I remember having a nice sized baby shower for my first child. I was so excited. As I read every parenting magazine I could get my hands on, talked to other moms, saw neat gadgets other people had I formulated my list of baby needs and wants in my head. When it came time to create a baby shower registry, I went crazy. Some things off the bat I realized were a waste of money. Other things I thought were great for a couple months then realized I’d never use it again. With each child new things came out and I tried them. By baby number 4 I pretty much knew what worked for my kids and my house and what didn’t.
These are, of course, my opinion. I have friends and family that when I’d say I really didn’t like something they talked about how it was great and vice versa. Keep in mind some things may work better for you depending on your home size, baby, etc.
1. The wipe warmer – In my opinion the biggest waste of baby registry space I had on my list. As a new mom, of course I wanted my baby to be comfortable. I mean, would I want to be wiped with a cold wipe unexpectedly? I got one for my baby shower. I put the wipes in and added a little water like it said to. Plugged it in. Nice and warm. Then you have to remember to put a little water in it each day. You know what happens when you forget? Your overwhelmed, new mommy, sleep deprived brain will forget. Your wipes will dry out and won’t be good for anything. I threw out more wipes then I care to admit. Know what happens if you put too much water in it? You end up with slopping wet wipes that didn’t seem to work as well.
2. The plastic bag dispenser for dirty diapers– Ok there’s this cool looking little clip that clips right onto your diaper back. It’s a plastic bag dispenser so that when you change baby’s diaper on the go you can put the dirty diaper in a bag and dispose of it. I thought it was great at first. Then I’d run out of bags and forget to refill it. You had to pay like $3-$4 for the refills and I thought to myself “I’m paying for plastic bags” So instead I’d just tuck a few plastic grocery bags into my diaper bag and use those. FREE, reuses, and it became a habit to stick a couple in the diaper bag when I was packing extra diapers.
3. The pacifier medicine dispenser – I saw them with kids #2 but never bought one. With kids #3 I decided eh, I don’t have to buy much this time, I’ll give it a try. Most of my kids loved their pacifiers. I thought this would be great to get medicine in them when it really counted. Um no. I think I tried it 2 times and gave up. The first time, my son rejected it. He was more interested in checking out the liquid in the pacifier. The next time he sucked on it for a minute then pulled it out and threw it. Much easy just to drop the medicine in with the dosing dropper in my opinion.
4. Special baby food storage containers – I didn’t try making my own baby food until child #3. I just had to have these specific baby food containers because they had to be the best for baby food right? Yea there’s nothing wrong with them but do you know what else works just as well? Those small condiment tupperware containers. You can even get glass ones if you don’t want to use plastic. Then you can reuse them in the future for food storage or packing lunches. Sure the special baby food ones are cute with giraffes and smiley faces on them but try sending one of those with your teenager in his lunch for his veggie dip.
5. Plastic adhesive stove guard – Once my babies were mobile, they explored as babies do. My one son in particular was very interested in what i was doing on the stove. One of my fears would be that I’d turn my back for a second and he’d have a hold of a handle of a hot pot on the stove and pull it down. So I got this stove guard that seemed like it would be a good idea. Baby proofing things is always a good idea. The stove especially. This particular guard however didn’t work worth a spit after about a month or so. It adhered to the stove with double sided adhesive tape. The base to adhere it was only about an inch or so wide and stuck right to the stove surface. The larger plastic portion angle forward. As I said, it worked for about a month then I realized each time I used the front burners it would warm the adhesive and it would come loose. I’d stick it back down when I was done cooking and it would be ok until the next time I used the stove. Also if oil or grease splattered and got under the guard it also loosedned the adhesive. Eventually it lost it’s stickiness all together and wasn’t good for anything. Sure I could have bought more adhesive but what’s the point. There are other ones that seem like the would be better.
Great post. I thought the wipe warmer was great at first too but then it really just became a nuisance. I didn’t use mine very long at all.