I’m expecting my second baby at the end of April – I’m at the exciting point of pregnancy where I can start planning what the nursery is going to look like and start browsing all the lovely baby toys, clothes and gadgets that I might want to buy for the new member of my family.
When my first daughter was born, two and a half years ago, I enjoyed talking with all my mummy friends about the baby products I had bought and tried – feeding equipment, clothes, baby monitors etc. And so I started up my blog, Mellow Mummy to share my thoughts. Since then, I’ve been really privileged to get the chance to try out a large number of baby gadgets – some great, some pretty average.
Right now, I’m looking back on all of the baby products I’ve tried and evaluating whether or not I am going to keep them for the new baby, or whether I want to buy replacements for when the baby arrives. The process is making me think about whether or not I could have lived without each of the products I use – what products do I genuinely value?
While reflecting on the last two and a half years of motherhood I put together my list of Mellow mummy must haves on BabyHuddle as a way of capturing all of the products I would genuinely recommend to my friends, family and readers.
My number one recommendation for all mums of children of 4 months upwards is the Totseat. It is a washable, squashable highchair that fits on almost any chair anywhere. The reason why I love it so much is that it meant we could take our little girl out with us to cafes and restaurants without having to worry about whether they were officially child-friendly enough to provide a highchair. We took it on holiday with us to the USA when she was 1 year old; lots of places didn’t provide highchairs so it was indispensable. Using the Totseat meant that our little girl could sit up at the table like a big girl!
If you look a little further down my list you’ll notice that travel products feature a lot. We love to go on holidays in the UK and abroad and have found a number of products that made it a lot easier with a baby then I had imagined. The Samsonite popgup bubble cot was incredibly light for overseas travel and the Lindam microwave sterliser bags were the most compact way of sterlising that I could find when self-catering.
The things that I have decided to buy new for baby are mainly things that have worn out. Our Bibetta bins have been used every day since weaning began and our Brother Max bath toys have been splashed, bashed and squashed at every bathtime (and are now looking a little battered).
Now I have started reflecting I can see that there are a number of common topics to the products I rate – breastfeeding, travel, feeding, and health. Maybe these are new lists just calling out for me to make?
