Babies Come With Stuff: 3-6 month Baby Gear Update

(Words by Meg, images by Kate)

Now that we've passed the 6 month mark (7 months tomorrow!), we have plenty of things to say about baby gear for the 3-6 month span of time. Our usual disclaimer applies- this is just our opinion and what worked for our 3-6 month old. Of course we expect everyone has different experiences.

1. The City Mini stroller. I did a lot of research about city living baby gear and the City Mini comes highly recommended. We don't have a garage or outside space where we can store a stroller and there's a full flight of stairs up into our apartment, so the number one concern was ease of folding up and carrying the stroller. The City Mini is as simple as it gets, I think. It has a pull strap that collapses the whole thing in one movement and compared to other strollers, it's lightweight. The wheels handle crappy sidewalks pretty well and the canopy comes waaaaaaaay out so it covers our super-white child's legs, which is important. I'm sure we'll get a lot of use out of this for years to come.

2. High chairs.  Yes, multiple. This might sound crazy and definitely does sound a little lazy, but it's really amazing to have a high chair in the kitchen and another in the dining room. We'll likely find this less important when Ella can crawl, stand and walk on her own, but for now we need a secure place to put her down in every room. In the kitchen we have a Keekaroo that Kate scored for an incredible bargain at a children's consignment shop. It's treated us well so far, though Ella is still on the small side for it and requires a little bolstering. We don't usually feed her in the Keekaroo, she just hangs out while we cook dinner, empty the dishwasher, etc. Then we have a transportable clip-on high chair on our dining room table that's really great because it automatically puts Ella at table height and makes her part of our eating experience. We do most of our actual feeding there.

Clip-on High Chair

Keekaroo

3. Busy Zoo Activity Center. A good sized wooden box with activities on all sizes including the top. This was another bargain find for us. They retails for upwards of $100 and we got a like-new one on Craiglist for $15. SCORE! Ella can play with it laying on her tummy, sitting in front of it, or standing with assistance. So far it's the toy that keeps her most occupied, and I suspect she'll like this one for years which is not something I can say about most of her toys.

4. Jumparoo and Exersaucer. These might also go out of style the minute Ella figures out how to crawl, but from the time she was about 5 months old, she's really enjoyed being upright in her Jumparoo or Exersaucer. They also serve as safe places to put her when we need to do something else for a few seconds. She loves to bounce, bounce, bounce.

5. Diaper Genie. I guess this was useful from the start, but let me just say..solid food changes things. Stinky things. The Diaper Genie contains the stink and makes diaper clean up much easier. Need I say more?

Without a Diaper Genie

Meg said no to me having this

We still haven't mastered the baby-wearing devices and we still rarely use the Aden & Anais blankets. People love both, but they didn't do much for us.


Stay tuned for our next blog post: When do I get my sense of self back?