5 "Non-Essential" Baby Products I'm Buying Anyway

My fancy bottle drying rack and super soft baby blanketWhen you have your first baby you can either go wild with registering for every single suggested nursery item on the checklist, or you can play it conservative and get only the "essentials." The items your mom insists you need and nothing more. Well, with both of my pregnancies, I went the latter route and bought/registered for as few items as I thought I needed. For the most part those items served me well and I'm glad I didn't make unnecessary purchases, but the third time around I'm finally buying some of these "non essential" items that I've always wanted:


1. Wipe Warmer
So many of my friends and family told me this was a very silly investment. But you know what's silly? Standing at the sink in the middle of the night waiting for the water to warm up so you can wipe down your newborn's bottom with a warm washcloth, because the wipes are just too cold and startling to them. The time (and water) I wasted every single night with both of my babies waiting for the water to be just right convinces me that a wipe warmer is a must have this time around.

Related: 5 things I wish I knew before becoming a mom

2. Bottle Drying Rack
I mainly breastfed both of my babes, and will do so with this one as well, but we do offer a bottle at least once a day, and having them dry on the counter or a regular dish rack was a minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless. In a hurry or tired, we always seemed to knock over the lightweight bottles, and then we'd have to wash them again. This time I bought one of those squishy drying racks that the bottles and nipples can easily stick to and not fall off. I'm ridiculously excited for this new gadget!

3. Bath Toy Scoop
The large bath tub scoop, made popular by the Boon frog, didn't hit our stores until after my son was almost 1. By that time I figured we didn't have much longer before both kids would be done playing with bath toys, so I stuck with my cheap mesh bath toy bag instead of getting one of the fancy bath toy scoops. Let me tell you, I longed for that scoop every night as I cleaned up all the bath toys piece by piece? And 4 years later, both my kids still love to play with bath toys and I'm still scooping up each of them one by one. This time I'm finally getting the fancy scoop and I'm giddy about it!

Related: 5 tricks for calming a fussy newborn

4. Video Monitor
Depending on the size of your house I guess you technically don't even need a monitor, but for the first two babies it was nice to have a regular sound monitor to use mainly when we were outside during nap time. But this time we registered for a fancy video monitor and I can't wait to be able to not only hear but see my little babe whenever I want, even when it's dark!

5. Luxurious Baby Blankets
It seems there's always at least one person that buys you something that's not on your registry, and for both previous babies it was a very fancy, impractical, yet super soft and sweet baby blanket. Both times when I received these blankets, I thought about returning them for a more practical, necessary item. But I kept the pretty blankets both times and I'm so glad I did because years later, they are still my kids' favorite blankets and they love to sleep with them every night. So this time when I yet again received a fancy, impractical baby blanket in pure white, I actually got very excited and couldn't wait to use it with baby #3. A fancy baby blanket is just one of those items we wouldn't usually buy ourselves, but it's so nice when someone unexpectedly buys it for us instead.

So did you register for non-essential items in addition to the essentials, or did you just stick to the basics? And if you could do it again, what "luxury" item would you ask or buy for you and Baby?

- By Andrea Howe
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