If you read my last post, five must-have newborn items, then you know baby shopping isn’t cheap, but you can minimize costs by monitoring the prices of the things you want to buy over some time and getting only the things you need.
I often find people having a challenging time picking baby shower gifts or even creating a baby registry of their own. There are so many products in the market today, and selecting the best product and the most useful one has become overwhelming.
In this article, I will continue discussing the top 5 newborn essentials that you should be purchasing before the baby arrives.
I will also introduce you to the tools that I use to monitor the prices of things to get the best deals.
Plan out your baby shopping early! Before baby shopping, you want to install these two amazing plugins to your Google Chrome Web Browser. These plugins have saved me a considerable amount of money over time. They are called WikiBuy & Honey.
Please visit these websites to create an account first, then you can add the plugins for them through the Google Chrome Web Store. If you are not already using Google Chrome for your web browsing needs then you are missing out! Grab the latest version of Google Chrome here prior to installing the plugins.
WikiBuy – as shown below, will allow you to compare prices between numerous online stores to get you the best price. You can add items to the WikiBuy watchlist to notify you of price drops.
As you can see in the example below, I’ve already got the best price for this item compared to other online stores.
Honey – is similar to WikiBuy in that it will let you compare price trends over some time. It is undoubtedly useful if you are planning to buy something, but you have some time to watch for price drops. As you can see in the example below, while shopping online, you could add your items to a watchlist to monitor price drops.
Not only these plugins will let you monitor price changes over time, but they also give you monetary credits in your Honey or WikiBuy accounts. You can use the credits toward future purchases through WikiBuy or Honey, or you can redeem them as gift cards.
Both WikiBuy and Honey will also apply coupons automatically during checkout while shopping at popular online retailers.
Top 5 Newborn Essentials
Without further ado, here are the top 5 newborn essentials.
1. Convertible Crib
As discussed in our previous article, we started our baby Sidharth in a baby Bassinet for the first two months and then moved him into a convertible crib. Convertible cribs are fantastic because you can convert it from a baby crib to a toddler bed or a full-size bed as your baby grows. There are many choices for convertible cribs in the market, and choosing the right one is often confusing. We went with the best-rated crib currently out there while keeping a budget in mind. We added this to our baby registry, and thanks to some beautiful co-workers, it was ours.
2. Pampers Sensitive Wipes
Wipes are something that you can’t live without when you have a baby! You will continuously be relying on them during every diaper change. Initially, we wanted to do cloth wipes for our baby, and we bought the Munchkin wipes warmer just for that purpose, but then we saw how easy it was to use sensitive wipes by pampers.
We gave up on the cloth wipes idea and switched entirely over to pampers sensitive wipes. You open these up and put it inside the wipes warmer, leave it plugged in, and you get warm wipes every time at your disposal. These are affordable wipes costing you very little, we usually stock up and buy 2 of these at once. We found that our baby was less fussy with the sensitive wipes compared to the other variations.
3. Diaper Sprayer
The Brondell PureSpa Bidet diaper sprayer is an excellent tool to have in your baby stash if you are cloth diapering. It avoids the mess and fusses out of cleaning your poop soiled cloth diapers. We would have been manually cleaning the poop diapers by hand if it wasn’t for this sprayer. Initially, I thought the assembly would be hard, but it was a piece of cake, follow the simple instructions that come with it.
All of the required accessories for assembly come included with it. It consists of a 3/4″ fitting for the bottom of the toilet tank. The water pressure is adequate to clean your diapers quickly, and you can throw it in the diaper pale for the next wash day. To maximize the longevity of the sprayer, I found it is best to shut off the water valve after every use. We are delighted with this product, and we are sure that you would be too.
4. Fold-able Baby Organizers
Are you looking for affordable and convenient organizers for all your baby stuff? Get these six set folding baskets for all your baby storage needs. These baskets fit snugly under our changing table and came in handy during diaper changes, grooming needs, and while getting our baby dressed.
These baskets can hold the right amount of cloth diapers, and we were able to put over 15 diapers in just one basket. You can also stick labels on these baskets to separate your baby’s caps, socks, mittens, bibs, blankets, etc. These are perfect storage containers to keep things organized in your baby nursery.
5. Baby Detergent
We use the Country Save HE laundry detergent with all our baby clothes and cloth diapers. This 10-pound box will last you for quite a long time, and one scoop of this detergent is enough for a load of cloth diapers.
All of our baby clothes came out very clean every time, and we find it better than liquid detergents. We feel safe using this detergent to wash our baby’s clothes as it is biodegradable and phosphate-free. These won’t ruin your cloth diapers by messing with its elasticity.
If you don’t already know, you should never use fabric softeners with your cloth diapers as it will ruin them. This detergent is a handy gift for someone who is expecting a baby.
Now that you’ve got a list of baby product ideas consider adding them to a baby registry! By doing so, you can also monitor price drops from time to time.
I hope you enjoyed reading our list of baby registry essentials. You can follow us along on our journey through our facebook page @ Drifters Thrift.
You can also join our thrifty lifestyle group on FaceBook @ Time in the Market
