For part two of this series, I’m covering clothing and miscellaneous items that are part of our sleep routine, as well as helpful products for postpartum recovery and a few additional things that ended up being useful for us. There’s a bunch so let’s make this quick!
Sleep
Sleep sack
One of my favorite items for sleep is her sleep sack! We tried three brands in the beginning, but ended up loving and choosing Kyte Baby. Kyte has a huge following for a reason. Their material is so soft and comfortable. When we first started using the Kyte sleepsacks, I thought it was annoying with the double layers, but I eventually loved it for everything else — the convenience of the double zippers, how soft the material is, and the thickness of the zipper cover (is that what it’s called?) so it doesn’t rub on her skin. I also really appreciate how long they are because the Halo sleepsack was so short, Katerina outgrew it quickly! 10/10 highly recommend.
I wanted to mention that I am not including swaddles because Katerina absolutely hated swaddles. I read babies always hate being swaddled and find comfort in it once they’re falling asleep, but they never grew on Katerina. We put her in sleep sacks starting 2 weeks old, and she started sleeping so well starting week 3!
PJs
At the time I’m writing this, I haven’t tried the Kyte Baby pajamas but I have an order on the way! Because we love their sleep sacks so much, I thought I’d try out their pj’s too. In the meantime, let me tell you about my favorite pajamas!
Carter’s
One of our favorites is the 2-way zip sleep ‘n play from Carters, specifically the Just One You line. You can get them from Carter’s or Target! I personally can’t stand pajamas with footies because they don’t last too long, and Katerina runs pretty warm so she doesn’t usually need them. I’m willing to overlook the footies on these pajamas because they’re not that expensive anyway, and they’re great quality. They’re the perfect thickness that’s not too warm or too thin it feels cheap. Even when they start to stretch because they’re getting tighter, they don’t rip or run at all. I especially love the Little Planet line at Carter’s too, but they’re pricier. I try to order as many as I can when they have the rare sales.
Target: Cloud Island
Another favorite is the Cloud Island zip-up sleep ‘n play. These pajamas are so thin and so cheap looking and feeling, but they are so soft and stretchy. So they are the favorite pajamas for Katerina to spit-up in, pee in, and get dirty. They are the pajamas you don’t need to save for your next baby because they will rip and feel really thin after so many washes. Now I sound like I’m dissing it, so how is it one of our favorites? Haha. Well they’re great go-to’s that are so affordable, and you don’t feel bad messing them up! The downside is that it makes me emotional getting rid of them once she outgrows them because she’s been wearing them since she was a newborn, and she’s now over 5 months and still wearing the 0-3’s!
Monica + Andy and Hanna Andersson
Lastly, I have to mention our two pricier favorites at the moment. Love Monica + Andy and Hanna Andersson pajamas. They are such great quality, feel “heavy” in a good way, and hold up so well. These are the pajamas you will keep as hand-me-down’s for sure! Not to mention I don’t have to settle for pajamas with footies with these brands š
I love the prints at Monica + Andy, and they have a store a mile away from us so ordering and returning are easy. I also like their other clothes, not just pajamas. Their dresses are so darn cute. They only have three stores, one in Chicago and two in New York, so I feel lucky we have one here! Haha. Monica + Andy runs big and long, so Katerina can wear them for a while.
Hanna Andersson doesn’t have a brick and mortar shop, so it’s trickier to order from them. I always size-up when I’m not sure about sizing. Also, I don’t buy too many from them since I only like a few of their prints. One thing to note about Hanna Andersson is you have to size up regardless because they run pretty small.
Bath
Tub
Oh, the amount of research I did for the darn bathtub! There are so many baby tub options. Some of them are designed specifically for newborns, some for bigger babies, and some for both and they end up sucking for both phases. Then there’s options that have materials that end up moldy or disintegrating. I also had to make sure it fit in our sink because we have a walk-in shower, not a tub. I’d be forced to bathe her in our bathroom and I did not wanna have to. I was determined to only buy one bathtub, and that was going to be it!
The bathtub I ended up buying, with my fingers crossed it was going to be good, was the Beaba by Shnuggle Baby Bath. I was surprised at how much bigger the tub was when we received it in the mail but it fit in our sink so perfectly! It’s like our sink was made to fit the tub. Haha.
The tub is also tall and has a “bum bump” that supports the bum so babies don’t slide down while they’re in it! We’ve been using the tub since Katerina was maybe 6 weeks old, and I never felt scared to use it. I was terrified of giving her baths in the first few weeks and needed my mom to help me. Babies are slippery! The tub is also lightweight and doesn’t take up too much space in our bathroom, which was another reason why I originally did not want a “full-size” baby tub and opted for a foldable one originally.
Love our Beaba tub, and I never saw it recommended in any articles I read. To be honest, I love that it’s not as popular as the rest because I like discovering new items myself instead of just going with the crowd all the time!š
Washcloths
My passion for the KeaBabies washcloths is…over the top. I bought the Burt’s Bees ones that people rave about, and was also gifted some that were cheapy quality. I didn’t bother researching much for washcloths, how picky do I need to be? While I was creating my registry, I saw the KeaBabies ones at Target just from browsing and read the reviews, so I thought for the price and reviews, it may be worth trying since I didn’t have any washcloths yet. Was I pleasantly surprised.
They are so stinking soft and plush. The material is thick so it doesn’t feel like it’s going to rip, and they hold water really well. I bought washcloths for baths, but I never ended up using them after the third bath. I’m sure when Katerina is bigger, I’ll need them for baths and I’ll get more KeaBabies ones again! For now, I use them a lot to clean her up after a meal, or when I’m freshening her up in the morning or before bed. Highly recommend trying them if you’re looking for great washcloths!
Recovery
There’s not a lot to say about the recovery items, in my opinion. So I’ll list my definite must-haves (besides the obvious stuff everyone talks about) and comment on them briefly!
- Frida Mom disposable underwear: Worth the extra expense. Everyone talks about saving money and taking the ones from the hospital. Absolutely hated the hospital ones! They were so thin and see through. The Frida Mom ones feel secure, and as if I’m actually wearing pants when I wasn’t wearing any! Because why would I?!
- Regular pads: My go-to pads for when I’m on my period worked better for me than the ones the hospital gave me. While they were a lot bigger, they just didn’t soak anything up fast enough so I ended up leaking. So get a back-up of your favorite pads if you have any!
- Frida Belly Band: So helpful since day one. It just helped me feel more held in, secured, and supported in the belly area where everything feels so loose and just…all over the place.
- Hospital bed pads: The amount of leakage everywhereš Our couch and my glider are both white, so I needed these! Just protect your furniture with the hospital pads, or pee pads as I call them. Haha. I wasn’t bleeding too much for too long, so staining our seating wasn’t too big of a problem. But boy did these come in handy when the night sweats happened! 6 whole weeks of waking up soaked in sweat. Ugh. The night sweats alone will be enough to deter me from wanting another baby. Hahah.
- Your favorite blanket: I spent so much time on the glider, so I needed another blanket I’d be comfortable with. Linking my favorite one here! Patryk and I fight over this blanket a lot, and I had to order another one since the only one we have lived on the glider. Haha. I even got a baby version for Katerina to match ours!
Miscellaneous
Here a few extra items that didn’t necessarily have its own category under sleep and recovery but I thought were worth mentioning!
Bouncer
The bouncer we chose is the Ergobaby Evolve. I didn’t want to buy a bouncer right away not knowing if we’ll like or need it for Katerina. We started to realize it was going to be helpful for us while working from home when she got bored in her lounger (let’s be real, she outgrew it too…) or doing tummy time on her playmat. She loved being propped up to see us, so we thought it was time to get one! It was gifted by my brother too, and we use it all the time.
It was between Ergobaby or Babybjorn again, and I chose Ergobaby. I watched a lot of reviews about the Ergobaby since it’s newer, and it had no minimum weight requirement since it had a newborn insert. Knowing Katerina was already big enough either way, I thought a potential second baby can use it! Besides, everyone has the Babybjorn… Didn’t wanna get the same one!
High chair
This category, in my opinion, is very much up to your preference and requirements. My main priorities for a high chair were the following: it needs to blend in with our furniture, is easy to clean, doesn’t take up a lot of space, and something we can keep using for a long time (including when we possibly have a second baby). It was between the Lalo and the Stokke Tripp Trapp for us. Both are great high chairs, but we chose the Stokke because it definitely went with our furniture and will take so much less space than the Lalo. Those were the only two deciding factors that made us choose Stokke over Lalo. The Stokke also pushes up to the dining table so Katerina can join us for our meals!
The only down side to the Stokke one is that it doesn’t come with anything – it’s just the chair. You need to buy the tray or other attachments you may wanna add to the chair. The one from Target, linked here, comes with the baby attachment though! It adds up and gets stupid expensive, but we were gifted everything for ours!
Comotomo bottles
We tried three other bottle brands before I tried Comotomo, and I hate myself for waiting that long. The reason I avoided it is because of its funny egg shape. It doesn’t look comfortable to hold, and I was so set on getting glass bottles. But they worked so well with Katerina that when we finally switched, feeding her didn’t feel as much of a chore anymore. The problem with the other bottles we tried is the nipples were so slow. It always took forever to feed baby! Once Katerina was bigger and can handle a faster flow, I went up a size for the glass Avent bottles and we use those again. Didn’t wanna waste those bottles because I do love the actual bottles!
Postpartum needs all this?!
I tried to be as minimal as possible with baby’s essentials and postpartum supplies, and really kept it to the absolute…well, essentials. We prioritized great quality items to make it comfortable and convenient for both baby and us, being new parents. Everything we purchased we made sure was worth it’s monetary value relative to how much easier it will make our lives. I would say we especially invested on items that helped sleep and recovery go smoother. For example, items that encouraged better sleep quality for the baby were helpful because with baby sleeping well, we also get better sleep!
For things we went the affordable route with, it would be the recovery “toiletries” for me and pajamas for Katerina. She outgrew almost everything before her 2nd month, and surprisingly the cheap pajamas lasted her the longest! In those first weeks, there will be a lot of spit-up, tears, pee, potentially poo, and other things that will dirty everyone’s clothes. So I suggest not investing on those as cute as they are.
Up next: Travel + Getting Around
In the third and last part of this series, I will be covering gear and smaller items for traveling and getting around daily. Probably the most expensive part of your shopping list, at least it was ours, since we’re talking safety and convenience. If you missed my previous post which was the first part of this series, I shared my picks for our nursery furniture and other items!
