(Part 2) Best products from r/InfertilityBabies

Get ready for too much information....

Amazon wants you to put something from every category under the sun, but you can also check "this category is done" or something so it will stop prompting and you can get your welcome box! Tips on getting your welcome box

I really liked Alpha Mom's list because she kind of goes through what you can get and what you can skip and wait until baby comes. It is really helpful to have people buy some of the stuff though! I also liked Lucie's list- I would still just concentrate on one or two categories at first, then come back around once I was less overwhelmed a week or so later.

I wouldn't register for : clothes, blankets, bibs, toys etc unless you have a particular one you really want. You may get a lot of those kinds of things. Ex I registered for 2 cute hooded towels and ended up receiving 5. For this baby that is not bathing everyday.... I did still want the muslin blankets from Aden & Anais (and we use them all the time). They weren't purchased off the registry so I got them myself later on. The only newborn clothes I liked for our summer baby was newborn kimono shirts - very helpful for easy diaper checking, don't have to pull over baby's head and helps you not put something over the cord stump in the first week. She was also swaddled so much of the time or skin to skin that we regulated her temp that way instead of with clothes.

I did register for a starter set of bottles from Dr Browns (baby still won't take a bottle- tried 4 brands so far)- I wouldn't register for a lot of any one brand of pacifiers or bottles- maybe just 1 set to try out. It totally depends on your child, but we got a hand me down swing and we bought a bouncer that can rock itself- both have helped a lot starting around 6 weeks when no sleep was happening (smarter parents might have tried them out sooner!). Bouncer we like Smartbounce. Some kids will love a bounce, hate a swing, and vice versa. Our girl is a movement junky but hates all car rides, so go figure.

I did like having a wrap early on. Baby ktan can be nice for the newborn stage if you're unsure about tackling a wrap, but you have to pick on for your size and I'm not sure how long I'll keep using it. I have a bunch of baby wearing options, but if I had to start with just one I would keep the Boba wrap- it's not as intimidating as it seems to tie once you practice a bit and baby loved skin to skin early. It's just a little annoying to put on, but really was the only sure fire way to make baby sleep, after about 2 min of protest crying.

Crib, changing table or to not changing table, etc all depends on your needs. We did an IKEA crib and chest of drawers with changing pad on top. If you're really tall or have a bad back you may want the changing area taller, but that hasn't been an issue for us so far. I also really like having changing pad liners (lots of options on Amazon)- we get these a little to a lot dirty throughout the week and just wash them as needed- my changing pad cover has only gotten poop-tagged once- so much easier to not wash it all the time.

Someone here mentioned safe spaces to put baby and that really helped. We have a bassinet in our room, crib in her room and a bed, pack n play in the living room with portable napper/changer - this is one of our most used changing stations and an easy safe space for baby to nap early on, especially when she was less sensitive to sound. I like the pack n play we got because you can pop the napper/changer out and use it on the floor of needed. We took it to the in laws for a day trip and that was nice, but not totally necessary. Only $10 more than the "reversible" (not "portable") one- the ones that just say reversible can not be put on the floor. We also have relatively big dogs so we got child safety gates to install on key rooms (ex her nursery, where she might be on the floor while I run to the restroom).

For toys, I would register for an activity mat- I got this hand me down but use it everyday. She's still really enthralled with it.

For carsear/stroller, we went with the Chicco keyfit magic (the hood comes out farther than the other chicco once you unzip the back portion and expose the mesh for air circulation) and the stroller frame because its such a light weight stoller for before they are ready to sit up. But this will depend on what you like. I did a lot of research online and then went to the most overwhelming stores to finalize /change my mind. :)

Other stuff that is stupidly expensive but people will buy so let them IMHO are: diaper bags ($60 or more! My hand me down bag was $200!), travel changing pads (we'll be using these in the living room once she outgrows the changer in the pack n play), diaper organizers for the house (I like the Sarah Bear ones here and here- we have one for living room and one for bedroom. This one has a changing mat too).

Lastly, wipes dont get outgrown, so mega box of those is great to register for. Depending on if you think you'll have a big baby, newborn diapers might be outgrown quick, so 1s might be a better thing to register for. We also got little packs of newborn diapers from people. We didn't need to buy diapers or wipes until about 7 weeks which was nice!

It is so overwhelming to tackle the registry - but I found that 1) having slow weeks at work and 2) taking only 1 category at a time then going baby brain dead before trying to do the next category helped me get through it.

Wishing you luck! I'd be happy to share my registry if you'd like to PM me.

I knew nothing at all.

I took a class called "Bringing home your baby" but it turned out to be more about postpartum care (emotional, relationship and otherwise) than babycare.... still useful, just differently useful.

I picked up a reference book on baby care--it was tricky to find one what was factual vs. had a particular agenda. (Mine is Canadian, but here: https://www.amazon.ca/Canadas-Baby-Care-Book-12-Months/dp/B008DIBBB8 ) Paged through it a little but didn't read much. We ended up not really needing to look at it much.

Turns out, most of baby care is not that hard and you ease into it. Some things I learned:

1. Breastfeeding is really hard, and it seems all professional sources of advice (in my case, 3 midwives, a pediatrician and an LC) can be very conflicting. Some of what people here have been advised to do is the total opposite of my experience and vice versa, and so if you have breastfeeding challenges, expect to be massively confused and have a really hard time parsing the advice. If you plan to breastfeed, see if you can find a breastfeeding class, arm yourself with contact information for multiple LCs, and prepare to trust yourself over professionals like never before; I have found that some can be militant in their approach but not helpful which is super-stressful, but others can be really wonderful. The decision to breastfeed or not has a way bigger impact on your life than I'd realized, so think through it carefully, and how important it is to you.... you are going to have days (maybe even weeks) where you are basically chained to a chair feeding a baby.... you start thinking that the reason there is such a marketing campaign about "breast is best" is that it can suck so much that perhaps no one would do it if they didn't feel guilty about not doing it. At the same time, if it works for you, it does eventually get easier.
   
   
2. Diapers are not as big a deal as I thought they would be. In any case, you change a ton of diapers so you get in a lot of practice fast. Even if you plan on using cloth, start with some newborn disposables to get the hang of things. (Also, meconium--baby's first poops--is easier to deal with that way.)
   
   
3. You aren't going to have to bathe the baby for a bit, so don't worry about it too much right away.
   
   
4. Newborns are pretty good at sleeping, although they do it all over the place, so don't worry about anything sleep-related for a while. Whatever your plan is for where the baby will sleep in the beginning, expect it to change based on your actual baby.... so many people end up co-sleeping for a bit when they never planned to because they sleep more that way.
   
   
5. Newborns don't require entertaining. They basically want to be fed, snuggled and/or carried around, and then they will drop off to sleep when they are tired no matter what's going on around them. You'll spend your time gazing upon your baby adoringly anyway.
   
   
6. We never got the hang of swaddling but my baby hated it so we never practiced. Practice ahead of time. It's harder to do on a squirmy baby.
   
   
7. We never go the hang of babywearing either, but again, we never practiced. Practice ahead of time. It's harder to do on a squirmy baby.
   
   
8. Our baby was born in a heat wave, so I didn't bother putting clothes on him for a while. YMMV. Don't worry about outfits in the beginning. Keep it simple.
   
   
9. Baby care is not hard, but it is relentless. You have to trust your instincts even though you don't feel like you have any yet because you haven't been doing this for long. Some babies are more high needs than other babies so take advice from others with a grain of salt.... it may not apply to your baby. And your baby will be ever changing so what works in the beginning will change, and so just be flexible and go with it.
   
   
10. Make your postpartum life as easy as possible. Visits only from people who will actually be helpful. I mostly camped out in one room for the first while because moving around is not fun.
    
    
11. Anything you come to wish you'd done, you still have time to do later. They are still learning and so habits can be changed.

I love this list, I kept thinking "ditto!" with almost everything you wrote! Because I can't help myself, here is some of my feedback on some of those products:

For boob cream- I loooove the Motherlove Nipple Cream. The Earth Mama Angel Baby one was really grainy to me, and I'm not a big fan of the cocoa butter smell (to each their own!). The Motherlove cream saved my nipples those first few weeks and I still use it after a long pumping session.

Leak management- gurl I feel you on being leaky! I am SO leaky. I love the nighttime Bamboobies, they're the only ones that work for me (and I have to switch them out three times a day). The downside is they're pretty obvious through clothing, so when I have to go out of the house I'll pop a disposable lansinoh one in there instead. But Bamboobies all the way!

Leak Collection!- Yes! The Milkies Milksaver I have has been great at catching the ~1oz I leak from the non-nursing side. Now that Miss V and I have more of a breastfeeding pattern that involves her only eating from one side per session I'm going to try out a Haakaa Silicone Pump to see if the suction will draw out even more ounces from the neglected boob.

Extra Pump Parts- NeneSupply on Amazon is a Spectra pumping girl's best friend, especially for hard-ish to find and expensive spare Spectra parts.

Nursing Bras- They're expensive but I'm a total Bravado fanatic. I'm a big girl and they carry a wide variety of sizes, even for the much bigger bust sizes. And they recently released this hands free pumping attachment that, the few times I've experimented with it, was freaking awesome. I hope it continues to be awesome when I go back to work!

Edit:
Oh! I forgot one of my favorite pumping accessories! The Pumpin' Pals Super Shields have made a difference in my output but are also a thousand times more comfortable that regular flanges. Plus you can recline while pumping without spilling breastmilk everywhere! I was gifted these by a friend at my shower and I was skeptical about them living up to the Amazon reviews hype but I am definitely happy to have them.

You can feel a difference in the suck. The feeding suck is a long pull and you will see a jaw movement. A comfort suck is a fast short suck. For us the switch was pretty sudden and he was full. I used the other breast the next time. My son didn't pull properly so we had to supplement at the breast using a little tube connected to a syringe, and give him formula when he pulled correctly. This allowed my breast to feel him sucking and I produced more milk. I ended up with an oversupply. Part of that I think was leaving him on when he comfort sucked, but if you are having supply problems that might be a good thing. Have you tried fenugreek? Working great for me, but had to take double the amount in the label. Per lactation consultant.

I found the book Breastfeeding Made Simple very helpful and easy to read. I wish I had tried a la Leche Leage meeting. And /r/breastfeeding was helpful. You can nap and breastfeeding at the same time. I know it is a stressful thought, but there are safe ways to do it.

Those first few weeks of breastfeeding were the hardest I can ever remember, but it starts getting easier and then suddenly it is very easy and wonderful. You are doing a great job! Stay strong!

You're welcome! Oh, gosh, I didn't mention how things went with Zed himself, partly because it went so well -- so, at 35w2d, he went to the NICU for standard observation (4 hours at my hospital, but it took them 6 hours to get him back to us, because the hospital was busy). Since he was doing fine (!), he roomed in with us for the next 48 hours while I recovered from the c-section. The only challenges were getting him to eat, and getting his temperature regulated.

We were told to feed him every 3 hours around the clock on a strict schedule, and if I were slightly less motivated to breastfeed, a bottle would have made that a lot easier from the start. But I really desperately want to breastfeed, so we did a lot of different things early on -- finger-feeding, putting him on the breast while I wore a nipple shield and we used a supplementing syringe, and so on. It was sometimes hard to wake him up for a feeding, but we managed. He was just very little and very sleepy!

For regulating his temperature, in the hospital he was always too cold, not too warm, so we just kept him bundled up in the hospital receiving blankets! At home, Mr. Z went out and got this thermometer to keep an eye on his temperature, and we bundled him up or took layers off as needed, plus lots of skin-to-skin time. (That thermometer seems to have mixed reviews; we really liked it and Zed never minded it, which was the important part for us.)

At home, we finally did end up giving him a bottle very early on, because we needed to get food into him and it was just so hard to keep him awake for a feeding! We've been bottle-feeding him ever since, and it's only just now (2-3 weeks past his due date) that I'm really making progress on getting him to the breast. His mouth is big enough to latch on at last! I think that was really his only issue. He has always been very motivated by boobs!

We were very lucky, but I think at this stage in your pregnancy you also have a good solid chance of having a similar outcome! Preemies are a little more complicated than term babies, but not for very long -- at this point, Zed is every inch an active, healthy baby, and if you didn't know how old he was, you'd never know he hadn't been term. :)

So tired today. Stayed up late with Mr Tea doing our own little Christmas thing. I didn't expect anything for Christmas because of our income situation but he surprised me with some big gifts that he's been purchasing throughout the year and hiding at a friend's house. I got 4 new Le Crueset pans that I'd been lusting after, a Starbucks gift card (cause I'm a total addict), a DSW gift card (also a shoe addict), this hilariously adorable little guy, and a Sur la Table gift card. Little did Mr Tea know... I'd been doing the same thing and he had presents waiting for him that I'd bought months ago too. Lol! We're both thrifty but of course we like nice things so we pick things up on sale, with coupons, and any way we can maximize a discount we can find. We did the same thing for Tiny Tea (Clearance octonauts bath toys and $0.50 Lego duplo sets FTW!!)

Though this is a hard time for us, I'm truly fortunate and very grateful.

I have the hardest time with visualization so I'm sorry I can't give you specifics for your design but I can tell you about my infertility tattoo and maybe that'll jump start some ideas for you. I just got a wild strawberry tattooed on the inside of my left wrist. It's something I've wanted since I was a teenager but things finally fell together to get it and have meaning. The strawberry itself is a symbol of my (finally) fertility, then the vines have 5 leaves on them to represent the 5 embryos we ended up with during IVF. Also hidden amongst the vines is the Gallifreyan symbol for the first letter of my son's first name. Doctor Who is something my husband and I both love and we referred to our embryo and fetus as Pond until we knew he was a boy and settled on a name, so I wanted a piece of fandom in there too. Do you have a favorite fandom you could incorporate? A show or a character you and your son both love? I know you mentioned elephants. I didn't like any of the actual infertility symbols so I came up with my own. I hope that helps! I absolutely love my tattoo. Also, check out this book!

ETA: my tattoo. https://imgur.com/a/KV9Vf

I was good until right at the beginning of third tri with bigger boy shirt undies, but I invested in two packs of under-the-bump maternity undies and they have been SO worth it.

I got two five-packs of these: https://www.amazon.com/Intimate-Portal-Womens-Maternity-Panties/dp/B00FIOGHFU they're really good quality and fit nicely. Have a chuckle at the brand name. (FYI, they do run small...size up. I tend to be a small/medium and ordered a large. They fit great in that size.)

• Lewis and Clark and Me: A Dog's Tale by Laurie Myers
  
  This first one is definitely not a typical choice! It's the story of the Seaman, the Newfoundland dog that journeyed with explorers Lewis and Clark. We have Newf so I put it on our registry so our bebe can hear a story about a famous Newfoundland like our puppy :)
  
  
• The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
  
  I got this one for my husband because I thought it was called "The Grumpalo" and I always joke that husband is grumpy. Now that I've read it, though, I like the onomatopoeia style of the writing, I'm not sure I like the message of it!
  
  
• Moana Little Golden Book
  
  We felt the baby kick for the first time while in the theater watching Moana, plus we both love the Polynesian music and culture in the movie and the message of the story, so Moana has become kind of a thing for us this pregnancy.
  
  
• Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw
  
  Another gift for my husband, because he loves Jeeps :D
  
  
• McElligot's Pool by Dr. Seuss
  
  So I snuck in a Seuss book, but it's not one of the most popular ones. This is my dad's favorite children's book and know he will love reading it to our little one.

Think this is the one I have, it's really easy to get on and off.

Simple Wishes D Lite Hands Free Breastpump Bra, Soft Pink, X-Small to Large https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0097GUCZ6/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_sNvUub0ND03VV

I've used this, which has helped with itching and has no scent: https://smile.amazon.com/Pure-Pressed-Moisturizer-Therapeutic-Massage/dp/B01LK643T6/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia?crid=2CA5LIB1F4NMS&keywords=sweet+almond+oil&pd_rd_i=B01LK643T6&pd_rd_r=afc659c0-6877-468b-b343-02e345aabbad&pd_rd_w=lFC01&pd_rd_wg=sYKJF&pf_rd_p=1cb3f32a-ccfd-479b-8a13-b22f56c942c6&pf_rd_r=2RHQXCSEQHF0XQNHX6FY&psc=1&qid=1573492689&sprefix=sweet+almond%2Caps%2C152

It has a mild scent I think (but I think super light, it's at home and I'm at work), but I'm also layering the Zoe's Belly balm on top in the morning. That has helped a lot with itching too. I use the almond oil right after showering in the morning, and apply again at night before bed. Sometimes I have to put a little hydrocortisone cream on too at night to get sleep.

I use the Lansinoh hot/cold gel packs and I really like them. Also use the Simple Wishes hands-free pumping bra and it's a life-saver. We submitted the receipts to insurance for reimbursement along with the pump because they're supposed to cover "breastfeeding accessories" but I don't know yet what all they'll reimburse us for.