Baby t-shirts are a good idea, but you’ll only need a few of them. Once the stump falls off, and the belly-button is all healled, onesies are much better.
Target still has a wipe warmer, and I think you can still find them at Wal-Mart. Wipe warmers are especially good for winter babies. Still, a cold wipe at 2 a.m. sucks at any time of the year.
You can’t have too many recieving blankets. Those little flannel jobbies. Swaddling, burp rags, sleeping blankets, 1,001 uses. (We had 2 dozen at a time for both Soupo and Katcha. We couldn’t get enough.)
Something we liked better than the rocking chair was a full-blown recliner. A rocker-recliner is the best. And whenit’s time to take it out of the baby’s room (or wherever you sit and rock) it’s a regular recliner.
A CD player/ radio with digital tuning and presets is great. Background music and one-touch tuning. We had a “Sounds of Nature” CD because it can be too quiet for a baby to sleep. (Odd but true.) Soupo liked the “Frog Chorus” and Katcha was partial to “Rushing River”.
Didn’t have much use for the sling, myself. But I do have friends that swear by them. Both of our kids liked to cuddle, then be put down. If we held them too long, they’d get wound up and fuss. They seemed to like lots of little cuddles, and lying on us.
A bassinet is better than a crib (and cheaper) to start with. It depends on how big your kid is. If you co-sleep with your kids you don’t need either, but you’ll get your ribs kicked in. It’s a trade-off. We went with a bassinet, then a crib.
Oh, if you have more than one kid… everything you learn with the first one is pretty much useless with the second one. They all want to do something different. But the learning curve gats quicker with each kid.
-Rue.