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Buying things for your baby can often be a struggle and not to mention expensive. So if you're decorating and designing your nursery, here are some must need essentials you can't be without. All of them I own myself and they have made my life a lot easier.
1. Now this is a no-brainer, but you will need a cot. Some people will tell you in the first months your baby will most likely not be in the cot. However, it's important to let your baby sleep in the cot right from the beginning, as it will help with getting your baby to sleep through the night as soon as possible, which trust me, you want!
Here is the cot I am still using. It's actually a cotbed, which means it will transfer into a junior bed when your baby is 3 years old. So you will get a lot more for your money if you buy a cotbed. The cotbed comes with a mattress included, so it's another thing you don't have to worry about.
The cotbed itself is easy to assemble, I did it by myself 7 months pregnant in 30 mins, so it really is a piece a cake to put together. You can purchase the cotbed here.
2. Something that I definitely couldn't have been without was a night light. You should get one to make the night feeding a lot easier for yourself. It is important to not flood the nursery in light when you have to feed your baby in the night.
With a night light you can control how much light you need. And it will stop you from bumping into things when you leave the nursery after feeding your baby.
I am using VAVA LED night light. You can charge it during the day so it becomes portable, which was great when I had to use it during a camping trip... Oh yes, I took my, at the time, 7 month old camping! The night light was great, it didn't run out of charge and I used it for 3 nights without charging it.
3. A chair is an important purchase too, not for the baby but mainly for you! You will feed your baby a lot during the day/night and you will need a comfortable chair, because if you aren't comfortable then your baby might not be either.
I splurged a bit on a rocking chair, and it was so worth it. It's now part of our living room furniture. It can be adjusted into 5 different positions and comes with a side pocket in which I stored dummies and muslin squares.
It is so comfortable that I often found my partner Joe having a nap in it with our son. And I have to confess I may have fallen asleep in it too during one of those many night feeds too.
So you should really have a comfortable chair in your nursery. You can buy the rocking chair I have here.
4. We would have been lost without our baby monitor, our son Magnus likes total silence and complete darkness when he sleeps, so we have to close the door whenever he sleeps. That's why we needed a baby monitor.
I bought this one. You don't need to invest in anything fancy with a screen and with more options than your phone. All you need is something that alerts you when your baby is crying.
5. In the first few months I changed my sons nappy on the changing mat on the floor. However, my back couldn't handle it for long. So we bought a changing unit and my back thanked me for it.
A changing unit is different than a changing table, with a unit you get some drawers and shelves with it. Making it an ideal piece of furniture for changing you baby's nappy and storing clothes and everything else you'll need for your baby.
Some changing units even have detachable tops. Which means that you can take the changing table bit off and keep the drawers and shelves, so that the unit will become a chest of drawers when your baby is older.
6. This might seem a bit of an unusual essential, but for me this was very important, a laundry basket. I don't think I was fully prepared for the amount of times I had to change my sons outfit when he was a newborn baby. He would fill his laundry basket up faster than I could wash it.
So it became an essential just to keep the nursery tidy and I wouldn't trip over his clothes in the middle of the night.
7. One of the best things we bought for our son was his baby bouncer. In the first few months my son was only quiet when he was in my or his daddy's arms. After a while I have to confess I got tired of it, I had to take my son everywhere including the toilet. So we decided to try a baby bouncer after our friend recommended it.
And it was wonderful! I finally felt free, I had my arms back. I could get chores done and still keep an eye on my son.
8. If your family is anything like mine, then you were probably showered with toys for your baby when it was born or even while you were still expecting. I had so many toys for my son I had nowhere to put them. So number 8 on my list is a toy chest.
Again it was mainly to keep the nursery less messy and making it less hazardous when you stumble into the nursery half asleep during those night feeds.
Here's a recap of my 8 nursery essentials:
- Cotbed
- Night Light
- Comfortable Chair
- Baby Monitor
- Changing Unit
- Laundry Basket
- Baby Bouncer
- Toy Chest
I hope I was able to help you decide what to buy. Again all those items in the links, I have personally used, some of them I still use, so they are of good quality and very safe for your baby. Are there any unusual nursery essentials you could have been without, let me know!
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