There is a deluge of product information available for a pregnant couple, and as a first time pregnant couple, we didn’t even know what types of things we should be buying, much less which specific brands and models we should look at. Rather than researching everything individually, we decided to pick one overall book and stick with it, for better or worse.
The book we picked was called Baby Bargains. The book is organized as a big list of all the things you should consider buying and then for each item, the book discusses what to look for, how many you need, and which brands might be the best fit for you. While I’m sure you could take any one item and have a long argument about it with someone who likes a different brand better, we knew that following the book should lead us to a pretty good option.
Even with all that background, we still had a big task ahead of us. Our gift registries were carefully crafted as a list of items we thought we needed, so after the baby showers (THANK YOU!) we headed to Babies R Us and walked out with three carts full of stuff. The UPS man arrived later in the week with endless boxes that completed our Amazon registry. I’m sure there will be plenty of surprise trips to buy something we didn’t think of, but I feel like we have a pretty good start.
We did waffle a bit on our car seat decision. We started with the new Graco 40 which is supposed to hold a child up to 2 years/40 pounds. When we got it home, we discovered that it was too wide to fit in the middle seat and it was a couple pounds heavier than most carriers which seemed unnecessary. We ended up getting a slightly smaller Graco model which saved us quite a bit of money and also fit the car better. Only time will tell if it was a good decision. I’m sure we’ll have a lot stronger opinions about these purchases in a year!