The Baby Products I Used the Most for 0-12 Months: Home Edition

When my husband and I brought our son home, I quickly realized that the home prep we’d done before leaving for the hospital wasn’t exactly enough. This is a list of the home items that we used the most in the first year of our baby’s life!

For the Kitchen

Dish basin: This helped to keep our baby’s bottles, my pump parts, and anything we used for feeding separate from our regular dishes in our sink. We also used a separate sponge just for anything baby-related (pro tip, it helps if that sponge is a different color from the one you use for your other dishes).

Upright bottle drying rack: We started with the OXO one but switched to this one because it had more space at the bottom for drying parts. This saved us a ton of counter space, it’s pretty easy to clean, and we still use it to this day!

Bottle brush and stand: It’s a good idea to have a bottle brush handy just for baby bottles – and I love this one because it comes with its own stand.

Baby Brezza: If there’s one buzzy product to put on your registry, this is the one. The sterilizer and dryer make it so much easier to keep baby bottles, pump parts, and pacifiers clean. In the first six months when they need bottles all the time, this thing will save you a ton of time. We ran this at least once a day (sometimes twice) to stay on top of sterilizing our son’s things. Once his stuff had been washed in the sink and put on the drying rack, it would go into the Brezza for sterilizing and then put away. My husband and I have gifted this to a bunch of our friends, and everyone we’ve given it to considered it an essential for the newborn phase.

For Everywhere

Portable bassinet: Depending on the size of your living space you may not need this, but we ended up getting this portable bassinet for our son’s naps in different parts of the house that weren’t our bedroom. When they first come home, they’ll sleep a lot more frequently, and having a bassinet that we could easily move from room to room was a life-saver for those early weeks before they’re sleeping on a more routine basis. As someone who was recovering from a c-section, I especially found it helpful to have a sleep-safe space on the same floor as the kitchen and living room, and not have to take my son upstairs whenever he needed a nap. Once we were ready to start sleep training, we moved the bassinet into his room, where he took his daytime naps (and then his nighttime sleep took place in our bedroom where we kept the Snoo).

Baby nail trimmer: This was a recommendation from a friend as well as the mommy blogs I read when I was pregnant and it got a whole lot of use. Fun fact: babies’ nails start growing in the womb, so by the time they’re born they’re already on the way to needing a manicure. This trimmer was a Godsend for filing our son’s nails down without having to worry about cutting him. It comes with different attachments depending on how old your baby is – and we liked it so much we bought a second one to live in his diaper bag for car travel.

Activity gym: This is another purchase that you really could get anywhere - this is the one we used (I loved how it looked and my son was obsessed with the mobile objects), but regardless of which one you get, you’re likely to use it a lot. It was great for tummy time (the moon-shaped pillow it comes with is also a great way to help prop them up as they’re getting used to lifting their head on their own), and we used it all the way up until our son was crawling.

For the Bathroom

Baby bathtub: Most of the ones on the market will work, so this was a purchase we didn’t spend a ton on (we went with this one).

Baby bath kneeler and elbow rest: Your knees and elbows will thank you for this one, from when they’re small to when they get bigger and are spending more time playing in the bath.

Baby bath wash: We’ve been using the Honest Company brand since our son was a newborn, and we still use it now! We also use this lotion from a Black-owned company that I love – my son’s had some dry skin periods here and there, but as long as we’ve been using this his skin has been locking in moisture a lot better.

Baby bath towel: In the first six months, getting infants in and out of the bath can be a lot (plenty of babies don’t like the bath at first), so having a towel like this can be helpful for keeping them comfortable.

Next up in this series: nursery and diapering essentials!