It's been like Christmas here this week!
Week 20 gave me a kick in the butt that there are things this baby will need and that we have to start getting ready. There are plenty of things that we want that are either too expensive or too hard to find to put on our registry. So, we started ordering things and now the boxes just keep showing up on our porch.
First, our crib is on the way! We've been looking for a while, but settled on the Creations Summers Evening Crib in white. My parents were here a few weeks ago and surprised me by ordering it as a gift. What a gift!!! We are so thrilled to have such a nice piece of furniture for Liam to sleep in, once he graduates from his bassinet.
We ordered the Peg Perego PlikoP3 stroller in the Green Bubbles pattern. I already have the matching Skate stroller and car seat (that we bought before the baby was even conceived) but the Skate is a very large and heavy stroller-- it's beautiful & perfect for an all day outing but it's a nightmare for quick errands (jumping in and out of the car) and we could never travel with it. We needed something lightweight so we decided on the PlikoP3 and it arrived yesterday. I love it! (We couldn't register for this because it was discontinued, so we tracked it down online.)
Ahhh, the breast pump-- a necessary evil. I plan on breastfeeding, but certainly want Rob to be able to give the baby a bottle at times & will need to let my parents or sitters feed him while they are watching him. After talking to several moms, I knew that I wanted the Medela Freestyle-- and I knew that with a hefty price tag of almost $400, this would not be going on our registry. Lucky for us, we found a great website that had it for $270. Score.I think that, as much as it's possible to love a pump, I will love this one. It's a double electric hands-free pump and it's extremely small and lightweight. I love that the motor is the size of my palm and can easily be tossed in a diaper bag, plus it has a rechargeable battery-- no being tethered to a motor inside a bag and a plug.
Which brings us to bottles-- To attempt to minimize nipple confusion, I decided on Adiri Natural Nurser Bottles. They've won all kinds of awards and I think the design is just perfect. While I know that a lot of people love Dr. Browns bottles, I'm really not interested in washing 5 separate pieces after every feeding. These are only two pieces-- the bottle and nipple (one piece) and the bottom cap-- which should make washing easy. The entire top half of the bottle is a soft material that warms with the milk, just like a mother's skin would be warm. Everyone recommends bottles with wide nipples-- well, on the Adiri, the nipple and bottle are as wide as a breast.Adiri, unfortunately, faced tough economic times last year and went out of business-- so these bottles are not currently available at Babies R Us. However, I'm thrilled to say that Adiri has teamed up with WaterGeeks and the bottles will be back to retailers by July. In the meantime, we got a fantastic deal on ordering these from Amazon, but if there is any improvement in the design, we'll return them and buy the new ones. *This being said, I realize that sometimes babies do not take the bottles you pick! So, while I hope that these are the ones we'll use, Liam will ultimately decide.*
Last, we've started collecting our diapers. We'll be using gDiapers and I'm very excited about them. Some of the reviews have been mixed but it seems like, if we give them a chance to find the right fit, we'll be set. (People who love them, really love them.) If you're not familiar, gDiapers are cloth outer pants with disposable OR cloth inserts. I love that gDiapers are biodegradable and don't contain any plastic-- they're flushable which means no stinky diaper pail in the nursery. I love that they're cute and they're a hybrid-- we can use the flushable inserts but if we want to venture into the world of cloth diapering, we can. We've been using all of our 20% off coupons at Babies R Us to buy little gpants and packages of the flushable inserts, but last night I picked up a package of gCloth so we'll have them on hand.
It feels so good to know that we're well on our way to having the things we need to take care of him! We're going to get started on the nursery in the next few weeks-- post about that soon!
Wow - you have done so much! You should feel very relieved. At 20 weeks I had done nothing except order the crib and changing table. But in the last month or so we've done so much. Which is good since the baby could come any day! I found that website too for discount breast pumps, which seems like such a good deal. I still need to decide on which one, I figured I would buy it after since you're not supposed to pump the first month. Congrats again!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! You've been waiting for this day for a very long time, so it's only natural to throw yourself into picking all this wonderful stuff for Liam.
ReplyDeleteI'm very interested in gdiapers, too. You'll have to let me know how you like them once he's here.
I cannot wait to start shopping!! We have gotten some gpants already as well and cannot wait to start using them when baby comes!!!
ReplyDeleteEverything looks lovely. I feel strange not doing anything for my baby this time, but we simply don't need anything for her since we got it all with Champ.
ReplyDeleteI love your outlook on the breast pump, some people think pump & bottle is so easy and guaranteed to work well. It is fantastic that you plan on breastfeeding and depsite the pump & bottle coming in handy sometimes, it really is SO much more hassle than just putting bub to breast. I ended up rearely using mine with Champ and am not sure I even want to dust mine off for Lucky. I think I'll just stick by her side for 6 months until she starts being introduced to solids.
That diaper combo sounds interesting. I have all my cloth from Champ and am so happy with them. I use Pop-in, they are a UK based company.
I love all of the choices so far Stef!
ReplyDeleteYou've done lots of research! I've only just started. I've chosen which high chair I want but everything else is still undecided.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, I just clicked on your gDiaper link to check it out - but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get them here in Australia because despite researching reusable nappies I've never heard of them. And "diaper" is such an American term. But lo and behold - they're an Australian company! I've been tossing up between disposables and cloth varieties but couldn't decide on a brand. I think this is the perfect compromise and I love the philosophy of the company. Thanks so much for sharing this link!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm so disappointed! On researching gDiapers a bit more it seems they AREN'T available in Australia. The biodegradeable inserts are Australian but gDiapers are an American brand. A similar product is available here (with the same inserts) but are much less trendy looking!
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