Baby Registry

It is that time during the pregnancy that we start to invade the baby stores and start looking at what we want to use for our upcoming addition. This is not an easy task.  The last time I did this, it was 2003, and boy have things changed since then!

With so many sites to offer advice (Pinterest, Facebook, blogs, etc.), I should feel like I can make a more informed decision about what products I should buy.  However, with so many more avenues available, there comes an equal amount of opinions.  Good, bad, or indifferent, how do you and your spouse decide what is right?

So, besides technology changing in the past decade, certainly raising a baby hasn’t.  So my husband and I take on the registry head on.  Scanner and checklist in hand, we take off.  Aisle 1….uh…what is this?  What do you use it for?  How do you put the baby in there?  Where am I supposed to store this?  Do I need this?  Am I a bad mom if I don’t want this?  See, our 9-year-old son is helping us, and he is in charge of the scanner.  He wants to scan every item,  which at this point, I’m not sure is not a bad idea.  How did there get to be so many brands of pacifiers?  Bibs…I got this.  Those haven’t changed.  Wait, there’s a new bib that is organic, with a little pocket for something and it has a fancy doodiddle that comes with it.  So, am I offending Mother Earth if I don’t scan it?  What if I NEED it later?

So we go on to Aisle 2.  Better right?  Getting back into the swing of things?  No.  Strollers blindsided us.  There are the traditional travel systems (okay, we know that one), but there are three wheeled regular strollers, three wheeled running strollers (what am I running away from?), strollers that open and close with one hand, strollers that won’t close at all no matter how much I tried to plead with it, strollers that give any SUV out there a run for its money, strollers that come in pink, strollers that cost $800 (what???), and strollers that make your baby better than any other baby out there.  Okay. Whew.  How about we do some research and come back to this later?  One store offered a private shopping session where we get to talk strollers for 45 minutes.  45 minutes?  Just tell me which one is the safest, reasonably priced, and won’t send me into a cold sweat every time I try to use it.

Moving on to high chairs.  Easy?  Well, if you think that not having so many options is easy, then I would tell you that you would be wrong my friend.  Leather seat, vinyl seat, double trays, single trays, reclining, height positioning, locking wheels, converts to a booster seat, 3 point harness, 5 point harness…Calgon take me away!!!  Did you know there is a high chair that costs near $300?  Well, I do now, and for that price, it better feed, bathe, and put my kid to sleep.

So we managed to get through the majority of the store without too many hiccups.  At one point, EMS showed up at the baby store, and I was convinced a scared employee called 911 on my behalf thinking that I had lost my mind.  No hospital needed, but we will be making several trips back to make sure we covered everything on the 5 checklists I have.  I’m sure we will forget something (diapers, wipes, baby?) but hopefully whatever we forgot will be easy to run out and buy - with a three wheeled running stroller that closes automatically with a push of a button.

Janet Fragle works in customer engagement for innovative technology solutions at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Plano and is pregnant with her second child.