Baby Essentials: 10+ products we should have bought earlier

Baby room ready before birth? Check! What’s better to buy too early than too late? Some products are expensive but save so much time and energy in the long run! Once the baby is here, there is no time left anyways 😉 Learn from our mistakes!

1. Changing Station

0-2 years
€ 249 (Mömax furniture store)

It’s better to go for the larger and more comfortable changing table, especially if you have twins! We can even fit two babies on it. And diapers and baby care products:

You don’t have a huge appartment? Well the babies have priority or not?

In the beginning we changed diapers on the bed and on a standard table. But better think of your back!

Anyways, when traveling or sometimes at home or when on the go a foldable soft changing mat is still essential.

Read on:

• Baby Room Tour

2. Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair

from 6 month or birth
€ 391 incl. Newborn and Baby Set

We just picked up the Stokke high chair even though our babies still cannot sit on their own at 8,5 month!

But: We should have bought this high chair at birth already. Why?

With the Baby set and the Newborn Set the baby can participate at the family table and it is easy to feed the baby when it is at the appropriate height:

Instead we used our baby swing: We put it on the table or were feeding on the floor.

This was a bad idea… learn from our mistakes!

BTW about the IKEA high chair: This is not to be used with 6 month old babies (at least without accessories)! It is ok to use with older babies or we will buy one or two to use at the grandparents’ house.

3. Sterilizer

ca. 0-6 month (depending on water quality)
€ 60 without drying function, € 90 with

Our biggest mistake in the beginning! To use the cooking pot to sterilize our baby bottles which was recommended by a friend (I hope she will not be too angry reading this):

So please take our advice and buy the Philips Avent Sterilizer. Even in our hospital they were using one:

4. Formula Dispenser Machine

Birth to 1 year
€ 100 – € 300

You are breast feeding? Perfet! If not: We have to get up from bed like 10 times per night to prepare formula.

Still we have yet to invest money to buy a formula dispenser machine because we thought our babies will sleep through the night. Unfortunately they decided not to (at 8,5 month old). So should we still buy one? At least we don’t have to boil water anymore (and also we don’t have to sterilize the bottles as much anymore)…

So we strongly recommend to buy an expensive formula dispenser machines from the beginning to put it next to the bed to have a ready made bottle available immediately:

5. Pampers Night Pants

A real Gamechanger: How many times did we

• have to get up at nights to change the diapers?
• just to realize in the morning that the diapers have leaked and we have to wash the bed sheets?

Luckily with the Pampers Night Pants this is a thing of the past!

Also for babies that like to turn while changing the diapers this is a life saver because it is much easier to put them on because they are like pants.

6. Baby Food Preparer

4-10 month
€ 90 (2-in-1), € 145 (4-in-1)

They say that the time until they will eat real food is short. But our doctor recommended to us to start with 4 month to give baby food.

We started out cooking vegetables in the pot and using a hand blender to make purree. But this is obviously a waste of time!

Much bettee that we are now using the Philips Avent Steamer Blender which is like a Thermomix for babies (for twins it is better to buy the bigger 4-in-1 variant):

Our Instructions:

• 4-in-1-Baby Food Preparer
• 2-in-1-Baby Food Preparer

7. Travel Cot

from Birth to 15 kg
€ 60 (without an extra mattress)

Only now for our last holidays we bought a travel cot. Before the babies were sleeping in our bed:

Needless to say that many times the babies fell out of the bed. One time even on hardwood floor 🙁

This can be prevented by using a travel cot. Now it is at the grandparents’ house and it will save us when the babies decide to take a nap.

At the grandparents’ house:

• Hauck Dream N Play Travel Cot Instructions

8. Playpen

0-3 years
starting from ca. € 100

They say when the babies start to move around it will get really hard. We have taken precautions:

Now the babies can play alone for a short time…

Our Product Review:

• Amazon Playpen Review

9. Baby Monitor

strating from € 20

Luckily we instantly bought a security camera as a baby monitor. So what was our mistake? Not to buy more cameras to monitor all rooms where the babies are and also to install a camera at the grandparents’ house.

Comparison review:

• TP-Link Tapo C110 vs C210

10. Doona+ Stroller / Car Seat

from birth to 1 year
€ 450

Luckily we bought 2 mini strollers that can be converted to car seats instantly. We still use them and plan to use them until the babies are 1 year old.

We went with them to countries like Albania and Portugal where the sidewalks are not always good and where there are not so many elevators. It is not too hard to carry these mini strollers / car seats.

Of course it is no replacement for a bigger stroller:

• the wheels are really small so not good for cobblestone etc.
• as a car seat it gets hard every day to put the babies into the rear seat because they are already 9 kg each

Still we don’t want to miss our Doonas!

In addition we have this big luxurious twin stroller:

More about it:

• Bugaboo Donkey 5 Zwillingswagen im Test

11. Nappy Bin

€ 50

Who elses simply puts the used diapers into a garbage bag?

Well twins produce a lot of dirty diapers and by the time they start eating baby food the smell is awful.

That’s why we had to buy an odor blocking nappy bin:

Review:

• Chicco Nappy Bin Review

12. Baby Bottle Drying Rack

I don’t know why we waited so long before we bought this bottle drying rack:

Before we put the wet bottles onto a tablet or on the kitchen counter top. Quickly mold start to build up and the kitchen started to smell damp, water was everywhere. Now it is much better…

13. Nasal Aspirator for the Vaccuum Cleaner

€ 20

Often we had to clear the baby’s stuffy nose so that he could breathe. So far we have always used this manual nasal aspirator:

However, getting the mucus out of the nose is with this difficult and the thin tube is very difficult to clean.

Now we have finally bought a nasal aspirator that connects to the vacuum cleaner:

This device is also a real game changer as it allows you to clear the baby’s nose effortless and cleaning the tube is also easier. A second suction head is included in the sibling package:

Conclusion

So I hope you are more motivated by now not to wait buying these essentials?

Next time we will maybe talk about products we bought that we never used 😉

What did you regret you did not buy (yet)? What was too expensive? What was unnecessary? Post in the comments!