Baby Essentials // Preparing for Baby #2

We are just a few months away from finally meeting baby #2 and we are well feeling a little unprepared right now. We haven’t really bought anything at all and don’t have many items from when Edith was a newborn. When we moved to Oregon Edith was six months so we ended up selling a lot of items because we just didn’t feel a need to pay to truck them out there, especially items that we no longer used. We also were about 80% sure that we were not going to have a second child so we didn’t feel compelled to keep items either. That all being said here I am 28 weeks pregnant and we are now in need of items for baby #2.

I was going through my baby gear posts from 0-3 months (you can find them here and here) to help us decide what we really need. Unlike with Edith buying for baby #2 has become all about needs not about wants, okay maybe a little about wants, but mostly about needs. I guess it’s easier to first talk about what we DO have before we talk about what we are planning to purchase or would like to purchase.

We have:

• Three newborn onesies (gifted to us by my parents)
• One newborn hat for #2’s arrival
• One 0-3 month sun hat
• Six to eight 0-3 month onesies/rompers/sweaters
• A handful of 3-6 month clothes
• A few handfuls of 6-12 month clothes
• Lots of 12-18 month clothes
• One swaddle sleep sack
• A few muslin blankets
• 6 newborn cloth diapers
• Skip Hop Treetop Friends Activity Gym
• Leachco Prop ‘R Shopper – Shopping Cart Cover
• Pack n’ Play
• Baby Monitor
• Bouncy Chair (we recently purchased on major sale)
• Breast Pump
• Infant Carseat (on the fence about ours)
• We have a number of babycarriers
• We have a few single strollers (more on this in a different post)
• Books and infant toys
• We have ordered newborn disposable diapers
• We are buying our friends bassinet

So now what do we need?

• Newborn clothes
• 0-3 month clothes
• 3-6 month clothes
• Newborn cloth diapers and more AIO cloth diapers
• Size 1 disposable diapers
• Cloth wipes
• Disposable wipes
• Diaper Bag
• Hooded Towels
• Soft wash clothes
• Leachco Safer Bath Infant Pad
• Nursing bras and tanks
• Nursing Pillow

I know it doesn’t seem like a ton but there are a few big ticket items and there are some other items that we will need eventually that are not on the list that we will need when we have a bigger place with a room for the kids (currently they will be sharing with us).

So what do we want?

• A Sakura Bloom Ring Sling
• A Double Stroller (still in debate over this as a want or a need – separate posts to come)
• A new carseat (still debating this one- planning to have ours checked out but while it hasn’t expired or been in an accident it has done a lot of traveling on planes and such so it’s been thrown around quite a bit)
• A new breast pump (need to figure out how this works with insurance)
• Handheld vacuum (I know a weird one but it would be so helpful to keep our place clean with two kids)

While we do have a number of items still there are a lot of immediate essentials that we don’t have such as clothing, diapers, nursing wear and possibly a new carseat.

Now I know unlike our first pregnancy we won’t be having a baby shower or sprinkle which I can’t decide how I feel about this but either way it doesn’t matter because we wouldn’t throw one for ourselves anyways. This also leads into an entirely different post about how this pregnancy is different emotionally and physically, how there is less focus on this pregnancy and preparing for baby and well I’ll get around to all that another day.

While we don’t expect gifts this time around we did create a registry for ourselves to keep track of items that we would like and take advantage of the completion discount for anything we decide to buy after baby #2’s due date. If you are curious as to what is on our registry here is the link.

What did you buy to prepare for baby #2? What are/were your newborn essentials?

What are your thoughts on baby showers or sprinkles for pregnancies #2 (and on)?