Hellobee

I posted previously about items I wish I had purchased the first time around and was surprised to see some of the comments indicating that a particular item didn’t work for them. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised given the number of baby items we tried that people rave about but just didn’t work for our kids. Here are five items that everyone we know loves, but Lion and Panda never liked (plus some other items we skipped).

Baby Bjorn Bouncer – This is definitely number one on our list. We received the item as a hand-me-down from friends who absolutely raved about it. In fact, everyone we know, either in real life or virtually, loves the Baby Bjorn Bouncer and its magical capabilities to soothe an infant. Lion was not impressed and it did nothing to soothe him when he had colic, nor did it seem to hold his interest even once he got over the colicky stage. We tried it with Panda, who was an exceptionally easy baby, but again it held no particular sway for him. Instead, the Snugabunny bouncer and the Mamaroo  swing were much more effective. We’ll give the Baby Bjorn another shot with Baby #3 since we still have it, but I’m not expecting it to get much use.

Baby wraps – To be fair, I didn’t really give the moby wrap or other wraps much of a shot. The wraps were so long and felt bulky, though. I couldn’t figure out how to tie it tight enough without the ends hanging out everywhere. I also would get extremely paranoid that the wrap would loosen up while I wore it and I would drop the baby. Once we found the Ergo360, that was my go to baby carrier. I also have the Baby K’tan which I like since it doesn’t require a ton of effort to use, though I wish it wasn’t sized to the wearer since Mr. Dolphin can’t use it.

Aden and Anais muslin swaddle blankets – Back when I was pregnant with Lion, these swaddle blankets were everywhere. While I admit that they are super cute, they didn’t work for us as swaddle blankets. They were hard to wrap tightly enough around the baby and Panda always escaped the blankets when we used them as a swaddle. I didn’t like using them as nursing covers. And other than the summer months, they were too lightweight to be useful. The blankets we received at the hospital were much more effective as swaddle blankets, before we switched to a variety of pre-made swaddles/sleep sacks with velcro or zippers.

Bumbo seat – While we never owned one, we did see it in use when we visited friends. Additionally, the kids’ daycare had these seats. It didn’t seem to have much value in terms of longevity, so we elected not to purchase one. I will admit that Lion tipped over while sitting numerous times over several months before finally figuring out how to balance. Panda never had this problem. But the Bumbo seat, while inexpensive, was just one more piece of baby gear that takes up space that we didn’t really have an interest in. I know a lot of people say the Bumbo is a must-have item, though!

Glider/rocking chair – We were gifted a glider when I was pregnant with Lion and it got a lot of use. We would sit in the chair to feed Lion his bottle, snuggle up in it to read books. There are times when I wish we had purchased a higher end version that was a little more comfortable, but ultimately I don’t think we needed a glider or rocking chair. A chair, yes. A glider, no. I personally don’t think the motion did much to soothe our children. We ended up selling the gilder when we downsized from our 3-bedroom condo to a 1-bedroom apartment at the beginning of 2018. Now that we are in our house, now, we do need to purchase new furniture. We decided this time around to purchase a living room chair rather than a glider and place it the nursery for now. Eventually it will make its way back down to the living room.

There were also a number of things we simply skipped on purchasing (and never tried/never had any intention of buying) and I don’t regret it. These items include:

• Changing table – Although we have a fair amount of baby gear, I didn’t want to purchase too much unless I felt it was something we really needed or would get a lot of use out of. Instead of a changing table, we used dressers and simply put a changing pad on top.
• Wipe warmer – I didn’t really see the point and our kids never seemed to mind cold wipes.
• Diaper genie – We just used the regular trash can to throw away diapers.
• Bottle warmer – While we did heat Lion’s bottles up using hot water and a bowl, we skipped warming up bottles for Panda. I’m glad we didn’t purchase a warmer since it would have only been useful for Lion and the system we used was pretty good.
• Baby walker – While this was partly a function of the amount of space we had available, I never had an interest in purchasing a walker for our little ones. They were both walking by one, doing a lot of practicing cruising around, holding whatever furniture happened to be nearby.