Things a new baby needs (idea)

You're having a baby? Congratulations! It's your first? Then there are some essential things that you absolutely need before baby comes home and some that you don't.

Hopefully, this writeup will help you determine what you should go out and buy, what to tell others to buy for you, what to wish for from baby showers, and what to borrow.

• Furniture
  • Crib; necessary.   The baby has to sleep somewhere. Get a good mattress too.
  • Bumper pad; not necessary.
  • Bassinet/cradle; not necessary.   But borrow one, because it can be very useful during the first few months if the baby's crib is in another room. After being awakened for the third time in the middle of the night by a hungry baby, you're going to walk into a wall or a door jamb or something. Keeping the baby in the same room as you in a bassinet will prevent accidents. Ours had a weight limit of fifteen pounds, which is another reason to borrow one. Babies can hit fifteen pounds in no time.
  • Dresser; necessary.   Stuffed full with receiving blankets and washcloths (q.v.).
  • Change table; not necessary.   Get a pad and use the top of the dresser.
  • Rocking chair/glider rocker; necessary.   Mainly because I like ours. A rocking chair isn't really a must, but sometimes the baby isn't going to be comforted with one-dimensional rocking. Soothing a baby while sitting in a rocking chair allows you to bounce him or her up and down, or rock him or her from side to side, while rocking back and forth.
  • A table to put things on; necessary.   This is just common sense. A shelf would work too.
  • Baby swing; not necessary.   Handy, though -- I know someone who boasted that she didn't know why she needed a crib when her son would sleep through the night in his baby swing. (Sounds like a future trip to the chiropractor to me.) Note that baby is not supposed to be left in it unattended.
  • Everything else, including but not limited to: baby exerciser things, playmats, high chairs, and the like; not necessary, or too old for the newborn.   However, keep in mind that you will need a place to put the baby for a moment, if you are using a sharp knife, carrying something hot, or doing something where you need both hands.

• Mobility
  • Infant car seat; necessary.   Around here, you won't even be allowed to leave the hospital unless you've got one. Note that these have a maximum weight -- twenty pounds or so -- so they're a candidate for borrowing.
  • Stroller; necessary.   Get one that your infant car seat fits into.
  • Playpen; necessary.   We should have got one of these for our first overnight trip to see Nana. Instead the baby slept between my wife and me, something none of us was used to, and a sleepless night was had by all.
  • Diaper bag; necessary.   Actually, it can be any sort of bag with enough pockets. It will need to be restocked and maintained regularly -- new diapers and clean clothes added, dirty clothes removed.

• Clothes and linens
  • Receiving blankets; necessary.   Not just necessary -- imperative, critical, crucial. You think you have enough of them, but you don't have enough of them. You can never have enough of them.
  • Washcloths; necessary.   Ditto. You can never have enough washcloths either.
  • Sleepers; necessary.
  • Sheets, bedclothes, mattress pads, and the like; necessary.   The key here is not to cheap out. Make sure to get crib type things where the elastic parts won't unravel and present a hazard to the baby.
  • Baby towels with the extra part for the head; not necessary.   But definitely cute. I don't see what the problem is with using regular towels.
  • Everything else; not necessary.   Nobody's going to be too preoccupied with what your baby wears for the first few months. This is probably the time to mention that everybody you've ever known is going to visit your baby during this time, bearing all sorts of gifts. Real clothes will comprise a large percentage of these gifts, so you really don't need to get any beforehand.

• Consumables and things that get used up
  • Diapers; necessary. You must take care, however, not to stock up on these. Some babies weigh more at birth than the maximum Newborn size. My wife also made a mistake and bought the size larger than what our son was currently using, but it didn't matter because when he finished the current package, he was ready for the size larger. I don't know how cloth diapers work, but one or the other is necessary.
  • Baby soap for bathtime; necessary.
  • Some sort of cream for diaper rash, and/or petroleum jelly; necessary.
  • Q-Tips; necessary.   We use them. Never in the baby's ear though.
  • Formula/breast milk; necessary.   I don't know how formula works. Come to think of it, I don't know how breastfeeding works either. If the baby will be fed formula, all the associated bottles and stuff are necessary too.
  • Everything else; not necessary.   I'm going to qualify this a bit though: I can't think of anything else that's necessary right now.

• Other
  • Toys and books; not necessary.   Baby is still too young. In a couple of months, these will be necessary. Besides, what applies to visitors above for real clothes applies here too. You'll have more than you know what to do with.
  • Thermometer; necessary.   So you can comfort yourself that the baby's fine.
  • Nail clippers/teeny-tiny scissors; necessary.   Otherwise baby's face will look like Gerry Cheevers's goalie mask.
  • Breast pump; not necessary but potentially very useful if the mother is breastfeeding.   Borrow one of these if you can. We've used ours often. Many breastfed babies refuse to take a bottle and having pumped breast milk at just the right time to offer the baby may help to prevent this stubbornness.
  • Love; necessary.   The most important thing. (So I'm sentimental.)

Note, finally, that some family members may disagree with some of the items on this list. For instance, regarding a bassinet, someone may say to you, "A dresser drawer is fine. The baby doesn't know that he doesn't have a bassinet." Either these people are being coy, and have already bought baby something fancy and it's going to be a pleasant surprise, or they're being serious. If you suspect it's the latter, you might do well to avoid them. That sort of thing isn't necessary. Babies are too precious for games like that. You want to introduce your new baby to people who are going to want to splurge on them.