The Best Items for Newborn Babies
What are the best items for newborns? Maybe you’re low on storage space, so you want to keep items minimal. Perhaps you want to invest your money in the most important items. Either way, I’ve taken the time to compile them for you so you don’t have to search high and low to find them all over the internet. I love doing research, and if you’re like me, you want your items to do heavy duty for you— you don’t need three things that do the same thing, and you try to avoid having too many single-purpose items. Some items are worth investing in, and some are easier to save money on. Of course, the ultimate choice is yours, but here I will provide you with the results of my research, what we got for our newborn, and what we thought of it.
Newborns are mostly entertained by people, and they spend a lot of their time sleeping and cuddling. That’s great news for those about to welcome a newborn into their home and for those looking to buy gifts for parents of newborns because you really don’t need a lot of stuff in terms of keeping baby happy.
My goal here isn’t to give you a huge list of every single item you could ever want for a newborn baby. I already put together a post about how to build a baby registry, and that post is more detailed about a wider range of products. This time, I’m taking a more minimal approach— if I was asked what my absolute must-haves are for newborns, this would be it. No frills or fancy things, just the basics.
Ultimately, your baby has a few basic needs: a safe place to sleep (like a bassinet or crib), diapers and clothes to wear, food to eat (breast milk or formula, and any tools you need to facilitate feeding), and snuggles and cuddles to soothe them and connect with them. If you have those things covered, you’ve got all you need at the beginning! Our baby, for example, didn’t interact with toys or books for a couple of months, and many of the other gifts we got for her (high chair, booster chair, activity center) are still in the boxes in her closet since she’ll have to grow into them.
One thing to note: I’m not including furniture here because 1) they are basic pieces I’m confident you can find, 2) size matters so much depending on your space, and 3) you might already have items that work just fine for a newborn.
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Clothing
zippered footie pajamas, preferably with two-way zippers because they make diaper changes easier
swaddles (vs. swaddle blankets because they’re harder to use in our opinion) — the Halo ones from the hospital and my clinic were our favorites, and we’re now using this cotton one since it’s getting warmer
bedding
bassinet sheets & mattress pad set — I liked that this was a combo set of sheets and mattress pad (though I did buy another separate mattress pad so I could layer bedding— see the bedding hack below)
*bedding hack: layer your little one’s bedding (mattress pad, sheet, mattress pad, sheet) so there’s always clean bedding on the mattress when you take off the dirty ones. This saves you from stressing about middle-of-the-night leaks and scrambling to find the clean sheets.
toys
ball — we like this one because it was the first toy she could easily get her fingers around.
spinners — these are so fun!
lovey — anything baby can cuddle with (not during sleep) that’s soft and cozy
Wubbanubs — whether detachable from the pacifier or not, these are so fun! And they’re easier to find around the house, in the car seat, or in the diaper bag than regular pacifiers.
feeding
silicone bottles like Comotomo and/or Tommee Tippee — we chose silicone because we want to limit exposure to chemicals in plastic, and we’re concerned about glass bottles breaking, but do what works best for your family!
bottle warmer— I didn’t think this was essential, and maybe it’s not in the traditional sense, but it has really lowered my evening stress level. We give our daughter one bottle of expressed breast milk each evening to allow someone else to feed her and make sure she’s getting a full stomach before bed, and it was taking FOREVER to warm bottles in warm water. I thought we could just power through it and skip a bottle warmer since it’s one more “thing” to have around, but it’s worth it in my opinion. If you’re giving a baby more bottles, I imagine it would be even more worthwhile!
nursing pillow and extra cover— I am partial to my Boppy pillow, love having an extra cover to throw in the wash, and like the versatility of it. Initially, it was just a nursing support, but now it doubles as a pillow to prop up my daughter on the floor for play time (please pay attention to the tags on the pillows that indicate appropriate ages for various uses).
lots of burp cloths— get more than you think you’d need unless you plan to do lots of laundry. We go through ours so fast because of all the spit up (especially during burps and tummy time).
diapering
cloth diapers (we have just started using Esembly and Simple Being)
Honest disposable diapers
wipes (Honest are our favorite, but Water Wipes, Hello Bello, and Target brand have also worked)
Miscellaneous
blankets (so many uses!)— stroller sun shade, play mat, warmth in the car seat, cuddle at the doctor’s office
baskets to corral all the things (small ones for toys on bookshelves, medium ones for toy bins in various rooms, big ones for large toys or blankets…)
Things we decided we didn’t need:
tons of “real” clothes (i.e. not pajamas) in newborn and 0-3 month sizes. We mostly kept our January baby in pajamas around the clock for the first few months of her life because it was simply easier than piecing together outfits and changing multiple items if she spit up, drooled, peed, or pooped on her clothes.
a mobile for over the crib. It adds clutter, and I want our baby to sleep in her bed, not play in it. I was concerned she would keep herself awake staring at toys if she could see them.
a wipe warmer. Unless we had chosen to get enough to set up several wipe stations (and I’m not sure how to even do that outside of our house, anyway), I didn’t think it was worth it. I didn’t want to have warm wipes just in the nursery since I thought it would make it harder to change her anywhere else if she got used to having warm wipes.
a separate changing table or changing pad with cloth covers. I wanted to make diaper changing as smooth as possible, so we opted for a wipe-clean changing pad that can sit on top of a regular dresser. That way, I don’t have to change liners (adding to the laundry pile) or figure out what to do with a changing table when our baby outgrows it.
For a complete list of what items I put on my baby registry, check out this post.
Again, all purchasing choices are personal, but I hope this list helps you decide what might be worth it for you!
