly replaced the need for audio-only monitors. However, we ended up needing an audio-only monitor, and I’m so glad we got it. We do have cameras set up to keep an eye on our little one, but the audio monitor is a must. Here’s why:

• Power outages will knock out cameras, but the audio monitor remains charged and working.
• The microphones on a lot of cameras are not as good as their audio-only counterparts.
• Audio monitors are easy to travel with since they have no need for WiFi.

We love our audio monitor and learned to rely more on it than our cameras in our sons room. I highly recommend adding one to your list.

Changing

These items will help out quite a bit when it comes time to change your baby. This less than glamorous part of parenting will become a regular part of your life. You may as well make it as easy as possible.

The PeePee Teepee

Yes, you read that right. The PeePee Teepee. This one is for those of you expecting a boy soon. This thing is one of the oddest products I’m going to talk about in this post. However, it made a huge difference with our son. You know those comical moments in movies when a baby is giggling and smiling and peeing all over the unsuspecting victim in the middle of changing that baby? Yeah, that’s all too real. However, there is a seemingly odd, but simple solution. The PeePee Teepee is a cloth cover that looks like a little tent. You throw this bad boy over your sons privates and it blocks urine from shooting in to the sky like a geyser. Without these, I would have been peed on a lot more.

Baby Wipe Warmer

A wipe warmer is a more common product, but I know plenty of parents who forgot one of these. Wipe warmers are an easy way to keep baby wipes warm. In turn, this leads to less fussing from your baby when you have to use a wipe on them. They’re not feeling that chilly wipe on their nether regions. Would you want to? We like our baby wipe warmer quite a bit, but you’re going to want to make sure to keep it closed when not in use. If not, you’ll end up drying out a bunch of wipes.

Bath Time

Knee and Elbow Pads

I would have never thought of these and they have become an essential part of our bath time. I bathe our son every night because it hurts my wife’s back to bend over the bath tub. However, my body isn’t bullet proof either, and kneeling next to a bathtub on bathroom tile doesn’t feel great. These pads help me keep my knees and elbows from getting bruised when I’m bathing little man. I highly recommend them.

Odds and Ends

There are always a few odds and ends that we forget on these registry lists, so I’m going to put two more here. We ended up getting all of these for our son and they’ve all come in handy throughout his infancy.

The Nose Frida

The Nose Frida is an interesting product to say the least. When I first heard what it’s used for, I was a little grossed out. However, there is nothing gross about sucking your baby’s boogers out through a straw. That’s right, the Nose Frida is a tube with a filter in it that lets you clear out your little one’s mucus from their nostrils. Babies can’t blow their noses and the old school bulb syringe doesn’t even compare to this thing. All you do is connect a reservoir to a tube after placing a foam filter in the mouth end of the reservoir, and it becomes a nostril clearing machine. My wife and I have used this thing countless times and it makes this process so much easier.

Swings

So these items aren’t that unusual. Most baby registries have a swing on them. However, we have tried a couple and like both of the ones we tried. Swings can help to calm your baby down before nap time. It is not recommended that babies sleep in swings, but it can help wind them down for a nap. Babies prefer different kinds of swings, which is why we got 2 different ones. The first was more of a sitting style that can be converted in to other modes. The second was more of a laying flat style. Our baby loved both at different times. If your baby isn’t loving the swing, consider returning it and trying a different model.

Thank you so much for reading. We really do use all these products in our day to day and I wouldn’t recommend them if I didn’t think they were necessities for new parents. If you have a topic you’d like us to dive deeper in to, you can contact us at fatherhoodnowonline@gmail.com. You can also be notified of new articles, get exclusive content, and become a part of a growing community of dads by subscribing to our monthly newsletter. The sign up form is on the home page. Finally, if you liked this article and you’re on Pinterest, I’d love it if you pinned this. You can do so with the Pinterest button below. Until next time, father on.