12 Newborn Baby Essentials – Must Haves for Newborns
Caring for a newborn baby can be equally overwhelming and challenging, especially if its your first baby. When you’re expecting, it’s difficult to know exactly what you will need for your newborn and which baby items are best for you. The number of newborn baby essentials you need can take any parents by surprise and so will the recommended list of must haves for newborn baby by others.
My mistakes!
Personally, I bought almost every baby items that I could think of and that others recommended. However, it was only after I had my baby, I realized that I had missed out on a lot of necessary baby items. At the same time, I had bought so many unnecessary baby items. I was nervous and excited as the day got closer. In the excitement, I started buying anything and everything.
How did I figure out this list??
The journey I went through with my little one taught me many things. Being a parent for the first time, I had lot of hit and trials with the necessary items for newborns. I wanted to share my practical knowledge with other new parents who are expecting their first baby.
I have created this list of newborn essentials, hoping it will help new parents who are getting ready for their upcoming child.
Contents
Newborn Baby Essentials Checklist - Must Haves for Newborns
As mentioned earlier, not everything people suggests are essentials for newborn baby. There are some items that are actually must haves for newborn baby whereas some simply make the life of parents easier. You can actually skip purchasing them if you are on a strict budget. Finally, there are some luxury baby items which you might not need or use at all.
You will be an expert after your first baby
Until you have your own kids, it is pretty difficult to distinguish between these items. Most new parents, like myself, end up buying lot of unnecessary items for newborn babies and miss out on so many essential baby items. Here are some of the must have baby items for newborns.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Sleeping
Bassinets or Cribs (Cots)
Mattress for Cribs and Bassinets
Crib or Bassinet
Depending on crib or bassinet, make sure that you get the right mattress for you newborn baby.
What to look for in mattress?
Make sure that the mattress doesn’t compromise with the child’s safety and comfort and has high breathability. You should also ensure that the size of the mattress is the right one for your bassinet or crib. If you can get a mattress that is waterproof, it would be a plus.
Other mattress accessories
You will also need to get some other newborn essentials along with the mattress. You will need crib mattress protector that will help to keep the mattress clean. Newborns or infants diaper will often leak especially when you don’t put them on the right way. Another essentials for newborn baby is the fitted crib sheet set.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Feeding
Baby Feeding Bottles and Formula
Not breastfeeding by choice or situation
Breastfeeding your newborn baby is very important and is recommended by every health professionals. However, not every mom will be able to breastfeed right away. Some will have to wait few days and some may not be able to breastfeed at all because of medical conditions or for personal reasons. Undecided whether to breastfeed or formula feed your newborn?
Irrespective of your reasons, to bottle feed the newborn baby, you should have these feeding bottles ready before the birth of your little one. It is very important to have at least 8 feeding bottles handy.
Don’t stack formulas before trying
I suggest you to wait until you find the formula that your baby likes or is comfortable with before stacking them. Babies might not be comfortable with certain formulas. So, please do try a few formulas and if you get lucky your baby will love the first formula you introduce to him/her. Feeding bottles are definitely another newborn essentials unless mom decides to only breastfeed the baby and will not returning back to work anytime soon.
Feeding Bottle Sterilizer
Keeping baby healthy
Feeding bottles have be to sterilized properly before reusing them to ensure that they don’t cause any discomfort to the newborn baby. Newborns won’t have fully functional immune system. There are various feeding bottle sterilizers available depending on the feeding bottles that you have used.
Affordable option
You can also use a big vessel with boiling water to sterilize the feeding bottles. However, you have to make sure that you don’t burn the bottles. Boiling the bottles for too long period of time may also damage the bottles. This newborn baby essentials can make life for parents bit easier especially in the first few months when you need to feed the baby every 2 hours.
Electric Breast Pump
Electric Breast Pump is sort of newborn essentials and unnecessary item at the same time. It is a must have for newborns if you decide to bottle feed your little one. Also, for working mom, it is easy to store milk to feed the little ones while mom is away. Even dads can give moms a break and feed the newborn baby if they have some stored in a bottle. Electric breast pump is a must have for newborn baby for working moms.
Manual breast pumps are tiring and time consuming
You already have enough to deal with while taking care of your newborn baby and don’t want to go through extra hassle of using manual breast pump. I have tried it for my little one and gave up on it in no time.
Swaddles or Muslin clothes
Swaddles can scare new parents
When I first saw the video of a mom putting her baby in swaddle, I was like a big No. I told my wife that we would never do that to our baby. It was only after the midwife, during one of our parenting classes, explained the concept things were clearer for me.
Why swaddle?
When you swaddle your newborn, you are creating a cozy familiar environment for the baby, like in the mother’s womb. It helps them settle down and sleep like a baby. It is something new parents must add to their newborn baby essentials checklist. It also helps to keep the baby warm and helps parents to prevent the use of loose blankets.
Sleeping Bags for Newborns and Infants
Health and Safety
The main idea of this baby sleeping bag is to keep the baby warm without compromising any safety issue. Using blankets for newborns and infants can put parents under a lot of stress. They can easily avoid that by using this sleeping bag. It will keep the baby warm during winter and cold weather and take some stress off parent’s shoulder.
Mosquito Safety Net for Newborns and Infants
Safe from Mosquito and Insects
I live on the 8th floor and had never thought I would have to get this for my little one. One day I woke up to find out that my little one had lots of rashes on this face. it was then I realized that I had to get this mosquito net. I would always add it on my newborn baby essentials checklist, however depending on where you are from, you might be able to avoid it.
Only for Cribs…
If you have bassinet for your newborn baby then you might not need this net at all as most of the bassinets have built in nets. However, if you have cribs then you might definitely need one. Also, when you get this safety net make sure that it lets you keep the baby inside the crib and take them out without much hassle.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Travel
Diaper (Nappy) Bag
Need to pack a tons of things for newborns
A nappy bag is an extremely essential item for newborn baby and infants. You will be surprised with the amount of things that you will need to pack while heading outside with your newborn baby.
Spacious nappy bag
You need to make sure that you have enough spaces in the bag for feeding bottles, baby clothes, diapers and some other baby toys and accessories. Its plus if you can get a bag which is waterproof. You however, don’t want to buy a very bulky one thinking it will be spacious as you will be carrying the bag a lot and it was be quite tiring.
Strollers for Newborn baby
More difficult than selecting a car
To be honest, for me, selecting a new car was far easier than selecting a stroller for my newborn baby. There are various factors that you have to consider while purchasing a stroller such as weight, folding and the price as it ranges from few hundreds to few thousands.
Don’t wait till last moment
You definitely don’t want to wait until your baby arrives to select a stroller. With hundreds of options out there, making your selection can feel daunting and it will put you in even more pressure. Further, for the safety of the newborn baby, it would be wise to keep the baby in the stroller while you are walking around. Just for this reason, it is essential to get a stroller before the arrival of your baby.
Baby Car Seat
Newborn’s first car ride in your own car
If you want your newborn baby to have his/her first ride in your own car then definitely you should have the car seat fitted before the arrival of the newborn. The car seat is not that difficult to install. However, if you are unsure about how to install it then you can seek help of any mechanic nearby.
Handy during hospital visit
You might not do much travelling with the newborn baby but it will still come handy during the hospital visit. Sometimes, you might have to make emergency visit to the hospital cause with newborn even small changes will worry the parents a lot. If you have the car seat fitted then in times like this you will have something less to worry about. So baby car seat is also another item that you should add to your newborn essentials checklist. You can follow the instructions below for installing a baby car seat.
Baby Carrier
Safety first
Baby carrier is another essentials for babies or infants for mostly safety reasons. I have found it very handy as I wanted the baby to be able to look around whenever I took him for a walk. He wouldn’t be able to see anything from the stroller and carrying him in my arms would not be very safe.
Bond with the baby
These carriers also help you to bond more with your baby as they remain close to you and like you more for taking them out. New dads out there, it is one the best ways for you to bond with your baby.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Changing
Changing Table
Changing a lot of diapers
The first thing is for which you should be prepared is that you will be changing a lot of diapers everyday. For the first few weeks or months, you will be changing at least one every two hours, not forgetting changing the baby. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to change one yet, with all that practice you will be a champ in no time.
Take care of your back
This was something I missed and ended up with sore backs after few days. So, unless you want to end up with sore back like me you should have a changing table handy before the birth of your baby. You should also order it well before the due date as you might need some time to assemble it. So changing table is more like must haves for parents rather than newborn baby essentials.
Diapers (Nappies)
Baby diapers or nappies are another must haves for newborn baby. It’s good to have at least two large boxes of diapers handy before the newborn baby arrives. It might seem a lot but they will disappear in no time.
Reusable or disposable? your choice
You can get the disposable nappies or the reusable cloth nappies. The reusable cloth nappies, however, can be very tiring during the early stages, especially when you have your hands full with other baby related tasks.
Nappy rashes
You will be changing baby’s clothes and nappies at least once in every two hours. Also general practitioners highly recommend getting an ointments for nappy rash which is common in many babies. I have been using them regularly for almost two years now and believe parents should add it to their newborn baby essentials checklist.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Bathing and Grooming
Bathing and Grooming Set
For the early stages a bathing shampoo, soft towel, soft face towel for kids, bath thermometer, body moisturizing cream and oil are very essential. You can get each accessories in small sizes as they will last long and might expire even before you use them completely. Also, you need to make sure that it is gentle on your baby’s skin.
Newborn baby has very sensitive skin
Not all shampoo, cream and oil will be gentle to your baby’s skin. Some of them might cause irritation and give them rashes. So see your doctor or nurses immediately and also change the item if you feel that it’s not gentle to your baby’s skin. After first few months, having some toys in the bath tub can be helpful to distract them.
Uncontrolled hand movements
Newborn babies also don’t have control on the movement of their hands. They will end up scratching their faces if their nails are not clipped on time. So, nail clippers and above mentioned accessories are definitely essentials for newborn baby that you should add to your checklist.
Infant Bath Towels (at least 2)
Multiple soft towels
You have to make sure that you are using the soft infant bath towels while bathing your newborn. You will need multiple towels as for first few weeks you will wash baby’s head and body separately as recommended by the midwifes. You will then need spare towels to wrap the baby immediately to protect your little one from catching cold.
Newborn Baby Must Haves for Health & Safety
Infrared Baby Thermometer
Baby’s cry can mean many things
Babies most common way of expressing when something is wrong is crying. But, it can mean a lot of things. As a parent we always want to make sure they are doing well. Infrared thermometer is another newborn essentials that helps parents to check if their little one has temperature.
Handy for many years
Make sure you get a good quality infrared thermometer as it will come very handy for years to come. It is almost impossible or very hard to take temperature of infants and toddlers with regular thermometer.
Baby Monitor
Parents want to monitor every activities of newborn baby and be ensured that they are sound asleep. A baby monitor is definitely a newborn baby essentials as it will come very handy especially when you are home alone with the baby and have other tasks that you need to take care of.
You can concentrate on your tasks without much stress while keeping an eye on the baby at the same time.
Baby Night Light
Night time feeding
Baby night light is absolutely a must have newborn essentials. You will be waking up a lot at night to feed or change the baby. Thus, having a night light is a must. It will help you monitor your newborn baby and also prevent you from stumbling on other things in the dark.
Safety in the dark
We, parents, always want to make sure that our little one is doing fine. We wake up every now and then during the night just to have a look. So, if you have a dim night light on then it will be very easy to check the baby. Also, the dim light also won’t affect your precious sleep. It will be precious especially in the early days of parenthood.
Newborn Baby Must Haves Activity Accessories
Baby Activity Gym Floor Mats
- Big Workout - Little muscles get a big workout with this kick and play baby gym as your baby kicks, reaches and pushes up.
- 5 Repositionable Toys: self-discovery mirror, elephant teether, crinkle panda, lion rattle & monkey cymbal clackers.
- Engaging - Super soft & thick, machine-washable play mat features loops to attach toys providing soft base for baby to do tummy time and also keep them engaged.
Crib Toys with Music and Lights
- Engaging - As this fun baby essentials spins slowly, it can attract the baby’s attention, and help the little one to exercise baby's eyesight.
- Soothing Melodies - This baby item activates soothing melodies when your little one cries and will play for a pre-selected amount of time
- Teething - Toys included in this baby essentials can be separated, and the baby can use them if teething
- Educational - It's a must have newborn baby essentials as it lets babies enjoy up to 20 minutes of continuous playful music, lights, and sounds to engage and stimulate their senses
Baby Rattles and Teether Toys
- Perfect size - These baby rattles are perfect for little hand as these baby essentials are big enough which avoid mistake swallow, perfect size for little hands to grab it.
- Early educational toys - Different shape rattles helps baby to grab for co-ordination skills and learn animals from daily life.
- Development - Bright colored rattles are good for baby’s visual acuity and also a good toys for their teeth development.
- Soothe Baby - attractive and sweet sounds will show up when mommy shake the rattles, a useful and must have baby essentials for parents to soothe your little one.
Newborn Baby Must Haves Clothings
Burp Cloth
Why burp clothes?
I hadn’t realized the importance of burp cloths until I had to change my clothes 5 times in a day. Every time I burped my baby, he threw up all over my shoulder (small amount). At one point I started smelling like my newborn baby.
Cost effective way
If you have other spare clean clothes then you can use those. You don’t necessarily have to buy any specific burp clothes as long as you make sure you have some soft clean clothes handy while feeding the baby.
Newborn Baby Singlets, Onesies and Pajamas
You definitely want the baby looking at their best when you get them home from the hospital. As soon as baby is born hospitals do provide wrapping clothes and singlets for the baby. However, when baby and mom are discharged from the hospital you will have to return all the clothing.
Onesies and Pajamas
If you have your baby in the summer then you might want to more onesies and singlets (at least 8 sets) and if its winter then get more full sleeves clothing. The one that opens from the side is much easier especially for new parents. Also, you will be changing the newborn baby a lot especially when they poop and pee a lot, anytime and anywhere.
Halloween Ideas
We have some awesome halloween ideas for you and your little one just to make his/her first halloween extra special.
Newborn Baby Essentials - Nice to Have
If parents were to purchase every recommended item then the list would be never ending. However, here are some nice to have baby items which will come very handy once you have your little bundle of joy in the family.
Make parenthood slightly easier….
These newborn baby items will help you take better care of your baby and also make the process of parenthood relatively easier.
While purchasing these items, you can look for the products that best matches your budget and don’t fall for peer pressure. You definitely don’t need expensive baby items to take better care of you baby. These baby essentials are nice to have items only and you should be able to skip them depending on your needs and budget.
Must Haves for Toddlers
The essentials for newborn and toddlers are totally different. Babies as they grow up have different needs. Parents must be equipped with these essential baby items to ensure they can provide the best support for the growth and development of their babies, as well as keep them safe.
Introducing books
Parents should introduce books to their toddlers and kids as early as possible. They can start by reading bedtime stories to their little ones and help them develop a love for reading.
We have listed a few must haves for baby or toddlers which will make parenthood bit simpler.
Convertible High Chair
When it comes to feeding, the struggle is real
Feeding an infant or a toddler can be quite challenging at times. It can get messy and with all the struggling you also want to ensure that the high chair has high safety standards. If it wasn’t for the high chair we would be running behind our infants and toddlers trying to feed them.
Easy to clean and light weight
The most important thing you want in the high chair is that it should be easy to wash. Also, its a plus if its light weight as you might be moving it around a lot. Further, it should provide multiple seating options and should transform easily as kids grow quickly.
Baby Walker
- Develop Skills - Interactive baby walker helps babies develop motor skills and possible take his first steps
- Music and Creativity - This learning toy walker has 5 piano keys that play music and encourage creativity
- Discover - Must have baby essentials for parents to get their babies ready to walk while discovering shapes, numbers, letters, colors, animals and music
Baby Jumper
- Educational & Multilingual – The removable sea turtle activity center helps your baby discover numbers and colors in 3 languages (English, Spanish, and French)
- Deep Sea Exploration – This cute baby jumper has interactive ocean-themed activities that entertain the babies and introduce underwater images.
- Develop Leg Muscles -- The baby essential chair is a must have for infants as it allows your little one to jump and dance, which helps strengthen their developing leg muscles.
Playpen
Finally the moment you are waiting for, see your baby roll over and standing on his feet. While the second one may take bit longer than the first one, playpen will come handy for both of them.
Leaving baby inside walker can be dangerous
You can leave the baby inside the playpen and they can work on their physical development safely. I once left my baby inside the walker and tried to use the bathroom quickly. When I got back, I was surprised and scared to see my baby on the floor smiling at me. After that I never left my baby inside a walker and purchased a playpen right away. As an experienced parent, I can’t stress out the importance of playpen for infants and toddlers.
Two sizes of playpen based on space availability
If you have space then I suggest you to get on with 8 sides (bigger one) as it will last much longer, at least until the baby is 2 years old. It’s a must have item for parents who have a toddler at home.
Potty Training Seat
It’s never too early to start potty training. Indeed, the sooner you start, the easier it will be and you will save a lot of hassle for yourself and even protect your little ones from getting rashes and running around uncomfortably.
I first started potty training my little one when he was 8 months. It was much easier to get him to stay at one place by simply handing him his favorite toy or sometimes my phone. After this I didn’t have to keep checking or smelling his nappy to check if he had pooped. These potty training seats are quite comfortable and you can pick the best one for your kids depending on their age.
Safety Mat
The trick here is to use this mat under the playpen. The soft mat will protect the babies every time they fall down while learning essential life skills.
Less stressful for parents
With the safety mat, parents will have less to worry about whenever they leave their kids inside the playpen. Also, getting a colorful mat will keep the baby engaged and he might even learn the alphabets and numbers from the mat. Considering the number of time toddlers fall down as they try to walk, this mat is definitely a must have baby item for toddlers.
Food Processor
Feeding infants is easy as they only feed on breast milk or formula. However, once you start introducing solid food to them then the food processor will come very handy.
My wife tries to cook fresh everyday for my toddler baby and this processor has been a life saver for her. Last month our processor stopped working and the next few days were a nightmare. That’s when we realized its importance and just for that I would say it’s a must have item for toddlers.
Make sure that you get a good quality one as you will be using the food processor a lot and for many years.
Must Have Safety Accessories for Toddlers - Child Safety Magnetic Cabinet and Drawer Locks
If you have an infant or toddler in your house then you probably know this by now. As they start walking around, bumping into things and falling here and there, these baby essentials will home very handy.
Safety first
Our little explorers have curious minds and for some reason keep trying to do the things that you don’t want them to. My little one tried to open the drawers all the time and it worried me a lot that he might get his finger caught and injure himself. After I used these cabinet and drawer locks, things got less stressful for me and I was able to help him play around more freely.
Baby Essentials - Sleeping Bags
Warmth and Safety
The risk of SIDS is relatively low in case of toddlers compared to that of infants. However, using sleeping bags for toddlers will helps parents to ensure that their baby are warm and safe during the nights. My little one throws the blankets all the time and I would get up every now and then and cover him with blanket so that he wouldn’t catch cold. Finally, I got this sleeping bag and had one less things to worry about during the night.
Unnecessary Items for Newborns: Avoid Buying
Expecting my first baby, I simply didn’t know how to stay prepared for the little one. As the day got closer, I started getting more attached to the baby and my anxiousness was also growing. I just didn’t want to take any chance and bought almost everything that I could think of and what others recommended to me.
Financials and space issues with unnecessary baby items…
As I started buying more stuffs, it not only created space problems for me but only started to hurt my finances. I went way over the budget and bought so many insignificant items from my savings. I am creating this list of items which are simply waste of money and quite unnecessary. I hope new parents will find this list helpful and can avoid buying these unnecessary items for newborns
Newborn Shoes
Shoes for newborns are cute. Also, they are usually the first thing new parents shop for. However, the newborn baby will spend most time on the bassinet, stroller or parents arms and will hardly wear those shoes.
Its understandable when parents want to buy a pair to store for memory for their newborn baby. However, if they want to buy one for their newborn baby then its something they can easily avoid and is quite unnecessary.
Newborn or Infant bath tub
On average, we bathe our newborn baby like twice a week and they grow up pretty fast. If you purchase an infant bath tub then soon you will realize that they have outgrown the bath tub in few months time. Even if they fit in there, the little ones will start struggling so much that it will be impossible to contain them inside the tub.
If you have a reasonable size sink at home then it will be more than enough to bathe the newborn. Just make sure, you keep the sink really clean and free from any chemicals. You can then easily avoid buying one more unnecessary item from the list.
Bottle Warmer
Baby bottle warmer is not exactly something unnecessary that you should totally avoid buying. It depends on your budget. If you can spare extra $30 then you might as well get it.
You can easily heat the feeding bottles by placing them on a container filled with hot water. It’s a fairly easy process but the heating might take some time depending on the amount of milk inside the bottle.
Baby Pillow
Healthcare professional at the hospital strictly advice you not to use pillows for the newborn babies. It may block their nose and mouth and cause suffocation.
If you must use a pillow to prevent flat head, make sure that newborn babies are under continuous observation and you don’t use it during the night. This pillow might come handy for parents who are worried about their newborn baby getting a flat head. If you are not one of them then you can totally cross it off your list.
Pee-pee Teepee
Before I had my baby, i had no idea how adventurous it would be simply changing him. He peed upon me and even all over himself a few times in the early days. Sometimes right after i bathe him!
However, with experience, I came up with a solution. I would simply leave a tissue on top while changing him. So even if he peed during that time then it wouldn’t go all over the place. This is much simpler and affordable solution compared to stacking piles of pee-pee teepee.
Formula Mixer
Formula mixer is another overpriced unnecessary item that you can easily avoid for your newborn baby. You can get so many other baby essentials with this money.
All it takes is 30 seconds to mix the formula in the bottle. As long as you have warm bottle of water handy, the process of making formula is fairly simple. You definitely don’t need this overpriced formula mixer.
Manual Breast Pump
Breast pump do encourage mothers to feed mother’s milk to newborn babies, however using manual breast pump can be very exhausting. We tried using it for our newborn baby but got fed up with it in no time.
I took turns with my wife as it was very tiring process. However, she also found it very irritating and refused to use it for few attempts. If you actually need to use one, please buy electric breast pump as they are much easier to use and are very effective.
