Babies Don't Need Much

Hi, my name is Emily and I hate clutter.  And I had a baby three months ago.  And babies come with clutter.  PLASTIC clutter

I won't bore you with my thoughts on the baby industry playing on first time parents' fears in an effort to sell more gear.  I'll simply say I wanted the bare minimum when it came to nurturing, loving and entertaining Mr. Thomas.

Really, you don't need much.  A crib and/or pack n' play.  A breast pump.  A car seat and stroller of some kind. A load of white onesies.  And a few pieces of plastic that you can cycle in and out of the basement.

Here's what we have:

Baby Trend Car Seat (Here's the really thought out process I used to pick a car seat:  Found the two safest car seats per Consumer Reports, and picked the one with colors I liked the best.  Mother of the year.)

A crib upstairs for sleeping, a pack n' play downstairs for occasional naps and diaper changing - now that Tommy is past the newborn stage, we'll probably fold this up for travel use more than napping and diaper changing use.

Snap n' Go Stroller.  Did you know I'm not a matchy matchy person?  The last thing I wanted was a car seat that matched my stroller.  I'm fickle like that.  This folds up with one hand, weighs next to nothing and is super cheap.  LOVE.

Luckily, our friend Jenna loaned us most of her plastic baby stuff so we didn't have to purchase new.  Because some babies (ahem, mine) don't like swings.  So from Jenna we have lots of baby gear - bouncer, swing, play gym, etc - that we pull out and put away with each use. I would never have bought the play gym - seems like a blanket could work just as well so it wasn't even on my radar - but it's Thomas's favorite thing in the whole wide world.  It lives in our living room, everything else filters in and out of the basement as needed.  Jenna is our lifesaver.

And, here's the single most invaluable thing for me.  My breast pump.  I used it daily since Thomas was born to establish milk supply and pump a daily bottle, it enabled me to build up a stash of milk for going back to work (and on dates with Mr. B), and is now my sidekick three - four times a day at the office.

We did buy an inexpensive Jogger (a discounted floor model at $109, that after a gift card cost us $9) after the fact because I was craving running and the snap n' go? Well, it don't run.  I like it a lot, but it's huge and hard to transport so we still use the snap n' go when we're out and about and for regular walks around the neighborhood.

I figure by spending $9 on a jogging stroller now, I can justify a spendy one in a few years when we need a double.  Instead of spending other gift cards we received on cutesy plastic, they're going towards future must-have purchases - like a bigger car seat.  And that's that.  Really, you don't need much.  My house is mostly plastic free and our bank account didn't take a huge hit with baby purchases.  Works for me.