I made this guide because after two kids, I realized how much of the baby industry is built around convincing exhausted parents they’re one purchase away from finally feeling prepared.
We bought way too much the first time around. Fancy versions of things. “Must haves.” Products designed to solve problems we didn’t actually have yet. Nearly half of it never got used.
We found ourselves happiest when we waited longer, bought less, and let real life decide what actually earned a permanent place in our house.
This isn’t a registry checklist or a list of trendy products. It’s just the few things that consistently made daily life easier in our house from newborn through toddler years — and the many things that absolutely did not.
A real-life, no-BS list of high priced baby & toddler products that didn’t hold up- and what we paid for them!
I wanted to love this. In reality, I constantly found myself going back to my basic Medela pump because it just worked every single time.
Beautiful stroller. Pushed nicely. But large, bulky, and ultimately not something we reached for often enough to justify the space or price.
Beautiful design. Very Instagram. But at the end of the day, food still ends up everywhere and we preferred our much simpler Graco high chair.
We kept reaching for our simple audio monitor instead. Too many features, too much charging, too much checking the screen instead of just living life.