When I was 7 month prego, my boss walked into my office with his notepad in hand – “J, you ready? We need you in 8A to go over your deal.”  “Sure”, I grabbed my stuff and waddled out of my office, followed him into the big conference room.  “Surprise!!” As I walked in, I saw a room filled with people from the office.  My boss turned around, with a triumphant smile on his face – no wonder he was asking me (casually) the other day how I was prepared in terms of shopping for the baby!  I almost cried in joy.  There was a card and a few boxes on the big table, but TH walked over with a list – hint, she was a mother of four – and that is the list that I want to share with you mommies-to-be.  She hand picked all those items, with a picture next to each one of them, and estimated delievery date.  I could feel tears welled up my eyes…

– Ear Thermometer by Braun: I still have it now (my son is turning 7 this month).  Works greet.  The current model works the same but it a bit slow in getting a temperature compared to the old one.

– Baby Carrier by baby bjorn 

– Kolcraft Universal Infant Car Seat Carrier, you can fold it with one hand, the wheels are big, the bin is big.  Mine went through 4 babies (not all mine! it got passed back and forth between us and friends).

– Baby Monitor

– Bath tub by First Year’s Infant to Toddler Tub with Sling.

-Wipes warmer by Prince Loinheart.

– A basic set for nails (filers are more useful than nail clippers)

And I added a few to that list since here are the some stuff that I had bought before the surprise baby shower:

– Stroller:  I had the Quinny Buzz and Zapp, Buzz is the full size and Zapp is the compact one.  looking back though, I’d probably delay the stroller purchase, since the first 6 months the baby would be in the car seat most of the time anyways and it is so easy with the car seat carrier, and when they are older, they can use the compact stroller.  But for taking a long walk after they have grown out of the car seat, they are definitely more comfortable in the full size stroller than the compact one.  My second son used to nap in his Buzz a lot.   So I’m a bit torn on this.   For traveling, use car seat carrier/car seat combo when they are little and the small one as soon as they could fit.  I’ve seen too many ppl struggling with a gigantic “travel system” with an infant car seat at the airport or in and out of the car..

–  Receiving blankets (lots of them), you won’t be having too many blankets, and the small ones can be dubbed as burping cloth…

– Bottles, I used Avent.

– Pump, either Medala or Avent.  If you are not going to pump a lot, the Avent hand pump might just be enough. I wrote about this in an earlier article “What’s the right pump for me?”

– A changing pad that’s foldable and portable, sometimes it comes with the diaper bag

– A diaper bag, this one I don’t have any good recommendations.  I had the BabyBjorn one with a hard case – a “clamshell” design.  It definitely looked nice, and it was easy to organize things b/c it had a hard case with nice compartments.  But the hard case made it not really easy to carry.   It is good for car trips while it just sits there for you to find stuff.  Mine is currently sitting in a bag collection display at a friend house… I also had the Land’s End one, I found it too bulky.

– For Baby blothes, the kimono style works the best when they are little, extremly easy to put on.

And don’t need to waste your money on special detergent – Tide Ultra Free will do.

I put most of the items on our “Shop to Support” tab, http://blog.littlefir.com/?page_id=13.  Under Kids and Babies, Prepare for a Newborn.  I also added a few books that I liked.

Have fun shopping!

I’m a big fan of nursing,  and, a working mom, who happens to like gadgets and new technologies.  So when I had my first baby, I did my research, and based on the not so research based theory – “the more expensive model the better, the newer the model the better”, I bought the Medela Pump in Style Advanced. Does it serve my purpose – I went back to full time work when the baby was 12 weeks old, and nursed him until he was 10 months – absolutely. Do I like the pump? Not really. I actually packed an Avent Manual Breast Pump with the Medala, and surprisingly, the manual pump was as productive as the electronic one, and it went right into the Avent bottles that I used. When I traveled on business, I only packed the Avent pump, which was not only much lighter, more descrete, but also not constrained by the location of the power outlet.