MUST HAVE BABY & TODDLER ITEMS

I've been blown away by just HOW many people have said they have read and purchased off of the first list I made after Annalise was born. You can read it here and I still truly stand by everything on that list. It's the best "Hospital, Newborn & Postpartum Essentials." list around. But now that I have two kids (one being a toddler) I've got so many more must-haves I have been itching to share. If you're pregnant and haven't had your little one yet - don't forget to head over to my post where I shared my awesome - comprehensive - you won't forget anything - printable hospital checklist!

For the little baby years (0-1 years)

Oxy Clean: powder, stick and spray - you need them all

• The spray and the stick are the same stuff inside, and I can't really say why, but sometimes I like one over the other. I like taking the stick with me on trips so I can treat it right away and throw it in the laundry pile so I don't miss stains when I get home.

• The powder I use in a bucket for clothes that are REALLY messy. In the diaper blowout and infant eating stages, this can be often and it's better than using half a bottle of the others to get everything. Sometimes it does take me a couple of treatments depending on what food or poop it is (only a mom can say that right?!) but I haven't had much (maybe 1 thing??) that didn't come out entirely.

Woolite Rug cleaner

While we're talking cleaning products, I came across this rug cleaner and it's been the best magic for carpets, rugs, and the fabric on my chairs. I don't know how it works, but man, I'm sold. It's marketed for pets, which I don' have, but I think the Lord led me to this purchase (only half-joking). During the spit-up stage, toddler spilling stage, and having a husband stage you really do need it.

Gathre Changing pad

Ok, guys, EVERYTHING this company makes is GORGEOUS. But alas, I'm not made of money. But this is a must-have for your diaper bag. Why? Because no matter how big the diaper bag (I mean I really thought I had a giant whopper of a bag) there just still isn't enough room. I don't want to take up 1/4 of my bag just with a changing pad. But this leather (yes real leather) changing pad that wipes and cleans off so easily is the perfect companion to easily stow. I really should be a salesperson, shouldn't I? They have tons of patterns and don't forget to look at their other beautiful things. Check it out here.

IKEA Highchair

I'm 100% convinced the IKEA highchair is the best-designed budget highchair in existence. It's compact, can be entirely taken apart and stored if needed, and is the easiest to clean. Legitimately, I sometimes just take it outside and spray it off. Sometimes kid still in it (don't judge until you've tried it). I do have the cushion for it which is really helpful to keep them snug and keep the mess contained. And especially as they are just learning to sit you can put more air into it so it helps support them as well. If you don't have an IKEA near you, you can check Facebook Marketplace, or ask me to bring one from SLC for you. There are 3 parts as seen above. The chair, the cushion, and the cushion cover - you can get all for only $30. Can't beat that.

Bibs

Both of these bibs are a must have for me. For Annalise I only used the sleeved one. I still have the first one I bought her when she was 6 month old and it's getting a little worn, so even though it's kind of expensive ($13-15 for one) they last forever. You can wash with soap and water in the sink or throw it in the washing macine. I have a diaper bag one and a kitchen one. For the diaper bag I also carry some clorex wipes to clean off at the restaraunts because it gets kind of stinky if it's not well cleaned. I LOVE having the sleeved bibs because I don't have to worry about their clothes geting dirty with anything we eat. I know a lot of people just strip their kids but these have worked just as well (in most cases). Bumpkins sells so many different patterns to suit your liking, but the link for this Chevron one is here.

The silicone pocket bib I was gifted while pregnant with Leeland and I didn't know how much I'd like it. When they are learning to feed themselves there is so much dropped food and with the sleeved bib they still end up with a lot on their laps, so I love the pocket bib for catching everything. Leeland has also figured out that he can clean out his pocket for his dropped food. It's so cute. Sometimes we double bib with the sleeved bib and the pocket bib if it's a real messy meal. There are tons of brands of the silicone ones, but link for this set is here.

Scissors for cutting food

Ok, this isn't really a specific item you have to buy, but a hack I got from a friend that has without a doubt - changed my life. Scissors for cutting food! Simple right? But when you have a little mouth to feed, tediously cutting food into the appropriately, safe size for them takes FOREVER. You think it's small enough but then they try to put it in their mouth and then you realize it's still entirely too big. But we use our KitchenAid scissors (Ross for the win there!) to literally cut everything. Pizza, fruit, vegetables, sausage, pizza, bread...whatever it is you can cut it. I love the KitchenAid brand though, they are great Kitchen scissors! You can grab them from Amazon here, or check out Ross for discounted price, I see them there all the time.

Infantino Squeeze Station

Ok this might not be everyones cup of tea, but I do like having this Infantino Squeeze Station because when they first start eating solids, squeeze pouches are the easist/fastest/cleanest/most convenient way to feed them. But, almost ALL squeeze pouches have fruit in them and I really wanted to be able to introduce just straight veggies. So I just steamed veggies in my instant pot, pureed and filled! Both my kids loved them. I also did quite a few apple sauce combos for Leeland because I got so many apples for free. Apples and peaches, apples and cinnamon, apple and cottage cheese, apple and blueberry. Anyway, not a necessity by any means, but I liked having it.

Reusable Baby Food Squeeze Storage Pouches

But these, I'd put up there with essential. Reusable food pouches. These are amazing for literally everything. When I started feeding my kids more of what we were eating I would blend it up in the food processor and put it in here to feed them. Again, SO MUCH EASIER. Or buy large containers of yogurts, apple sauce and the like and just put them in here to feed him. Oatmeal for breakfast. You name it! They are so nice to have. Pre-filled food pouches get expensive, so it's nice to have these at home to use. I still buy pre-filled ones though for the diaper bag because they don't have to be refrigerated. They have lots of different patterns of these on Amazon, but you can get these one here.

Reusable silicon food stoarage bags

These are the best diaper bag companions for snacks. It's nice to not feel like you're waisting a bunch of plastic, but they also are rigid enough so that your snacks don't turn into powder or get totally abliterated in the bottom of your bag. I use them a lot for other things in the house too! They last forever. But don't wash in the dishwasher. The dishwasher soap sticks with it and makes your food taste like soap (yuck!) and I also had one melt. These ones are from Amazon (surprise!) and you can get them here.

Silicon suction food mat

There are tons of these, and this isn't actually the one I even have, but it's so helpful! I didn't use one for Annalise but quickly realized Leeland needed one. He likes to spread his food and then it gets into too small of pieces for him to pick up. So the plate helps to keep it in one spot and he can grab it out a lot easier. Make sure it has suction cups on the bottom because they also love to pick up the plate and throw it (and everything else) on the floor. This one is from Amazon here. But you can also check consignment stores as they are considerably cheaper.

Tubby Todd All Over Ointment

Both of my kids have had baby excem/dry skin - I think a lot of babies do. With Annalise I tried copious amounts of every kind of lotion and ointment, hydrocortisone cream and bleach baths (I know that sounds weird, but it's actually a thing with only 1 TB bleach to a whole bath). But with Leeland I couldn't get anything to work. I even got a prescription fo higher percentage of hydrocortisone cream and it didn't help. His poor cheeks were so chapped. Then a friend recommended this. After putting it on twice a day for 2 days it was completely gone. I'll never go back to something else. I'll keep it on hand forever. If he starts to have any redness or dryness I put it on for a day or 2 and it's completely gone. My friend said her baby had baby acne and it cleared in a few days. You can look at the website for the hundreds of before and after pictures. It's magic. You can use my code here to get 10% off your first order.

Oogiebear and NoseFrida

I swore I'd NEVER get the NoseFrida - because GROSS. I'm a Nurse-Midwife and I can handle all sorts of bodily fluits - but not phlegm - no thank you. But then the kids got the worst colds and couldn't breath and snot everywhere so I caved. And man...game changer. There is a filter so there is no way snot will go into the tube and honestly you'd have to have crazy lungs to get it that far. The kids hated it, but helped them so much, especially right before bed. Great to have on hand for colds! Grab it from Amazon here. Now the oogiebear, I'd get on that band wagon any day. They have the tiniest little nostrils and I always want to get those little hanging boogies and this does the trick and has the bear to prevent you from going in to far even when they are squirming. It also works great for ear wax, because maybe it's just my kids - but so many giant balls of wax. A bobby pin also works well but you have to be much more careful to not go in to far. Link for oogiebear is here.

The Best Teething Toy Ever

I don't even know how I came across this on Amazon, but it's genious. I'd say that Leeland didn't actually use it for a terribly long amount of time, but the time he did it was his (and my) favorite! They want to chew but everything ends up on the floor in 2 seconds, so this was my go to anytime we went out. Everyone who saw it thought it was amazing and I was so happy for him to be hapy and not have to retreive it every 5 seconds. You can find it here.

Baby toothbrush

Have you ever tried brushing someone elses teeth? No? Haha. Have fun brushing your kids teeth! It's hard. They like to bite the toothbrush. They move. They won't look at you. They move, you jab it down their throat trying to give the toothbrush enough motion to get the teeth cleaned and get to the back. They swallow the tooth paste. Did that even do anything? The electric toothrush was a game changer for us! I thought of it mainly after I'd been using our electric toothbrush for years and then we left them on a trip so we had to use a regular toothbrush and I felt like my teeth were still so dirty. I thought man, it would be cool if they made these for babies! And then I looked, and they do! It has a 2 minute timer broken down into 30 second increments so you can do 30 second for each quadrant. I just do 30 seconds on top and 30 seconds on bottom for Annalise and however long Leeland will let me for him This one from Amazon is great and comes in a couple colors and has a light on it, whch is helpful. Annalise loves her electric toothbrush.

Sittingn Bath Seat

If you read my first blog with my favorite newborn things (link at the top of this blog!) then you know the Angel Care Bath Support is my favorite! But eventually they do grow out of it. When they start to want to sit up then you have to transition to something else. But they also usually at that point can't sit up by themselves, and even if they can, the bath is slippery and so they need some support. I came across this one and we loved it with Annalise! Leeland used if for like 2 seconds, but I still think it's great for transitioning. I actually bought mine from Wish - a store with cheap stuff from China. I takes like 3 weeks to get there but it was perfect and only $10. It's far more expensive other places online, unless you get it from a Chinese seller on Walmart.com. I think it's worth it if you can get a good deal. Take a risk on China :)

Strollers

AIR FILLED TIRES. I can't say it enough. AIR FILLED TIRES. I don't care what brand, you just need the tires to be air filled. My first stroller for Annalise was a BOB Gear Revolution Flex 3.0 Jogging Stroller (the one pictured on the left). I literally don't have a single bad thing to say about this stroller. Because of the air-filled, all terrain tires, it doesn't matter where you push it, it will go there with little effort. If you're on flat ground you don't even have to push it (I'm really not joking), one finger will do. We took it everywhere and it was amazing. I went on a walk with a girl who had a generic stroller with tires like the picture below, and we had to walk in the gravel for a minute and she was killing herself while I was easy breasy - no big deal.

The BOB strollers are expensive new but I see them used ALL the time on facebook marketplace. No reason to buy new. But I'd reccommend if you buy used really try it out. If you're pregnant bring your husband and make him jog with it to make sure everything is working well. You can see the specs from Amazon here. Ok and fine, I do have maybe ONE negative thing to say about it. It is on the heavy side for strollers, so you do have to hoist a bit, but I got used to it. There full disclosure.

When I was pregnant with Leeland I did a bunch of research for double strollers. Apparantly what I was looking for doesn't really exist. The BOB is pretty wide and I coudn't imagine having a double BOB jogger for going into buildings, as the single was already a tight fit. I put them in the stroller for everything! So I ended up with the Bumbleride Indie Twin because it as the narrowist of the air-filled all terrain tires with good reviews. I got it used on Facebook Marketplace and unfortunately didn't try it out super great, so one tire has a bit of an issue, but otherwise I do really like it. You can see the spec here.

I read a lot of reviews for strollers and I'd recommend you do the same to find what will fit your life best. Here is one review that does a good comparison. I think most all strollers have carseat adapters for whatever carseat you have. This allows you to just clip their carseat straight into the stroller since really tiny babies need a little more security than a stroller harnass, not to mention it's way easier.

The Toddler Years (1-3)

Toilet seat

When you approach the potty training stage you definately need these! Like this one specifically, you know why? The tollder seat is magnetic. So when you lift up the lid the toddler seat stays attached to the lid. Then if your toddler neads to go potty they can just pull their seat down. I love this, beause without fail if there a seat without a magnet I will sit on the toddler seat. And the other nice thing is you don't have something that goes on top of the seat that needs to be moved everytime someone else is going to the bathroom. Discrete but functional. This one is from Amazon. They do have other magnetic seats on Amazon depending on the shape and size of your toilet, but this one worked for us!

Hatch Light (time to rise light)

We got this for Annalise when she was 2. We were desparately trying to get her to have one good long nap and the transition was killing me. She would sleep for 45 minutes and then wake up and cry for me until I got her. I needed her to "rest" even if she wasn't sleeping. This was magic. We have it set to be purple or pink when it's time to sleep and then when she can get up it's green. Usually, she'll just lay there quitely and rest until it turns green. Especially nice in the morning so we don't have to get out of bed quite so early. You'll learn too that sometimes quite time rest is still helpful even if they aren't sleeping. So if something can help facilitate that then it's worth it.

Recently, we also changed it so that she has a pink light for mid-day nap and purple for night time. This has helped to get Annalise to realize that not all sleep times are the same and that it's not always a new day when she wakes up. You can set presets so they will automatically turn on and off and it also has white noise capabilities we use too. You can get it from Amazon here.

Toothpicks

Annalise has never been a great eater, so I'm always trying to come up with creative ways to eat food. I saw this on an instagram page I followed. It really helped us get over some of our eatnig humps. They are so cute and I can coax Annalise to eat "all the giraffes now!" Whatever ya gotta do.. These were a great deal on Amazon.

Sandwhich Cutters

And on that note of eating, this helped a lot too. You totally don't have to get this kit. I got it for free and it's cute. But cookie cutters. We cut out everything. The other day she had a pancake and wouldn't eat it for nearly 30 minutes and then I went over and cut it into 4 small Minnie Mouse shapes and she gobbles them in 2 seconds. I don't know why. It's annoying, but it works. This kit is from Amazon here.

Scissors with Lift Assist

I honestly didn't even know this was a thing! I came across them at the dollar store and they are genious. The little part in the middle folds down and acts like a spring so the child only has to close the scissors and then it helps to open it back up. Their tiny little hands are still building muscles and so this is so helpful for them. This set of 6 is from Amazon, but I see them at the Dollar Tree all the time.

Learning Tower

Learning tower, toddler tower, kitchen helper...whatever you want to call it, it's worth the cost. The one I have is like this one from Amazon, but Amazon doesn't carry the one I have anymore. But I like mine, because like this one, it folds up if you want to put it away. Although, let's be real, I rarely ever put mine away because my kids always want to be helping me. It's safe and puts them up high enough they can actually "help." My mother-in-law also discovered it works great to block all the drawers in the kitchen so your baby can't get into them.

Instagrams I love

• @solidstarts

I love this page and wish I had discovered it with Annalise. They talk about all things food for kids of all ages. They will highlight a different food every couple of days and will show pictures of how you should cut it for each age. Recipes. Tips for avoiding picky eatings. How to do baby led weaning. So many good ideas!!

• @busytoddler

Suzy is amazing. She has millions of genius ideas for keeping kids busy. Sensory bin ideas, outdoor activities, indoor activities, busy acitivites and quite activities. Everything. I can't recommend this page enough.

• @francieoutlaw

She has such great early learning - Christ focussed ideas for kids. She's a sweet lady! She has an account on Teachers Pay Teachers which has free and paid resources. We have used some and I like them!

Literally my entire Instagram has become just baby and toddler things, but these are my top 3 that I always look at what they post. I'd love to hear some of your favorites!