13 Baby Shower Gifts I Couldn’t Live Without

November 18, 2018

Last Updated on August 2, 2024 by Samantha Flores

First-time parenting is rough. You have no clue what you’re doing and you really don’t know how to prepare. No matter how many books you read or what advice you hear, your baby and your experience will be different. Many baby shower gifts are geared towards big items.

You will learn an exponential amount about parenthood along the way and you just have to ride the waves. One of those lessons will be which baby shower gifts you will actually use.

A true testament to my new parenting skills was the day we went to do our baby registry. We went to Babies R Us when I was barely 12 weeks pregnant and started our baby shower gifts registry. We didn’t even know the gender of our baby at this point!

I think I was just over the moon excited about finally sharing the news with everyone! We wanted to visualize how the baby’s room would be.

Truthfully, I had no clue what to put on our registry. My husband and I walked out of the store with 14 items on our list. The majority of those items were probably impractical in a sense. We had items on there that the baby wouldn’t even be using until close to their first birthday.

When creating a baby shower gifts registry, you really want to focus on items that will get you through the newborn stage up until about six months of age. After that, you can probably choose things that you want to try with your baby as they develop and hit those milestones.

As I’ve gone through the first year of my baby’s life, I have experienced what kind of things worked for us and what items I would definitely not go without should we choose to have another baby in the future.

13 Baby Shower Gifts I Couldn’t Live Without

Aside from the necessary clothes, diapers, and wipes, below is a list of 13 items that made life doable for us with our baby. The list contains suggestions based on my own experiences.

1. Bassinet

Every family chooses the sleeping method that is best for their family. For my little family, we decided not to bed share. However, we wanted our baby to be near us so we decided to room share. Having a bassinet was important to have in order to make this sleeping strategy work.

The bassinet we chose was lightweight and easy to move around our home if needed. It also came with a canopy that zipped up in the middle. This was very important to us because we had two cats. The canopy was sturdy and it had mesh covering that allowed us to still clearly see inside when the baby was sleeping. This also allowed the cats to see and smell the new little being that was inside.

2. Baby Swing

As joyous and sweet as it is to hold your little bundle, sometimes you need a break to just breathe a little or even run to the bathroom. Our baby swing was a lifesaver! It had a cozy little bucket seat and rocked side to side.

Oftentimes, it rocked our baby to sleep for us. On the other hand, our baby was also very nosy and wanted to see everything! The swing helped him to be propped up when we needed to set him down. We could also move the swing to another area so that he could see what was going on.

3. Car Seat

This one is extremely important as you need a car seat in order to leave the hospital with the baby. They are SO many choices in car seats and it can be overwhelming to choose from.

We decided on a Graco brand car seat for our registry that had a click-connect feature. This made it easy to click the car seat into the base that was installed in the car. This feature made getting baby in and out much smoother.

4. Stroller

My baby was born during a cold part of the year so outings were not exactly at the top of our list. However, when I needed to go to the store or take baby to his doctor appointments, having a stroller was nice to use.

We actually were fortunate enough to have been given two strollers that fit different needs. One stroller was a Snap N Go Stroller that was convenient for those quick grocery shopping trips. The other stroller, Graco Jogger Stroller, was a heavy-duty stroller that made going for walks effortless. We could click the car seat right on top of the stroller and off we went!

5. Baby Bathtub

Newborns don’t need to be bathed as often as you would think. When a bath was needed, it was nice to have a little tub to place our baby in to. I had heard from others that taking a bath with the baby was easier to do.

However, babies get incredibly slippery when wet and sudsy so that method was not for me. In the baby bathtub, we had more control over baby’s movements and were able to manipulate his body parts as needed when washing.

6. Rocking chair

When you think of a rocking chair and a baby, you imagine sweet moments of rocking and singing lullabies to a baby who is looking intently up at you and your heart just melts. While these moments do sometimes happen, that was not the primary purpose of our rocking chair.

We placed our rocking chair in the living room as this was where we spent most of our time during the day. I used our rocking chair mainly for breastfeeding, burping baby, and pumping. It was also used for me to quickly scarf food down my throat between those newborn cat naps.

If you decide to get a rocking chair, make sure you get one that provides a ton of cushion because you will be using it quite often!

7. Boppy Pillow

Because I chose to breastfeed our son, a boppy pillow was something I knew we would need to have on our registry. The boppy is a horseshoe-shaped pillow that allows you to put it around your body and gives you some extra support while holding the baby to feed. It also came in handy for my husband to use while bottle-feeding our son.

Plus, as your baby gets older, you can use the boppy to prop baby up as he/she learns to sit up on their own.

8. Little Remedies Saline

My son’s pediatrician recommended that we use newborn-safe saline for him when he was still a newborn. The saline helped break up the built up mucus in his nose that he couldn’t get rid of on his own.

A baby’s body goes through so many changes once they are born and not all of their little systems are working at full speed yet. His glands were a little plugged up after birth and the saline helped with drainage. (Make sure to get the okay from your child’s doctor before use.)

9. Baby Nasal Aspirator NoseFrida

I can’t say enough good things about the NoseFrida! I know it looks gross and the method in which it is used seems even more disgusting. But it has been such a crucial tool for use on my son throughout his entire first year of life. I would be doing others an injustice by not mentioning how wonderful it is to have on hand to clean out those little nostrils.

10. Cloth Diapers as burp cloths/rags

Cloth diapers were not for us, but we did get some as a gift at our baby shower and we were told to use them as burp cloths. It seemed a little funky at first, but it was so true!

Cloth diapers are made to be absorbent and that’s what you need when you have a baby spitting up constantly. They are also pretty good sized so that you can fold them up and use them over your shoulder when burping your baby. They are soft on baby’s skin when you have to wipe them up as well.

All around, they are versatile and great to have handy.

11. Bibs

I don’t know what it is, but when our son turned two months old it was like the floodgates opened up and he was drooling everywhere!

I later learned that around this age, a baby’s glands start to become functional and everything is on overdrive until their little body regulates itself. Bibs on bibs on bibs were necessary to get through this phase.

And then later when baby starts teething, bibs are needed for the extra drool there. Then when baby starts eating table food, you’ll want to have bibs on hand to prevent some of the mess.

I don’t think you can have too many bibs with the amount of drool, spit-up, and messiness that is coming in the near future!

12. Owlet Smart Sock Baby Monitor

Before we found out we were pregnant, I had learned about this device called the Owlet. It looks like a little sock that wraps around your baby’s foot. The device uses hospital technology to monitor the baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels. You can watch these levels via the app on your phone and monitor how your baby is doing while they are sleeping.

The device notifies you when baby’s levels drop below a certain threshold. The goal of the device is to decrease the risk of SIDS because you’re being alerted when your baby is in potential distress and you’re responding quickly to the alarm. (This device is not supposed to be used in lieu of safe sleep practices. Always use safe sleep practices with your baby.)

I cannot tell you how much more sleep I was able to get because of using this device. It gave me peace of mind to know that my baby was safe and if anything was wrong, I would be alerted to it. We were gifted the Owlet when my son was around six weeks old so I know the difference of life with and without the Owlet.

Trust me when I say that waking up every 20 minutes in a panic to check if your newborn is still breathing is not the way to live! Especially when you’re already not getting much sleep to begin with.

13. Diaper Genie

As I previously stated, my baby was born during the cold months so taking the trash out every time he had a dirty diaper was less than appealing. Thankfully, we were gifted with a diaper genie that made throwing away dirty diapers more ideal.

The diaper genie seals in the diaper, its contents, and the smell to make it so you forget about it until it’s time to change the pail. You can fit quite a bit of diapers in there before having to change out the pail making our trips to the outside garbage few and far between for diaper purposes.

Nursery Inspiration!

For the mamas who find themselves nesting waaayyyyy in advance like me, check out these adorable nursery art prints from GoodnightFox.com! Kylie’s shop has a wide range of nursery prints and these fit our nursery theme perfectly! They are adorable and affordable; what’s better than that?!

Oh, how about some ‘baby on board’ tags? Get all your baby goodies from Kylie!

Enjoy your baby shower!

On baby shower day, everything will be so special and so sweet as your family and friends gather to shower you with love and gifts that will help with your transition into parenthood. Baby shower gifts are worth getting excited about and there will be things you get that you’ll soon find out you can’t live without just like I did! I hope my list of baby shower gifts provides some inspiration as to what to register for or helps others decide what to get expecting parents.

Don’t forget to add THIS cute baby onesie to your list of must-haves!

Always,Samantha

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13 Baby Shower Gifts I Couldn't Live Without

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