Shopping for Baby

Now that we’ve hit the second half of the pregnancy, I feel like there are hundreds of things that we need to get done before I get too big to be interested in doing anything. I also can’t help but be worried about having this baby early (even though deep down I think I’m more likely to go late). I just want to make sure everything is ready. I’m a planner, so I do not want to wait until the last minute for any of these items.

I have several priorities right now that need to be addressed in the next couple of weeks. We need to get carpet in the baby’s room, but before we do that, I suppose we should paint, so we can be sloppy about it if we want to. We also need to make a decision on furniture for the nursery. It is so hard to do this without being able to devote a lot of time to shopping, and right now with our jobs and our weekend responsibilities around the house, we just haven’t had much time. Once we get the nursery under control, I feel that I could move forward on buying all the other million things that this tiny person is going to need.

We have also spent quite a bit of time searching for some of our bigger items and trying to make decisions on them. I think we are finally decided on our stroller and our infant seat. I still need to research and decide on our pack n play/playyard, rocker/glider, baby monitor and camera system as well as a breast pump. I think those are the big items. I know that all the little items may actually be more overwhelming and when combined still add up to quite a sum of money, but since they aren’t as expensive, making the perfect decision doesn’t seem as stressful.

For our stroller, after a long process, I think we’ve decided on the City Mini. I really wanted the City Elite because of it’s smooth ride, shocks, larger tires, more upscale look, etc, but ultimately I think that the City Mini will be more practical for our life. It is 10lbs less, (16lbs vs 26lbs), it is generally smaller and I think the ease of use will win out over the more luxurious ride of the Elite.

I think we have also decided on the Chicco Keyfit 30 for our infant seat. This decision was based on consumer reports research, user reviews and ease of use. It seems the Chicco is the easiest seat to just plop down into the base. I am somewhat disappointed that it often will not fit on the grocery cart, but I think all the other good things about it make it a good choice despite that one flaw although I hear people say that perching your infant on top of a grocery cart isn’t exactly safe anyway, so I guess maybe it’s not such a bad thing that we can’t do it.

It was exhausting just making these two decisions final, so I’m very eager to get the other bigger items out of the way. The nursery furniture is the next thing on the list and it simply must be figured out in the next couple of weeks. I’m giving myself a goal of having the entire nursery selected (paint, carpet and furniture) by April 24th. I would like everything to be in the nursery assembled by mid-May. That should be plenty of time before baby is due to arrive.