Making A Baby Registry Is Work!

I remember when I made our wedding registry, it was lots of fun. Finding cool looking household items and whatnot…. and if we didn’t receive half the stuff it was no big deal.

That is not the case with a baby registry… especially for the first child (and you don’t have much in the way of good condition hand-me-downs to help ya).

After our 12 week appointment, we decided to start our registry at Babies R Us. We were feeling more happy and confident about our pregnancy since we’d made it to the magical 12th week where the risk of miscarriage is significantly reduced. So, why not start the registry?

We met with a friendly and helpful employee that set up the registry, showed us how to use the scanning gun, and provided a handy-dandy “must-haves” registry checklist. We also knew if we scanned a certain number of items, we’d get an extra giftbag when we returned the scanner. My husband and I were determined to get that extra gift (which we did!).

Good tips given to us:

• Add a lot of items since people tend to buy several shower gifts
• Pick out a variety of “single items” (such as baby soap) so people can create their own gift baskets
• Add diapers
• Include a range of prices to fit your guests budgets

So we went along, finding the big ticket items (car seat, crib, stroller, breast pump) as well as the smaller items (outlet covers) and lots of things inbetween. We had well over 100 items scanned (some items we requested multiples of) but it seemed we barely scratched the “must-haves” surface.

Except, I didn’t realize that until last night.

Last night I decided I should log onto my registry and check off the items listed before creating registries at Target and Wal-Mart… knowing not all guests being invited live near Babies R Us or feel comfortable ordering online.

But… I couldn’t simply just check off everything I listed. Nooooo. I had to double check reviews. This was good and bad.

Keep these things in mind when checking out baby product reviews:

• Some bad reviews must be taken with a grain of salt
• If there’s more bad than good, you probably want to look for an alternative
• Just because it’s adorable doesn’t mean it’s quality
• Just because some people had issues, doesn’t mean you will – especially if there are raving reviews in the mix
• If the alternatives are way out of price range (but have better reviews) or the same types of complaints crop up for nearly every alternative you look at – might want to stick with the original item
• The most important bad review to pay attention to is about safety concerns

So, checking off what we have on our list thus far too longer than necessary because I checked lots and lots of reviews. Some people have told me that my list of “must-haves” aren’t really “must-haves.”  But… I’m looking at this list and thinking We are going to need these things. Things I didn’t even know we’d need….. and we have practically NOTHING right now.

If I receive items as gifts, but later discover I don’t really need it….no biggie. I’m just hoping we don’t end up overspending on unnecessary items. But, honestly, this list seems very realistic. I know I’m a first time mom and all, but these are things I’ve seen stocked in most homes with babies.

Don’t get me wrong, the registry is still fun… it’s just less fun when you start to worry about not having what you need or not picking a good enough product.

I do sorta wish I could just register at one place and be done with it, but that won’t do.

*Looks at checklist again*

Damn, I don’t think I have even half of these on the registry so far!

…..back to work!