Becoming a first time Mum raises endless amounts of questions. Questions about yourself, your home, the equipment you have or need to buy. I’ll be honest and say the questions never end (at least for now they haven’t), they just change. You’ll know what I mean when the time comes. For now though, I want to help ease some of those initial thoughts and give a guide to what you’ll really need for the first 6 months of a baby’s life. Here I’m cutting through all the noise and ads to give an overview of what I deemed the essentials for my babies. I’ve also linked my exact Excel spreadsheet that I used to track what I needed/bought/gifts.
Heres my list of essential items with recommendations where I’ve loved an item or found something super useful!
- Nappies, nappy saks, wipes – I really wouldn’t recommend the nappy bins as to be completely truthful they start to smell anyway and I always threw the nappies out regularly after a while and didn’t end up using the bin. The new roll of bags costs more than the bin itself and so I didn’t bother re-purchasing after the first ran out. Having said this, I think a hygiene nappy bin might be more useful in a flat/apartment scenario or when you don’t have constant outdoor access.
- Nappy rash/barrier cream – start using this from the get go, don’t wait until you see nappy rash to use it, do it day 1. You want to prevent baby getting a nappy rash rather than wait to treat…believe me it will happen. I swear by sudocrem
- Car seat – most hospitals don’t let you leave the hospital without one! We loved and got good use from the Cybex Cloud Z i-Size https://www.cybex-online.com/en/gb/p/10092239.html some features we liked; recline function, easily clip on/off, isofix base, paired well with our buggy for easy travel system, baby safe for up to 3 hours sleep on recline.
- Pram – you’re going to want to take baby out for strolls and while recovering from giving birth you might want to give your back and arms a break. Also there are alot of hospital and follow up checks so having an easy travel system to take baby in and out of the car/hospital/health centres will be important. Highly recommned the Upper baby Minu https://uppababy.co.uk/pushchairs/lightweight/minu-v2/jake/ This comes with a carry cot, seat for when baby is ready to sit more upright, and car seat adapters.
- Somewhere to sleep – we were happy with a moses basket that was handed down! It fit right at the side of our bed and was nice and cosy for them both. They were both in there for about 5-6 months until we transitioned them into a bigger cot in their own rooms. Mine were both really good sleepers at night and the transition to their own rooms only enhanced that. They both slept so much better and mostly through the night (7-7) from 8 months onwards.
- Anything to support your feeding journey. For example if you’re going to give breastfeeding a try you may want to express or if you’re formula feeding you’ll need bottle and steriliser equipment. I can give you more insight into these as I did both so please do message me if you want some more info or clarity here.
- Baby bath items – so baby wash (I used and still use baby Aveeno range or Child’s farm – love both and never had any skin issues), baby sponge/soft cloth and either a baby bath or a floating pillow to put directly into an existing bath
- CLOTHES! Those cutesy teeny tiny baby clothes. I’ll be honest, anything other than vests and baby grows are a pain to handle especially in the first few months. HIGHLY…very highly…recommend baby grows with zippers because when you need to quickly do a change or half way through the night need to change baby, you do not want to be faffing with a gazillion buttons in the dark. I always used to wonder whether baby was hot or cold – it’d play on my mind so much, I figured out the general rule of thumb is that they need one more layer than us to stay at a comfortable temperature.
Download my full list / spreadsheet here!
I hope this helps you to prepare and feel baby ready when the time comes!
~X~