Our Favorite Postpartum and Baby Products
If you’re a first time mom-to-be and you’re anything like me, you are COMPLETELY overwhelmed trying to make your baby registry. There are so many of every different type of thing that everyone says you need. Especially on Amazon. I literally spent dayssss researching different things that we wanted for our little one and even then, it turned out when we started using it, sometimes I liked something different (that was gifted off-registry). So shout out to mom friends who give you things that they liked for their littles even if it wasn’t on your registry.
(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)
We’ll start out with the things for mom that I love!
First up, the Hydrojug! If you’re breast feeding your little one, hydration is sooo important. The first few weeks (or maybe longer) that I was home, I was definitely not hydrating enough. The jug they give you at the hospital is good, but it seemed like it always needed to be refilled whenever I was either feeding or nap trapped. The Hydrojug Pro holds 73oz. of water (more than a half gallon!), seals nicely, and you can get a straw for it (something that was important to me because I drink way more water when I am drinking through a straw).
Next, a breast pump! I have three, two cordless ones—one of which we purchased and the other my cousin is letting me borrow—and a Motif Luna plug in pump (this link is for the one with a battery but my insurance covered the plug in one). I have this in-the-bra pump which is nice when you’re trying to be a liiiittle more inconspicuous (you can definitely tell they’re in there but at least you don’t have bottles hanging down from your boobs). I try to limit how much I use them because I know they’re not as efficient at extracting milk as a double electric pump. The other wireless pump I have is the Spectra S1 Plus. I’ll use this one if we’re in the car and I need to pump. It’s not super portable but it is just as efficient as my Motif Luna at extracting milk and is cordless and rechargeable!
Nursing tank tops!! These are my go-to for when we’re around the house (and sometimes when we go out, honestly lol). They’re so comfy and perfect and using this trick, they can be used for hands free pumping as well! I have some others that are polyester and I don’t love them as much. They’re a little rougher and have pilled quite a bit. The cotton ones are way better, in my opinion! Just a little hint though, don’t get the grey…if you leak at all, it’s much easier to see on the grey than the navy or black.
We have two dish drying racks for bottles and pump parts. This one that goes over part of the sink that I love because it allows more air flow! And then we have this grass one in grey, but friends have green and both are great. It’s nice because you can stand the bottles up on it and they don’t fall over.
I have two “nursing pillows” at first I used the Boppy but I decided I needed more support so I switched to the my Brest Friend pillow which is awesome for nursing—it’s super supportive and you can use it for a lot different positions. We use the Boppy for basically everything else now. We used it to contain her feet when she would sleep on the couch (supervised), and now that she’s bigger we use it to help her sit up and for tummy time!
Our little girl sleeps in our room for now and she uses this bassinet. I chose it because it also doubles as a side sleeper, it has a waterproof cover, and they make sheets specifically for it! We mostly use it as a separate bassinet but on nights that she’s extra needy, I’ll turn it into a side sleeper so I don’t have to get out of bed to help her.
During naps she sleeps in her crib, and we use this monitor which we really like and it does great, even in pitch black. It comes with a wide angle lens for seeing the whole room which will be good when she is out of her crib and can move around her room freely. It also does not use wifi which was important to us because our wifi can be hit or miss in the evenings and we didn’t want that to impact whether we could monitor her or not.
Two other nighttime essentials for us are the Snuza Hero SE and the Hatch Rest. The Snuza is a monitor that clips to baby’s diaper that feels when she’s breathing/moving to help prevent SIDS. I was hesitant to get it because I thought maybe it would make me extra anxious and my husband was worried about false alarms with it. But we didn’t use it the first few nights home and every time she would make a noise (she was super congested when we first got home) I would get up and make sure she was still breathing. Now that we use the Snuza, I sleep so much better, don’t feel the need to make sure she’s still breathing all the time, and if I get anxious, I can always look over and see the green light flashing which means that she’s moving/breathing (it also has a tick mode that will make an audible tick whenever the baby breathes). I was also hesitant to register for the Hatch because it is expensive. But one of my friends who swears by it got it for our baby shower and I love it! At first we were using it just for a night light when I would wake up to feed her. But once we hit the four month sleep regression we started using the sound machine too and I swear it helps ME sleep better too lol. I love that it doesn’t require wifi to be able to control it with your phone (it uses bluetooth as well).
Now for the things we love for baby!
We have this swing/bouncer combo. I love it because it swings side to side, front to back, and it’s a bouncer all in one piece of furniture. We regularly take the bouncer piece off and bring it with us (like to the lake or if we go somewhere to hang out with friends) and then when we get home we can just pop it back on there and it’s a swing again!
This is the play mat that we have. Our kiddo loves the sloth/monkey (??) in the middle because it plays you are my sunshine. It comes with four extra toys for her to play with/look at, a tummy time pillow, and it has extra little loops where you can put more toys!
And lastly, we have all of her sleeping essentials. We started in the Halo Swaddle. We got it from the hospital and I am sooo glad because it’s amazing. We got the SwaddleMe swaddles off our registry, which we used for nap time, but they weren’t nearly as easy to use as the Halo swaddle. Once she started showing signs of rolling we transitioned her into the Baby Merlin’s Magic Sleep Suit which has been great so far. She wears it for bed time and nap time now. Once she starts showing signs of rolling in the sleep suit, we’ll transition her into a sleep sack. We got this Merlin one, but since we haven’t gotten there yet I can’t tell you whether we like it or not.
There you have it. All the baby and postpartum essentials that we use daily as first time parents! I hope this was helpful and if you are a momma and have any recommendations, I’d love to hear them in the comments.