There IS an alternative to the Diaper Genie or just taking out a garbage bag every day.
THe Diaper Champ uses regular tall kitchen garbage bags. We were big fans of the Diaper Champ.
So much of the stuff listed here is dependent on the whims of the baby.
Vibrating seat…very meh, not much use.
We got a nice Graco battery powered swing. I think we put our daughter in it 2 or 3 times, didn’t care for it very much.
OTOH, we got a lot of mileage out of both the BabyBjorn and the MayaWrap.
My kid falls asleep to the soothing sounds of HONK! HONK! WEE-OO-WEE-OO whenever I take her for a walk in Manhattan traffic. Snoring dogs wouldn’t bother her.
What does bother her is sudden, sharp noises, like a door slamming.
Other stuff-- the one thing that’s marvelous at shutting her up when she’s fussing is the hair dryer. So much so that we moved it to her changing table area…
That’s one of the reasons why buying used or borrowing is SUCH a good idea. I think I owned four slings/BabyBjorn (owned or borrowed) and never was able to make one work for me. I so wanted to be a sling mom and discovered I needed to have hands on a baby when I carried him (and her) to feel safe.
We discovered we didn’t sleep well with a newborn in our room - so out she went into her own room. Nothing against co-sleeping, but it turned out to be “not for us” with our daughter. Now our son barely used his crib. He went from sleeping with foster mom in Korea to sleeping in our bed to a toddler bed. Wouldn’t have needed the crib for him - did need it for her.
With two kids I’ve owned four bottle systems. With my son I wanted to use playtex drop ins with the nursing nipple. He wanted traditional gerber bottles with very old fashioned nipples. So we went out and bought new bottles. With my daughter my lactation consultant insisted Avent bottles would keep nipple confusion to a minimum - and my daughter wanted nothing to do with them - she ended up with the funny shaped nipple on even more traditional bottles…part of this is that my kids aren’t real far apart - so I didn’t want them using the same bottles or bottle weaning the oldest would have been tough. I also ended up with a hospital breast pump - no pump bought at Target (or even a nice Medela Pump In Style) for me - no I pretty much needed to be hooked up to the dairy farm implement. Careful with a borrowed or used pump - you want to make sure you replace any parts the milk has touched (tubes, etc.).
I discovered I’m not a pacifier mom - its possible my kids were pacifier kids, but its many months that mom (or dad) needs to be dedicated to putting the plug back in when in falls out - baby lacks eye hand coordination for that until six months or so. Mine learned to self comfort - my daughter sucked her thumb until teeth came in and it didn’t fit right. So pacifiers we didn’t use - but other mom’s swear by them.
Anyway, nothing like spending $60 on a swing and then discovering your kid screams whenever he is in the swing.
Do take Shirleys (?) advice - do go to Target/WalMart/Walgreens/wherever and get your baby medicines - you will want them. Though you might talk to your peditrician (you want one of those too) before you buy and get recommendations - some like specific brands with newborns.
That reminds me–you should research pediatricians early, if your regular doctor doesn’t have a family practice. Your OB/Gyn may have some recommendations. We found a practice with three women who are all terrific and willing to share patients, so it’s easy to get appointments. They also do a half day on Saturday mornings, for sick kids. It’s been great for those bugs that always seem to strike just at the beginning of the weekend.
Get a book about child development and medical stuff. We have The Portable Pediatrician, but there are lots of them. You will freak out at some point in the middle of the night because your baby is breathing irregularly, honking like a goose, breaking out in purple spots - something. It’s nice to have a reference on hand that says, “Babies of this age will sometimes honk like geese. It’s advisable to let them do their own thing. If they begin laying eggs, you may want to call the pediatrician.”
A few posters have mentioned a baby monitor, but none has talked about the most important feature.
Make sure you get one which detects the baby’s breathing motion (by way of pressure-sensitive pads under the baby’s mattress).
It doesn’t matter how big or small your house/apartment is - the purpose is not to hear baby crying; it’s to be woken up by the alarm if baby stops breathing.
You may get one or two false alarms, but at other times the reassurance is priceless.
And although chances are it will never happen - with our first baby once the alarm was for real. Fortunately as soon as we touched her she spontaneously started breathing again. She may have done so without our intervention, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
I’ll also second the Baby Bjorn - there are a few times that has stopped the screaming and put baby to sleep (when we were away from home) when nothing else worked.
And congratulations!
Don’t have much to add to what a baby needs, but if you’re really lucky, Stainz, your baby will be born on November 27, and join such luminaries as Shirley Ujest, Sampiro (it is Sampiro who is our little brother, isn’t it, Shirley?), and me celebrating that birthday. Try to hold on, will ya? 
Actually, I adore cloth diapers, despite what anyone says. You’re doing so many loads of laundry anyway, doing an extra load or two or three a week is not that big a deal (assuming you have your own washer and dryer) (full cycle cold wash, no soap. Full cycle hot wash, soap. Hot dry. You don’t have to stand over the washer while it runs, just run in every so often and turn the machine back on).
I saved thousands of dollars by not buying a $30 box of case of diapers every couple of weeks at Costco, never mind what they’d cost somewhere else. I never ran out and had to make a panic run to the store at some ungodly hour of the morning. I loved my soft fluffy diapers giving my baby a big fluffy diaper-butt. So - your mileage my vary, but I’ve put 4 kids in cloth and if I ever had another, I’d do it again. At least go look at them: www.mother-ease.com - they snap on with sturdy nylon snaps that don’t rust, break, or wear out, and I don’t think I could count the number of bad blow-outs from 4 kids in 8 years…on my two hands.
I saved thousands of dollars by breastfeeding rather than feeding formula, especially for one of my twins who would otherwise have been on a specialised formula due to digestive issues. If money is an issue, and if you can, it’s worth it to give breastfeeding the ol’ college try for the money savings alone.
Oh. And I’ve saved maybe thousands by clothing my kids from yard sales and thrift stores. I’m talking really lovely higher end and boutique brands, too - Baby Gap, Old Navy Baby, Osh Kosh, Gymboree, Painting Red Rhinos, DPAM, Cach Cach, and so on.
We used a cradle for my firstborn. Shortly she moved into bed with us and stayed there until she was 18 months old - with a crib for nap safety - whereupon she moved to a big girls’ bed with railings. My twins did the same, minus the cradle. My last moved to her big-girl bed at 22 months of age, though she’d begun sleeping nights in the crib next to my side of the bed, a few months earlier.
It’s just another way of doing things, and has worked very well for us, and worth knowing about just in case the mainstream way of doing things doesn’t suit you and your baby.
Plain white 100% cotton hand towels. They come in stacks of ten or so at Costco, or Walmart, or Kmart, etc. Get the cheapest ones. Get twenty if you can afford it. The thing is, they work as well and a larger towel for everything baby needs for a couple of years. And they take up a quarter or less of the laundry space. Wet 'em, leave 'em dry, just have a stack in a convieniet place. They end up as soft as any fancy cloth stuff after a dozen washings, and you can bleach the shit out of them without worrying. (literally) So, you ruin one, or six. We are talking about a buck a towel, or less, if you can hit a sale.
Also put the outlet covers, and cabinet locks, etc up really early. You get yourself used to relocking and replacing them. Babies grow up fast! One day, they stay where you put the baby blanket, until you come back. Then next week, they want the car!
Buy six disposable cameras. Budget two a month for first two years. Use them. Make Grandpa pay for the development, and get the negatives! Get them scanned onto CD!
Tris
There are a million good pieces of advice here. Tinkleberry has more stuff than we ever needed. We got an expensive travel system at the shower, only to find out that he didn’t like going in the stroller and the car seat wasn’t comfortable for him. We tried several different Snugli/Baby Bjorn type things, only to find out that the $35 knock off was the one that he prefered. Everyone told us to use Avent bottles. No one told us that the vents can cause them to leak as they cool. And he prefers the old style Evenflow ones anyway. The swing was great for a little while, but he’s too big for it now. You just have to see what works. The most important thing you need, patience, lots and lots of patience. It doesn’t matter if your baby sleeps in a $100 Walmart crib, a dresser drawer, or a $500 Babies r Us crib. And having a partner who will do lots of night feedings in the beginning so you can get some rest will help. And November 27th is a pretty good day to be born, if I remember correctly there were some definate parallels between your story and that of myself and Inkleberry. Good luck.
(Just using this post as a starting point - not countering.)
A LOT of pregnant women are adamantly against pacifier use and then wind up using them. DO NOT beat yourself up if you happen to be one of them. It doesn’t make you a bad parent. The same goes for breastfeeding - for some people it just doesn’t work.
With both my kids I initially thought that I wouldn’t use pacifiers and wound up using them anyway. I think if you do decide to use them, then as long as you aren’t constantly stuffing the thing into the baby’s mouth at every little sound then you should be ok. If they use it to get to sleep, once it falls out don’t rush to put it back in - see if the baby will continue to sleep without it. I did this and was able to wean both kids from the pacifier before they turned one. (It could just have been their tempermants though - they’re both pretty easy going kids.)
Anyway, don’t be afraid of hearing the baby fuss a little bit - a lot of new parents get too nervous about the baby being fussy. It’s ok, the baby is just telling you politely that he/she needs help. (Crying is the unpolite way.
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Best wishes - and check out ebay and craigslist for really cheap stuff!
I just have to say - November 23rd is a much better day on which to be born. If you can’t hold out for the 27th, the 23rd would make a wonderful birthday.
Wow … I haven’t been here in a couple of days and I’m so grateful for all the advice!!!
As for you November babies, well, I’ll see what I can do!
Amazing, no one has mentioned Baby Einstein yet. Get yourself to the nearest baby bazaar and buy a couple of these videos. Baby Beethoven is my personal favorite. 
