What You Should ACTUALLY Register For | St. Louis Motherhood Photographer

I’ve seen several posts in mom groups that I’m a part of and have had several people ask me personally what they *actually* need for when their babies arrive.  Not only am I a local St. Louis mom of 3 with 2 on the way, I photograph families in their homes all the time after they’ve had babies, and I photograph them through all their stages of babyhood.  I have 11 nieces and nephews, 3 great niece/nephews as well and I babysat kids for years.  Does this make me an expert on the topic?  Uh duh.  Ha!!  No, I’m kidding.  I really don’t consider myself an expert, but I do have a lot of experience from all my years of having and being around babies.

Everyone, and I mean *everyone*, will have a list that specifically works for them.  That’s the beauty of this big world we live in.  We are all different and unique.  But for some of us, there are universal things that tend to work well in the phase of baby and toddler life and I intend to give you our list of what worked/didn’t!

Parents-to-be want to know which items to put on their registry.  It’s a fabulous day and age we live in.  [Read this next part using your best Grandma voice]  “Back in MY day, we didn’t have the internets with your new fangled way of asking thousands of people what you need for a baby.  Back in MY day, you bought or used what your mom used (cue the cringes from current parents who realize the importance of expiration dates and keeping up to date with safety standards on baby gear). We passed things down for generations.  Kids just don’t know how good they have it.”  Amiright?  Ok, so “back in my day” was actually the year 2012 when I was having my first and the internet was most definitely around, but it really felt like a crapshoot going in to the big box stores to start a registry for baby stuff and we had NO CLUE what we would actually use.  We just walked in bright eyed and bewildered.

These days, I think back to that time and am blown away by the things we THOUGHT we needed.  Holy cow we could’ve saved people from buying us so much unnecessary STUFF.  I am a big proponent of decluttering and keeping the things in my house to a minimum.  I can’t claim to be a minimalist by any stretch, but I just don’t care to have things just to have…things.  I like clean spaces and my brain does a much better job functioning in that realm.  I also want to make the point that a lot of what we consider “needs” these days are actually more along the lines of creature comforts.  Babies need to be fed, changed, loved, clothed, and have a safe space to sleep.  Cover those things and you could easily bring baby home without all the creature comforts!

Without further adieu, here is my sacred list of what we have learned to add to the baby registry and what to skip!  Want to download these lists?  Enter Your Email to receive these lists as simple downloadable PDF documents!

46 Must Have Baby Items:

Feeding 

• Burp clothes (the old school cloth diaper ones or the muslin ones that also double as bibs are our favorites)

• Haakaa breast pump (got this on our third baby and holy hell! What a lifesaver...er...milk saver 🤣)

• Electric breast pump (if you will be leaving your baby to work outside of the home)

• Hands free pumping bra for you

• Boppy pillow for breastfeeding especially in those early months 

• Bottles (if you’re going to work away from your baby, I would have at least 6-8 bottles on hand. If you’ll be home and breastfeeding, 4-6 is probably plenty).

• Some sort of nipple cream/butter (Lansinoh, coconut oil, nipple butter)

• Glider/comfy chair to feed baby in when baby gets a little older especially if you nurse them to sleep or nurse them back to sleep

• Joovy foldable high chair (saved sooo much space with this thing and it’s more than worth the money)

• Baby spoons, bowls, and cups

Sleeping

• Pack N Play or portable play pen

• Pack n play and sheets

• Summer Infant co-sleeper or bassinet (this is personal preference. Just know we had a rock n play, but those have been recalled)

• Crib 

• Crib sheets

• Mattress pad for crib

• Velcro sleep swaddles and sleep sacks for when they’re older

Diapering

• Changing pad (this can go on top of a dresser or even on the floor. It’s most useful for me when I’ve just had a baby and can’t do a lot of bending and moving especially in the middle of the night)

• Portable changing pad (to keep in your diaper bag or around the house if your changing pad is far from where you may be)

• Cloth and/or disposable diapers

• Wipes

Gear

• Wubbanub pacifiers (these are great bc they’re hard to lose and totally worth the money)

• Baby Piano Mat (My husband bought this when our oldest was a baby and I thought he was nuts. Turns out every single baby to ever grace that mat LOVED it)

• Stroller you can clip your car seat in to

• Umbrella stroller 

• Optional: running stroller or stroller with bike tire wheels for easier “off-roading”

• Infant car seat

• Tula Carrier or some type of baby carrier (we have an Ergobaby and a Moby too. The Ergo was ok, but the Tula is more breathable. Moby was good for itty bitty babies for us.  Whatever you get, make sure the baby’s knees stay above the hips when facing you.  They should never be dangling by their crotch.)

• Newborn Boppy Lounger

• Swing - we have a foldable, lightweight one and it was on the lower end of the price points for these and we love it. Easy storage, not a lot of bells and whistles. 

• Grooming kit (nail clipper, nose sucker, thermometer, hair brush, etc)

• Humidifier (this doesn’t get used often but when we need it, I felt like we realllly needed it)

• Teething toys

• Mirror for the car.  Our favorite plays music and we can control it with a remote from the front seat.

• Electric booger sucker. This is the goofiest thing I thought I would never use and now I swear by it! 

• Video Monitor

• Box fan (I think it does waaaaay better than a sound machine)

• Backpack diaper bag

• Baby sunscreen (though no sunscreen should be put on baby before 6 months of age)

• Baby friendly bug spray

• Children’s Tylenol

Clothing

• Onesies - both plain white as well as fun patterned ones.  Long sleeve and short sleeve.

• Zipper sleepers

• Sock Ons (they go over socks to keep baby’s socks on because they pull them off a lot)

• Sunhat 

• Swim Shirt

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And now, here are the things we thought we needed and eventually just got rid of because we rarely, if ever, used them:

24 Baby Items to Skip:

FEEDING

• Bottle warmer 

• Baby food maker or blender (we wound up doing baby led weaning- which is fancy speak for “we let our kids eat the food we eat instead of purées). 

SLEEPING

• Crib bumpers (these are advised against using at all whether they’re the puffy ones or “breathable” mesh. They create a risk of suffocation and aren’t safe)

• Mobile

DIAPERING

• Wipe Warmer

• Changing Table 

• Diaper Genie

• Toilet Seat or Potty Chair (I found it was easier to just train them on the regular toilet seat to eliminate any fears of going when we weren’t home.  Also, the potty chairs that are portable are pretty gross when you think about it because you’re just transporting germs from one potentially public toilet to yours at home.  Yuck!)

GEAR 

• Exersaucer/baby gym. My own babies as well as allllll of the kids I babysat would sit in it for like 5-10 minutes max and just never really did like it and these things take up soooo much space)

• Baby Bathtub (we found baths in the kitchen sink for our babies worked quite well and when they were super little, we used a small towel in the water so they didn’t slip too much)

• Bumbo (my issue with this is that babies are often propped in these well before the age they’re supposed to be in them and it is bad on their hips and backs.)

• Walker

• Boogie Wipes

• Pacifier Wipes

• Pacifier holder

• Baby Powder (Although we have used this to de-sand kids at the beach, there are a lot of studies now that say not to use this stuff at all because it’s terrible for people to breathe in and has been linked to cancer especially in females.  Yikes.)

• Baby Oil

• Portable High Chair

• Shopping Cart Cover

CLOTHING

• Shoes (every single pair of baby shoes is totally adorable and not at all practical!  They just kick them off and it was just one more thing for us to have to track down)

• Baby Laundry Soap (They don’t need special soap for clothes.  If you’re concerned about dyes, use dye-free detergents.  We prefer ALL Free & Clear brand that’s fragrance free)

• Baby Towels (though, admittedly, the hooded ones are totally cute on babies)

• Baby Robes

• Baby Snow Suit (Once they’re walking, a snow suit is definitely worth it if you live in a climate that gets snow.  In St. Louis we usually have a few good snowfalls per winter season.) 

If you're a list person like me and you want these lists in concise format that you can download, print, and checkoff, Enter Your Email and I'll get them right over to you!

And, of course, congratulations to all the St. Louis mamas and beyond on the start of your parenting and Motherhood journey!  I can't wait to begin documenting your story from maternity, to birth, baby, breastfeeding and beyond!  Want to book me for any of those?  Let's do it!

*I am not affiliated with nor am I paid by any of the brands featured here.  All opinions are my own.*