Picture this….you buy a house and it takes a few months, but you finally make it look (mostly) how you want it. You make it a home. A baby is coming soon, so you’re preparing by setting up the swing, the bassinet, and the other simple things needed for an infant.
A few months later there’s the miracle of child birth (even if it last 76 hours)….you come home with a newborn and all of a sudden it seems like your space isn’t quite yours anymore. There’s nursing/feeding and changing stations in almost every room, just as a precaution. I mean, you never know when your newborn is going to, oh I don’t know, blow out their diaper in your hand. Newborns and infants don’t require THAT much stuff though, at least that’s how I feel now knowing the next phase. It’s just swings and bouncers and nursing pillows and rattles. No one really warns you of what comes next.
Even before having Lilly I had spent hours upon hours on websites trying to figure out what baby products were actually necessary. I don’t have a large house and space is a luxury, so I wanted to keep the big stuff to a minimum. Except, what they don’t tell you is that as the little one grows so do their contraptions. The relatively small bouncers and swings, etc. last a surprisingly short amount time….especially for the money spent on them. Then comes the upgrade of activity mats and saucers. A saucer? Who thought of that? Do not get me wrong, they’re great to plop a baby in when you need to get stuff done and soooo cute to watch them figure out how to use those things we call legs. Howeverrrrr, how the heck am I supposed to make a giant round object Feng Shui with my living room furniture.
Take it a step further and we have a mobile tiny human. Is there anything scarier than that? See I’m not one to go around bubble wrapping my house or my child, but doesn’t everything suddenly become a death trap?? So then come the playpens because you have to corral them somehow…I mean we have to get dishes done right? I started “small” and got a pop-up octagon one made by Summer Infant. Definitely does the job, I will warn you though it’s all one piece and isn’t washable, big design flaw in my opinion for anything kid related. Turns out they grow out of that pretty quickly too. Now I use that as a portable play area for outside or, what I think is the best use, at the beach. This still leaves needing some type of playpen for inside though, because let me tell you toy storage does NOT mean toys stay off of the floor.
I’d like to introduce you all to the biggest, most ridiculous baby/toddler purchase to date. It is a 70″x71″ baby cage from amazon and it is amazinggggggg. I can fully lay down in this thing when playing with Lilly and it has cute little zip down holes when I want her to be able to have access to dragging her toys all over the living room. In all seriousness this thing has been great so far. It is the same size her play mat was anyway and now contains all of her floor and overflow toys from her bin. One hundred percent will take over any room you put it in, but is so beyond worth it. As is everything else in this post by the way….just a little heads up that my house was going to become baby’s play land would’ve been nice. Feel free to leave some comments about what your unexpected baby must have or have nots are! Until next time, hang in there ya’ll.