5 Newborn Products to Help Make Life Easier

It's such an incredible time to bring home a little bundle of sleepy joy home for the first time. We set up the crib, got a rocking chair, had a changing pad set up on a little dresser and thought we were ready to bring our baby home. When we came home, we didn't realize I would have a difficult time going up and down our stairs. For the first 2 weeks of Henry's life I lived in our living room. But there are a few products that made our transition much easier. We didn't have all of these things from the start, but we will for the next one! Ok, here it goes...

1.  Nursing pillow

Whether you decide to go with a Boppy or a Brest Friend pillow this helped with positioning for breastfeeding. If you decide to nurse, those first few weeks seem like you breastfeed round the clock and it can get tiresome piling up pillows just right. The Boppy pillow can also be used to prop baby up. In an earlier post, I do a full review of the Brest Friend pillow.  It's really ideal for shorter mamas. Compared to the Boppy, it's not as tall, helping position the baby.  It has a buckle that goes all around your waist so it really stays where you want it.  We bought ours off of Amazon for around $35.

Skittles, our dog thinks it's just right for her (:

2.  Rock and Play

We called ours a taco, because that's what it reminded my sister of, and well--- it just stuck. Henry slept in this for the first 4 months! We moved across the country when Henry was 6 weeks old, stayed with family, in hotels and just in transit for awhile. The "taco" has been incredibly easy to pack in and out. It folds in half really easy. It keeps baby on an angle which I know is a concern for parents of baby with reflux. We would just swaddle Henry and put him to nap and sleep at night. He did grow out of it around 4-5 months when he wanted to roll around. We got ours at Babies R Us for around $50.

3.  Changing Pad

This is just a basic changing pad that we put strong velcro on the bottom of to attach it to a dresser. It's curved up on the edges to keep baby from rolling. We had this changing pad up in his room, and one that attached to the pack n' play downstairs. It worked out perfectly for us. I'm glad we didn't get a changing table, because we had a perfectly good dresser that will work fine for Henry for a few years.  We got this one off Amazon. It was around $20, and we got 2 covers which were each around $9. Trust me, you'll need extra ones.  We were lucky enough to get some hand me down covers from friends--so I think we have 5 in total. They get peed on a lot in the beginning (:

                             

4.  Woombie Original

This little gadget is AWESOME! I wish we had it when we brought Henry home from the hospital.  We didn't get it until Henry was about 3 months old. The woombie was designed by nurses, and they call it the "safest, most natural way to swaddle your baby." It is made of really stretchy, breathable material (kinda like a yoga pant).  It has a long zipper, and a snap over the top like a sleeper. Henry could move his arms around easily. It swaddles the baby in a way that allows them to move around easily. I seriously could not get the hang of swaddling. My husband was the only one who could do it in a way that Henry actually stayed wrapped up. He could break out of my sad-attempt-for-a-swaddle in seconds. So for me, this was Mommy-proof---which I desperately needed.  We stopped swaddling him around the time he started to roll 4-5 months, so we didn't get a ton of use out of this, but we will keep it on hand for the next one! The Woombie Original was $26 from this site.

Henry in the Woombie around 3 months, also in the taco (:

5.  Moby Wrap

My doula is the first person who introduced me to the Moby Wrap. It's essentially a really long piece of  semi-stretchy fabric that you wrap around yourself to carry baby. It definitely has a learning curve. We had to watch youtube a few times to really get the hang of it. When we first came home, I wasn't allowed to carry anything heavier than the baby, which meant I wasn't able to carry Henry in his car seat. This was so so so useful, and much easier than lugging around the car seat every time you have to run errands.  It cost around $50. We bought ours from Simple Cloth, a cloth diaper store in Olympia, WA where we were living. (And yes, we cloth diaper!!  We love it!!!! I'm planning on writing a post on that in the future) I've heard of people using this carrier through toddlerhood, but that just wasn't the case for us. Because the fabric is kind of stretchy, Henry really weighed it down after he reached 15lbs. But he didn't reach that until 6 months. So this was my primary carrier for the first half a year. If I had to run to the grocery store, I would put the wrap on at home, carry Henry to the car, buckle him in his car seat, then when I got to the store I would slip Henry in the wrap already on my body. It worked really well for us. I would also put him in the wrap to go on walks.

Henry in the Moby doing a hip carry around 4-5 months old

These are just a few items that really improved our lifestyle in the beginning.  I'm all for making things easier, and these items really helped. 

**Please let me know what you think of this product and/or my review!! Leave me a comment and let me know if you want me to review a specific parenting product!!

Happy Parenting!!

~jh