Most Used Items | 0-12 Month

As first time parents we were easily convinced that we needed so many different things for our little bundle. Despite doing my research there were things that worked and things that didn't. It's largely to do with trial and error. Some babies will take to certain things and not others but these are the things that we found most useful in our first 12 months with Iris.

East Coast Rocker 

A bouncer chair of some sort is always going to be a good buy. You will need a safe place to put your baby. Moses baskets have their place but when baby is wanting to look around and interact then a bouncer is a better option. We chose the East Coast Rocker as it adapts from crib style to  chair style. It can be laid completely flat for newborns then angled to a chair for older babies. It rocks, comes with vibration and sounds but most importantly for us it has raised sides meaning the dog could be near to the baby without having too much access for licking! 

Mutsy Evo

A pram is a must have and one that can be adapted to accommodate a car seat is a huge bonus. We chose the Mutsy Evo as our pram of choice and would choose it over and over again. It is sturdy and hard wearing whilst being comfortable for baby and easy to push. There's a full review of the Musty Evo here

Changing Mat

These don't have to be expensive. We bought ours for £5.99 from Precious Little One. We bought one for upstairs and one for downstairs. These have been used so much. Despite the myriad of fancy items available you can't go wrong with a bog standard changing mat.

Mam Bottles 

The original plan was to breastfeed but biology had other plans. We'd bought bottles for pumping and just in case breastfeeding didn't go to plan. We started off with Chicco bottles but found the teats started blocking and collapsing. Also Iris had been diagnosed with reflux and was struggling with trapped wind. We had a few mam sample bottles from The Baby Show and started to use these. We were so impressed that we stockpiled a load more. We'll definitely be using these for future babies.

Perfect Prep

We found our Perfect Prep machine reduced to just £22.50! We bought it even though we planned to breastfeed thinking we could easily sell it on and get our money back. As it turns out this machine saved our sanity. When you're a sleep deprived new parent pushing a button is much easier and safer than messing about with boiling water. The ability to make a fresh, instantly drinkable bottle in a few minutes is a revolution not to be ignored.

Mam Dummies

'Our child will absolutely not have a dummy'- oh how we laugh about this now! Iris has had a dummy since day 3. She needed it for comfort and i'm okay with that. There is no shame in making life easier. We love the Mam dummies for their orthodontic accreditation but also for the glow in the dark effect. At first we thought this was a laughable gimmick but having spent the last year losing dummies under the cot the glow in the dark function has turned out to be a lifesaver.

Muslins

Muslins are a new parents best friend but we found that muslins can vary massively in price and softness. For us the best ones were actually the cheapest, we loved Aldi's and had loads of them and we picked up some super cute Disney ones from Primark.

Weaning Essentials

Weaning has been a massive part of the latter half of our 0-12 months journey, you can read more about the items that made our weaning journey easier in my Most Used | Weaning Essentials post.

So there you have it, our 0-12 month essentials, a mix of big ticket items and budget friendly must haves, all of which have proved their worth over the last year! 

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