My little Evie is 6 MONTHS OLD!! I’m sure I’ve said this before…while it feels like time has flown by, it also feels like Evie has been with us forever. Cue the emotional mama moment…sigh, alright, moving along.
If you are a mom/dad or soon-to-be mom/dad, I am sure you have gone down the rabbit hole that is…baby products. It’s actually insane to see how many items are marketed as a necessity for your little one. Hey, guess that’s the point of marketing, but I am here to tell you that you do not need half of those items. You really only need the basics at the very beginning: things like a bassinet (or a safe place for the baby to sleep), diapers, wipes, a few simple outfits, a safe car seat, burp cloths (we use cloth diapers for burp cloths..game-charger) and boobs/bottle. Now I’m not here to tell you what to do, if you want to get every thing out there for your expected little one, then you do you. 😉
Since we live in a small home, we evaluate each item in our home – if it’s wasting square footage and doesn’t bring us joy (thanks to this book) it goes to goodwill. We try to keep the baby items on a minimum so that our home doesn’t feel like a daycare…for my sanity and my husbands as we both have a hard time living with clutter. I guess you could call me the opposite of a hoarder. Anyway, I am rambling like crazy so let me just get to what you may have come here to see – the products we use daily.
one // our evening routine begins at 6:45pm with a bath and then I like to diffuse essential oils in her nursery to create a calm environment and purify the air. two // I also love this lotion – it lacks the bad stuff put in a lot of baby lotions and smells heavenly. three // we didn’t invest in a monitor until Evie moved to her crib (around 4 months) and we only got the camera that hooks up to wifi. four // lavender and purification are two oils we diffuse in her nursery (the purification helps with stinky diaper situations haha). let me know if you are interested in some young living oils. five // burts bees towel six & seven // we love using the honest diaper + wipes bundle, it honestly has saved us money (see what I did there?) and it’s such a luxury having your diapers shipped.
Also, I know you don’t see any toys here. That’s because Evie isn’t allowed to have toys. just kidding. Here are three of her favorites: one // two // three
photo source
Now since we live in Boston, a very walkable city, we wanted to splurge a bit on the “travel gear”. We love the nine // ergobaby carrier, I wear this on walks around the city/our neighborhood and will wear her when we go to the store. I love having this option versus the stroller because no one likes a big stroller on the T at rush hour. Trust me. ten // since most of the sidewalks are a little wonky in our city, we also wanted to splurge a bit on the stroller. We absolutely love our uppababy vista – there’s a lot of storage for grocery/target trips (can be a good and bad thing I suppose) and it takes bumps like a champ. Evie slept in the bassinet that comes with it for the first 3 months next to our bed on top of this bar cart. 😉 Here’s a photo if you are curious about this set up…in case you were wondering, it’s back to it’s original purpose of holding our adult beverages. 😉
eleven // this bag has been really great, it’s simple, easy to clean and I love all of the compartments. twelve // the solly baby wrap was a godsend right after having Evie. We still use it but now that Evie is bigger, the ergo is a little easier on my back. But I used the heck out of this thing for a solid 4 months! thirteen // Okay so like I mentioned earlier, everything in our home is evaluated on it’s importance and we didn’t want to have primary-colored baby items cluttered around our home. I feel that will take away from the overall aesthetic and make me stressed. We were gifted the stokke steps bouncer + chair by my family and we love it! It’s so great that we will be able to use it for years to come since it goes from a bouncer to a highchair and then big kid chair…and with our next baby (if we have another). fourteen // the chicco keyfit 30 carseat – we typically use this with an adapter on the stroller…she’s getting close to moving to the regular seat the stroller comes with. I like that it’s grey and not that heavy!
A couple of items I missed in the round-up:
If you are having a winter baby – I recommend getting the JJ Cole Car Seat Cover. This has saved us several times in snow and rain! Also, we typically buy outfits for Evie at Old Navy – they are so dang cute!
photo of Evie by: Joyelle West // thank you Joyelle!! xo