Baby Products I'm Swapping Out For Baby #2
We are getting ready for the arrival of baby #2 and there are some products this time around that I wanted to try replacing with something different, either because I ended up not liking the original as much as I expected, or because there are just better products that have come out since then with features I am interested in. I haven’t tried any of these swaps yet, but excited to give them a go and will report back.
SOUND MACHINE
Hatch Rest Sound Machine —> Mom Cozy DreamSync Sound Machine: I still like the Hatch Sound machines and will keep using the ones we have, but I often wished I could play music or sounds outside of the Hatch Library from my phone. I think I could have kept my son in bed longer with some entertainment that way some mornings or even helped him fall asleep without me at night. The Mom Cozy sound machine has the option to use it as a bluetooth speaker, so I should be able to use it for this! Not actually sure if i’ll use it in the baby’s room or switch it to my toddler’s room.
HIGH CHAIR
Maxi Cosi Noa High Chair —> IKEA High Chair: I am so bummed about this one. I loved the idea of the Maxi Cosi high chair online — it’s so pretty, the tray slides on and off so easily, etc. But it gave my son absolutely terrible posture for eating. I had read this in the reviews beforehand and didn’t think it was something I’d care about, but it turns out it was so bad I was concerned about him choking etc. I think it would work ok for a larger baby or maybe even at an older age. We ended up getting the cheapo $20 IKEA high chair and it was so much better. We still use it and plan on keeping it around! Only downside is no foot rest, and the third party foot rest we tried was easily kicked off all the time once he was strong enough to fidget with it. There are some cute accessories on Etsy for the IKEA chair too, though we haven’t purchased any ourselves.
BASSINET
Skip Hop CozyUp 2-In-1 Bassinet —> Chicco LullaGo Anywhere Portable Bassinet: I ended up not liking this bassinet, although I haven’t been thrilled with any other option I’ve seen online since. We used it for a couple of months, but I was worried by 2 months old already that he would fall out of it because his legs would flail so high over the top of it at night (haha). He always ended up in the corner of it too with his face smashed against the sides. I think some of that would be true with any bassinet just because they are small. I liked that it had wheels, but they didn’t roll well on carpet, and the whole thing was not super sturdy — it was always sort of wiggling wonky when we moved it. And I thought I’d care about the bedside set up, but turns out it only made me pick up the baby without fully waking up which was not super safe, so I moved it across the room eventually anyway to force myself to wake up and walk over. Mostly though, once we were done with it, I had no idea where to store it for future. It doesn’t fold up at all and we had no space for it so we ended up giving it away! I’m excited to try the Chicco one this time which does fold up for storage (even for travel), and is also GreenGuard Gold Certified. It has no extra frills but I think it might be just what we need! I’ll also probably lay on the floor/a mattress and co sleep a lot sooner with this baby because it’s the only way I can imagine surviving days with a toddler after night feeds with a newborn! We’ll see!
BABY WRAP
Moby Baby Wrap —> Moby Duet Baby Carrier: I actually really loved the Moby Baby Wrap, and still might use it here and there, but all the wrap kinds are a bit of an ordeal to put on. I’ve seen so many people wearing this other kind of carrier that is like a mix between the wraps and the carriers… goes on with a quick buckle but is super soft snuggly fabric like a wrap. I’ve heard lots of good things about the Wildbird one but saw better reviews on baby’s posture and mom’s comfort for the Moby brand carrier. Hoping baby will take lots of naps in this!
BATH TUB
The First Years Baby Bath —> OXO Tot Splash & Store Tub: The first time around I thought I didn’t care at all about the bath — thought I’d be fine with a literal bucket and it didn’t seem like something worth spending money on. However, the one we used was super annoying. Baby could slide down if he wasn’t held, there were a bunch of crevices that were super hard to clean, like couldn’t even fit a toothbrush in them to scrub, there was no drain and it didn’t prop up well to pour the water out either, so it just held onto water and got moldy so fast every time we cleaned. It also had padding that got kind of gross and couldn’t be folded to store so it took up a ton of space even when not in use. I didn’t realize how annoyed I could be with a bath tub!! The OXO tub looks like it has solutions for all of these problems, so although it seems a bit expensive for a baby bath, I hope it will be worth it.
WEARABLE BREAST PUMP
Elvie Stride Breast Pump —> Eufy e10 Wearable Breast Pump: I liked the Elvie Stride pump overall. I felt like I got plenty of milk from it and it was easy to clean. My one complaint was sometimes it was hard to tell if it was lined up properly, so a couple times I pumped for like 320 minutes before realizing it was misaligned and I hadn’t pumped any milk. In fact I gave myself mastitis one time, I think because of this problem. I also don’t think there were many options, or I didn’t know about them if there were, for silicone flanges at the time. These days nearly every breast pump comes with silicone flanges which are supposed to be much better for comfort and milk production, so i’m eager to try! I would have probably stuck with the Elvie, except my insurance covers a new breast pump for each baby (I also have the Spectra pink pump already as a hand me down), so I thought it’d be nice to try a new one. I was debating between the MomCozy M5 and the Eufy e10 and ultimately decided on the Eufy. It got great reviews on milk production and comfort, and I ordered extra (silicone) flanges in another size to go with it. The Eufy s1 got great reviews too but I had mixed feelings about the heating feature on that one. I felt weird about it, like there was more to mess up when cleaning etc, and it also is controlled via app instead of manual buttons, and I think I prefer manual buttons. The Eufy e10 seemed to be the same thing as the s1 but with no frills! Will report back!
BOTTLE HEATING
Hot Water —> Momcozy Portable Bottle Warmer: I didn’t do a ton of bottle feeding with the first one after the first few weeks when I actually exclusively pumped until we got breastfeeding more figured out. But when I did, I usually just heated it up with hot water. It took forever which was awful in the middle of the night and I think it’s half the reason we didn’t keep bottles going. I’m hoping to do a little bit more bottle feeding this time, so I’m excited to try this bottle warmer that I can take in the car or use next to my bed etc and it heats up apparently in about 2 minutes.
BOTTLES
Evenflo Bottles —> Munchkin Silicone Bonded Glass Bottles: We tried so many bottles with various nipples last time. The Evenflo bottles were my favorite, but I never felt good heating up liquid in plastic and giving it to a baby, but I didn’t want to risk a glass bottle breaking around the baby either, so I was really conflicted. Since then, munchkin has come out with these silicone bonded glass bottles, which are glass bottles but with a silicone coating. It’s not a silicone sleeve, so it’s not removable/not an extra thing to wash, but should help keep it from breaking. I saw an ad for it where someone dropped it from chest height and it just bounced off the floor. I’m hoping it’s the best of both worlds! I’ve read that the nipples are not great and seen it recommended to swap out the nipples for the Dr Browns nipples, so I’ll probably try that too.