When you’re a soon-to-be or new parent, figuring out all the gear you need (from a strollers to sleep sacks) can be daunting.
To make the process easier, here are two important words to know: Baby Bargains. One of the best hints I received when I was expecting came from a coworker who told me to buy the book “Baby Bargains” by Denise & Alan Fields.
This is truly the Consumer Reports of baby gear and consulting it makes narrowing down all the available options a ton simpler. For numerous product categories (from cribs to car seats to clothes), the authors break down their worth-the-money picks into good, better and best categories based on how much readers want to spend.
For me, these recommendations were indispensable and the most helpful part of the book. By narrowing down my options for major purchases to the Fields’ picks, I saved myself a ton of research time and money (for example, we didn’t bother buying diaper stackers and haven’t bought a walker toy). In fact, my daughter’s nursery and play area are mostly filled with products featured in the Baby Bargains book.
There’s one big exception, however, that I’d like to warn other new parents about. The Fields included diaper warmers on one of their helpful lists of waste-of-money products. But soon after we brought our daughter home from the hospital, my husband, like any good father who wants to spoil his daughter, worried that our newborn wouldn’t like the feel of cold wipes. So he made a special trip to the store to buy a wipe warmer.
However, we should have listened to the Fields. As we realized pretty quickly when we would forget to plug in the warmer in time for diaper changes, our daughter was just fine with regular, old, non-heated wipes.
How did you sort through all the baby gear options out there? What resources did you find helpful?
Thanks for the tip, Hint Mama! I agree that Baby Bargains is very helpful, but wish it was updated more often since companies are constantly coming out with new baby products. I compiled a list of recommendations from friends into an Excel spreadsheet — which made it easy to keep track of compare what others found useful and easy to share with others.