In the past we’ve shared our #1 Can’t Live Without Baby Product, Baby Gear: Buy or Skip?, Gear We Wish We Had Purchased, and Baby Gear Regrets. It’s been a couple years since we did one of these so this time we asked our Bees what their least used piece of baby gear was:
Swings (my little ones hated them) and baby sitters (like a bumbo). Once they were strong enough to use them, they preferred to be on the floor sitting or in the hair chair for eating. I also thought they looked so uncomfortable for them that I took them out almost immediately.
The changing pad that you can attach to the top of a dresser or changing table. I literally used it once and found it awkward and annoying. Much easier for me to change the babies on the bed or the floor.
We registered for a jogging stroller that my brother generously bought us. I think we used it about three times. We thought we would keep up with jogging once baby came, but we were so wrong!
A bottle sterilizer. We ended up cleaning bottles by running them through our dishwasher and I can’t remember using the sterilizer any time other than the initial unpacking and cleaning of the bottles.
Sophie the giraffe. Our oldest was never interested in it, even when teething. Our younger one would gnaw on it if he had it in his hand but really preferred chewing on almost anything else in the house.
Crib. No matter how much we tried he never once slept in it. It became a storage area and then we finally gave it away!
Our infant carrier/stroller combo (we had the Graco KeyFit 30 and the Cortina stroller). The carrier itself was fine, though I probably would have just gone with a convertible right away, or something cheaper for the carrier since we pretty much stopped using it as a carrier after the first 4-5 months (and my kid was a preemie and light for her age). The Cortina stroller was so heavy and clunky, we pretty much gave up using it after the initial few months, and eventually traded down to a lighter stroller.
Sophie was pretty useless to us. I think our dog was more interested in it than the kids were. I also thought those suction bulbs for the nose were pretty useless. We could never get anything from the kids’ noses with those. We are 100% Nose Frida users now!
Our most useless baby product was all the carriers we tried. We had the Mobi, the Bjorn and the sling and Max didn’t like to be in any of them. Also, the pee pee teepee. While a cute idea to a person who has never changed a baby boy’s diaper; it is a useless product.
The rain cover for our stroller. I think we used it once! It’s a pain to put on and just not necessary for suburb living.
Washable flannel wipes. I’ll be honest, disposable wipes were just so much easier. Less disgusting. They are still in a stack, in Will’s room, never used.
So many adorable little newborn-sized outfits that were literally never worn because who wants to put jeans on a newborn?
Our big expensive stroller. Barely used it. Always wore her and then once big enough we used the jogging stroller or an umbrella.
*White noise machine – we used a fan instead.
* Baby girl dresses when they are learning to crawl. I could never put them on her. She would get tangled-up and roll over if she was wearing a dress.
* Bumbo seat – we probably used for two weeks total with each kid.
1. a baby puree book – once it was time to start feeding solids, I started off with foods that didn’t require any extra work like avocados and bananas….and then I realized that I didn’t have to make pureeing food complicated, simple is always good I gave it one good skim and that was about it.
2. Sophie the Giraffe – I tried to get both the girls interested in it, but they both didn’t care for it.
I think the jumperoo was the most useless for me because both kids preferred the exersaucer, and the bouncer took up so much space! Although if I had purchased it used instead of new, I could have easily recouped my costs. I also tried a variety of wraps, and just couldn’t get them to work for me; it’s another thing to buy used if you can!
. . . . .
What was your least used baby product?
pomelo / 5257 posts
The Moby. Too bulky and hot for an August baby in Texas. Luckily it was free. In fact, I got it because I was talking to someone about how I was considering buying it. She said, “Don’t, I hated the Moby. In fact, just take mine. If you like it, then great, if not at least you didn’t pay for it.” Sure enough I did not like it, haha.
guest
Swing, changing table, and pacifiers. First baby loved the Ergo, but it was useless with our second who hated being worn.
pomegranate / 3768 posts
Sophie. Both of my girls did not care for it.
persimmon / 1286 posts
bumbo, bottle warmer/steriziler. used all less than 3x before giving them to mom friends.
apricot / 317 posts
Anything denim. It’s too restrictive and difficult to put on a baby.
Wipe warmers. Diaper caddy – it was just easier to keep a box handy by the crib. Teethers/Pacifiers – we were gifted TONS of these (DS1 wouldn’t use them, DS2 couldn’t physically use them).
We loved our microwave bottle sterilizer, though. We needed one because I didn’t trust our old dishwasher.
pomelo / 5084 posts
RNP. He absolutely hated it.
pomelo / 5866 posts
Pacifier
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
There a few that were not used or needed at all: white noise machine, pacifier, swaddling blankets. He didn’t need white noise to sleep and he preferred his fingers vs a paci. We had the A&A blankets and for the way we used them there was so much extra fabric.
We really didn’t need a bottle warmer or bouncer. By the time LO wanted to play with his bouncer toy bar he didn’t need to sit in it to do so. Our bottles took forever to warm up and LO never had a preference.
nectarine / 2690 posts
The bumbo and swaddles.
grapefruit / 4649 posts
Crib and the rock and play for us. She wanted to sleep with me and on her side which made the rnp a death trap.
nectarine / 2173 posts
We’re Sophie fans here!
But the Bumbo was useless and our LO was fine with cold or room temp milk, so we gave away the bottle warmer.
kiwi / 578 posts
Bottle warmer. Tried it once and then never used it again.