Baby help: gadgets, appliances, and other paraphernalia -- Part 1

I thought I'd take a moment and share some of the items which have been helpful to us as new parents. At the end, I'll also throw in some which either weren't helpful or should just plain be avoided. Luckily we haven't experienced too much of the latter -- hours of reading online reviews, many visits to the store, and helpful advice from friends and family have certainly been a factor there. So, let me share what little I've learned.

These are purely my opinions, and my wife may have a little different take on some of the details. :)


Strollers

This seems as good a place to start as any. We have been very pleased with our current stroller, The First Years Wave Stroller, Black/Red, and we've also had many people comment positively about it when we're out and about. Probably the key deciding factor for us was the ease with which it can switch between forward or rear-facing while keeping the wheels facing in the proper direction. Some strollers can switch as well, but then you end up with the (often) smaller swiveling wheels in the back and it becomes much harder to manuever. This stroller not only avoids that problem, but its so easy to switch that you'll find yourself gladly doing it to keep baby out of too bright sunlight or gusty winds (or the annoying stranger). The stroller has a car adapter which fits most models, has nice large wheels which turn easily, a decent brake, adjustable height handle, and an ok storage pouch on the bottom.

The only real downside is that even folded up this stroller still takes up a lot of space. It fits fine in our Nissan Murano, but if we had a smaller car without much trunk space it may make this less attractive.

Recently we had to take a long trip to eastern Europe (I'll have to blog about that later). In preparation, we purchased an umbrella stroller that we could more easily fold-up and travel with but that would still offer decent protection from the elements, since we were traveling in the middle of winter. After trying out a few models and reading many reviews, we ended up in the right time and place to get a good deal on the Bumbleride 2011 Flite Lightweight Compact Travel Stroller, Seagrass. This little lightweight did a great job of manuevering through crowded airports and handling the (very) bumpy and hole-ridden walkways of the city we visited. Being an umbrella stroller there's not a lot of storage, but it served fine for our purpose and will really come in handy when we start taking Sophia visiting to different places (like zoos, parks, relatives, etc).

Car Seat

Speaking of traveling, most days if you're going to get there from here you'll be doing it in a car. We ended up starting with the Chicco KeyFit Infant Car Seat - Limonata as our infant car seat. At some point we'll need to switch up to a convertible, but in the meantime this has been a very handy seat. In our car, the base installed nicely and securely, and the seat itself is very easy to fit in and take out. Sophia seems comfortable in it; earlier she wasn't a big fan of car seats in general and even still she hates having to get buckled in, but once that is done she settles right in and doesn't complain at all.

A friend recommended to us when choosing a car seat to find the lightest one we were comfortable with, because when you're having to carry it around everywhere (and believe, you will!) you'll want as little extra weight as possible.

Wipe Warmer

Personally, I didn't think we needed one of these but after we got the Munchkin Warm Glow Wipe Warmer I'm glad we did. It's not even about having warm wipes (which I'm sure is nice, but I don't think the baby really minds most of the time), but about having a solid (read: heavy) wipe dispenser which keeps them moist and readily available. Being a tad on the heavy side is necessary because once those wipes start getting near the bottom of the pile they have a tendency to want to come out in one big heap and your dispenser needs to have enough heft to it to hold them down while you're busily yanking with one hand and desperately trying with the other hand to hold the baby back from sticking all available appendages into a big, stinky, messy diaper. Which leads me to my next item...

Diaper Pail

After you've finally wiped that cute bottom clean you need somewhere to dispose of the hazardous waste. We've been using the Munchkin Arm and Hammer Diaper Pail, White and I've been generally pleased so far. Our cute little girl can produce some things that are not-so-cute and not-so-little, so it's nice to have something close by that is relatively easy to dispose into and keeps the smell contained. I'm not sure the baking soda portion is doing much (as most reviews note), but even so it does a pretty good job of keeping things under control. The bags aren't too badly priced, and you can often find them on sale at Babies-R-Us or Target.

Part 2 coming soon!