10 must-haves for a Mom with a newborn

Caring for a newborn can be challenging, especially for first-time moms, but, with some preparation and guidance from other moms, this will be much easier.  With this blog, I hope to share my newborn care experience and the products that helped me the most in this journey.

Onesies with mittens

As soon as I got home from the hospital, I was worried about my newborn scratching his face with his tiny but sharp nails, and although I had already bought a lot of cute onesies before his birth, none of them seemed helpful when I had to cloth my baby. I also tried putting on separate mittens, but those would come off quickly, so onesies with built-in mittens are the real deal.  Since it was pandemic time, we mostly shopped online and loved the following brand.

Steam vaporizer

I had a cute little cool-mist humidifier ready for my baby, but he was born in December, and the cold weather seemed to be giving him a little bit of a cold. I heard about the steam vaporizer from my mother in law, which helped a lot. We did use the cool mist humidifier later in the summer, though. We got the one below for the cold days, and it served us well. 

Cradle Cap hair brush

For the first three weeks after my baby's birth, we were giving him very careful sponge baths as his umbilical cord hadn't come off yet, but we noticed his head having severe cradle cap, and some of those flakes also caused a rash on his forehead.

After much online research, when it was safe to give him a full bath, I applied coconut oil on his head and combed it really well. I could see the flakes just all over the comb and then shampooed his hair while using the cradle cap brush. After a couple of such hair washes, the cradle cap was gone, and his scalp was clean, and the rash also went away. We purchased this one and still use it from time to time for a thorough scalp cleansing for my baby. 

Swaddle with Crepe

After struggling with my newborn crying out often in sleep with his arms and legs moving a lot, I researched and learnt about the Moro reflex in newborns and that swaddling would help. But if you have a strong and active newborn like mine, the ordinary swaddles won't really help and so I looked for crepe swaddles and found many options online. 'SwaddleMe' was a useful brand I found

Pacifiers

At the one-month pediatrician visit, our doctor advised that it is okay to use pacifiers and we tried a few different brands. But most would be very difficult for our newborn to retain in his mouth for longer and would fall off immediately, but the ones from BIBS brand were just the right size for his tiny little mouth.

Culturelle Probiotic drops

My baby was on a hybrid of formula and breast milk and struggled with gas pains a lot initially until a good friend advised me to use probiotic drops. I confirmed with our pediatrician about using probiotic drops and these made a significant difference. In fact,  the Culturelle brand was recommended by our pediatrician. 

Baby bottle sterilizer and dryer

Being first-time parents, we initially had no idea about the best products for washing baby bottles and made about 3 purchases in very quick succession and all went wrong. One would just sterilize the bottles but not dry them and there would be water droplets all over the bottles; bought a drying rack, but that would just dry out the bottles in the open somewhat defeating the purpose of sterilization. Ultimately we got the Wabi baby bottle sterilizer and dryer and this still serves us great. We even bought a second one when our baby started solid foods. We use one for the milk bottles and the other for the solid feeding utensils.

Diaper pail

Needless to say, this is a must to contain the smell of the dirty and wet diapers and an ordinary trash can just wouldn't do. We use the Genie diaper pail till date (baby is 1 year old now)

A safe and high quality car seat

After a lot of research, we went with the Nuna Pipa car seat and absolutely loved it, especially the Dream Drape feature.

A sound machine

We got a sound machine that could make beautiful music as well as womb like sounds and it helped put baby to sleep as well as keeping him asleep for good durations. 

 

 Note: In another blog, I enumerate 5 great products for a mom with an infant that may not be must-haves but are extremely helpful. In this blog, I enlist products for baby's diapering needs.