How to choose what you need for a baby

It can be a bit of a minefield to choose baby items, with magazines and websites throwing lists in your faces and every other youtube video seeming to show completely conflicting items on the must have/don't buy lists.

The problem is that everyone else is not you, so you're probably going to want different things for your baby. Therefore, here is a handy list of questions to ask yourself as a process of figuring out what you'll need. In no particular order. I would recommend figuring out your car seat/pushchair first if you want one of these because this seems to be the most complicated and expensive item combination, and it makes sense to work out what you want/need first and then you can keep an eye out for good deals. The other things you can work out early or leave until later.

This is just for baby care, nothing relating to birth, and only items which will be immediately needed, nothing which starts later.

Sleeping:

1. Where is your baby going to sleep? At night? During the day?
2. For how long? Does your chosen item cover this, or will you need another one later?
3. Are you likely to have another baby waiting to move into the item before your first one has finished using it?
4. Does your item have any parts which can be changed if puked on? Spares are useful.
5. What's the temperature likely to be at night? How are you going to keep your baby comfortable?
6. Do you want any kind of soothing lights or sounds?
7. Will you need to monitor your baby while they're sleeping?
8. If there's a special sleeping room/area, does it need decoration?

Feeding:

1. Babies need milk. You'll need to pick a milk and a method of delivery. Bottle, breast, pump, etc.
2. Consider how this milk is produced and whether any equipment would help.
3. If you're planning to store milk, do you need the bottles to be sterile?
4. It would be useful to have some way of catching spit up.
5. What would help you to feel comfortable while feeding - at home? Out and about?
6. How/where are you planning to transport and store feeding supplies?

Nappies:

1. How are you going to deal with pee and poo?
2. What are you going to use to clean your baby?
3. What will you do with used nappies? Do you need anything to facilitate this?
4. Where are you going to deal with changing/toileting at home?
5. Where will you store nappies, wipes etc ready to use?
6. What will you do differently when out, and how will you transport anything you need?

Transport/parking:

1. If you need to put the baby down when you're at home, where will you put him/her?
2. When you go out, will you use a car? (If yes, you need a car seat.)
3. How will you transport the baby when not in the car? BTW, carrying the car seat is awkward except over short distances.
4. Are there special situations which may require different options?
5. Will cold, heat, sun or bugs be likely to be a problem? How will you protect your baby?
6. What if you need to put the baby down when you're out?

Clothing:

1. What do "baby clothes" mean to you - little sleepers or mini real person clothes?
2. Is your baby likely to be small (buy mostly newborn), large (buy 0-3 months) or average (a couple of newborn things, mainly 0-3 months)?
3. How many will you need of different items assuming the baby might dirty their clothing a couple of times a day, and remembering you will be tired and disorganised?
4. Where are you going to dress your baby?
5. Where will you store their clothes?
6. Are there seasonal clothes needed, e.g. sun protection, warm clothing?
7. Do you want different clothes for them to sleep in?

Washing:

1. Where will you wash your baby?
2. What will you need to wash them with?
3. How will you safely dry them?

Health:

1. How will you cut their nails?
2. Will you start to acclimatise them to the idea of a toothbrush?
3. Do you prefer to have medication available for e.g. nappy rash, pain/fever, allergies, or buy when needed?
4. How will you determine if they have a fever?
5. Do you know how and when to contact a doctor?
6. Is sun protection or bug repellent required and recommended for their age?

Entertainment:

1. Are there any specific situations around the house you would like to entertain your baby, e.g. when having their nappy/clothes changed, or when waking up alone?
2. Is there anything you've seen and thought "That looks cute, I really want to have that?"

Warning: This post talks loudly about POO.

Nobody ever tells you, before you become a parent, that over the first few years of your child's life you will become horribly and irrevocably obsessed with poo.

We've all seen them, sure, the facebook posts proudly announcing that someone's little darling has produced a giant turd that morning in the exact shape of Daddy's foot, hopefully without an accompanying picture, and I expect that most people have exactly the same response to this kind of thing. "Thanks for that. I really enjoyed the mental image while eating my lunch." And we vow, silently, that if we ever have kids, we will Not Be Like That.

Except, then, you go to your antenatal classes, and one of the first things that gets handed to you is a handy guide to all the different colours and flavours of your forthcoming newborn's poo. And you think nothing of this, because at this point all you can possibly think about is the birth and the fact this person with a gigantic head is going to somehow have to come out. So we forget about poo for now. And when the baby is born, we deal with the meconium with horror and then generally put it behind us and think "Thank god that's over!" and then go about our lives happily without a single poo-related thought polluting our minds.

Until. The baby group where another anxious mother is concerned that her baby's poo is perhaps too green. Too green? You wonder, and so you listen and come to learn that Green Poo is a terrible symptom of all sorts in babies, particularly breastfed babies, and can be caused by eating too much garlic*, drinking fizzy drinks**, or your breastmilk being "wrong", too much foremilk, or not enough foremilk***, and it can be a sign of diarrhoea, and suddenly you become infected with the Poo Obsession.

There are the green ones. There are the saved-up ones, where the baby waits for six, seven, eight days and you're on tenterhooks waiting for the inevitable poonami to strike, usually on a really hard to clean piece of furniture. Then there are the weaning ones. Sweetcorn, peas, gruesome but inevitable. Bits of undigested carrot, lovely. The banana "worms". (OH GOD.) But you get used to all of this, and even the meat ones no longer faze you, and then you come to potty training, which is pretty much where we are now. My son has just started doing his poos on the toilet (the final step for us - hooray!) and I am INCREDIBLY DISTURBED by them. They must be about half his bodyweight, and they're as long as his arms. But the most disturbing thing? One of them has taken up residence in my toilet and refuses to be flushed away, whatever we throw at it. It has been four days now, and it still sits there, staring at you with its one eye, and dissolving. Extremely slowly.

And I know, I KNOW. I have just done it. I've just written an entire blog post in order to express my opinion on my son's poo as though it's worthy of the interest of anybody else in the world. Don't shoot me. I'm a parent. I've been hit by the urge to discuss poo in public just like everyone else. Don't lie and say it's never happened to you, because one day, it probably will.


* Unlikely.
** No, it really can't.
*** This one's a possibility. If you are still in the worrying about green poo stage I suggest you read the Analytical Armadillo's excellent and very informative blog post on the subject, here.