No I don't mean babies.  One baby keeps me on my toes, but two just might be more than I can handle.  At least two the same age would be more than I could handle.  If you are reading this and you have twins or more, I tip my hat to you for being able to manage that and still have time to read anything. 

 

Now that we know this isn't a twins blog, let's cover what it will be.  Babies use a lot of stuff, and I don't mean all the great toys, books and pacifiers.  I am referring to the items that you think oh that will be nice to 'one' and oh so convenient or maybe even two.  There are so many items that I had one of for little man and quickly realized I needed more.  I will consider this blog my reminder of all things I need to buy if I get the nerve to have second baby before I am officially too old.

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Footie Pajamas is the first thing I ordered from Amazon Prime.  We purchased/received so many adorable outfits, but I failed to account for how many pajamas would be peed on, spit up on...I don't really even know what happened to the rest but we were changing little man's outfit 5 times a day and the rookies that we were it took too long to put anything else on him...I mean who knew it took 2 minutes to get socks on.

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Swaddles.  We used different swaddles at different stages.  When we first brought our little guy home we used the Halo Sleepsack.  This is what we were using in the hospital and it was easy for my husband thanks to zippers and Velcro.  Eventually, our little guy wanted a little more freedom and could wiggle his arms out of the Sleepsack so we moved on to the Woombie.  The Woombie was great because it was a little bit stretchy and allowed some arm movement without actually getting an arm out.  The last leg of our swaddle journey is the Zipadee-Zip which allows free range motion of the arms and legs but still keeps our guys motions under control which was an excellent transition out of swaddles.  I've heard great things about the Flying Squirrel if we need something after the Zipadee-Zip.

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Pacifiers are a must.  We planned on breastfeeding so I did not buy any pacifiers based on conflicting recommendations by all the experts.  Thank goodness, I did get some as gifts and freebies so we had a couple options the first time we got desperate during a witching hour.  We eventually tried out several and decided on Smilo pacifiers...or I guess I should say little man decided on Smilo.  The pacifier is shaped to help prevent cross bite by supporting the palate.  It was literally the only pacifier he didn't spit out, so we stuck with it and the price was actually cheaper than a lot of the other orthodontic pacifiers.  Bonus they have fun designs that they add to regularly.  Purchase through this link for 15% off your first purchase of $20 or more.

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Sheets, sheets, sheets.  Sheets for the crib, sheets for the pack n play, and sheets for the bassinet.  I was doing way too much laundry due to leaky diapers.  I definitely recommend buying at least 2 of each.  I also remember a recommendation to buy each in a different color to make sorting easier (i.e. green for the crib, yellow for the bassinet, blue for the pack n play) which I thought was genius but didn't get this recommendation until after I had already purchased several.

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Mattress Pads were also a must.  Somehow I knew this one, but pregnancy brain must have already set in that I bought more mattress pads than sheets...still not sure what I was thinking on this one.  If the sheet gets wet most likely the mattress pad will as well.  Again get them for the crib, the pack n play and the bassinet.  (BONUS TIP: I layered these on the mattresses: mattress pad, sheet, mattress pad sheet.  In the middle of the night if you need to change the sheets all you have to do is remove layers and you have a dry set ready to go.)

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Diaper Cream.  Buy them and have them EVERYWHERE you have diapers.  Our little guy got diaper rash before we even got his photos taken.  It was awful and I guess to be expected based on how often babies poop in their first months.  We started using this for every diaper change and actually changed baby wipes to a gentler version and the diaper rash cleared up quick and 7 months in it has not returned.  Our photographer actually just recommended wet paper towels.

 

Bottles  Be sure to have enough to make it through at least 1 full day without having to wash bottles.  This will make your life much easier.  Even when breastfeeding, we had to supplement with formula so bottles were a must for us.  We were using a different bottle (again, freebies that we had received) but changed to Dr. Browns around 6 weeks when our little guy started getting a gassy tummy.  These bottles helped tremendously but we also used Colic Calm gas drops.

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Breast Pump parts.  Speaking of breast feeding, I found it super helpful to have extra breast pump parts.  Pumping every 3 hours is a lot to handle, but I did NOT want to be cleaning parts in the middle of the night so I ordered extra storage bottles, shields and valves.  I wish I had know about the Freemie hands free pump when I was pumping, but I literally heard about it a month after I stopped breastfeeding.

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Mess free ink pads.  The hospital did a foot print and a hand print, but we wanted to track our little man's progress over the first year, so we ordered a 3 pack of Extra Large ink pads.  With each ink pad we were able to do foot prints and hand prints to add to the baby book.  My husband actually used these to have my little man sign my first Mother's Day card; what a nice thing to keep and think back on my first Mother's Day.

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Baby gates.  It may be a while before you need all of these but you will need multiple baby gates.  We actually used a Regalo Easy Step Walk Thru gate from the very beginning on the nursery door, not to keep the baby in, but to keep the cat out.  Now that little man is approaching crawling stage we have been searching for an option to gate our living room; not an easy task with 8 foot and 10 foot openings, so we were excited to find this Regalo Super Wide gate.  We had looked at several options and the others that were wide enough were so much more expensive and we needed two gates.

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Bottle cleaning stations.  We actually set up a bottle washing station in a spare bathroom across the hall from the nursery to reduce midnight trips up and down the stairs without leaving bottles with formula to dry.  Each washing station had organic dish soap, a bottle brush, and a drying rack with a hanging accessory.

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That's my list or at least all I can remember a this time.  I am sure there are so many more and I would love tohear your recommendations.  Head on over to the contact form and send me a message with your "must have multiples" items for babies.