In the age of adversarial online commerce, shopping feels more like navigating an arcane labyrinth of bureaucracy than, well, "shopping" (in the retail-therapy sense). Add caring for a new human to your attentional demands and the time required to find the right anything online simply does not naturally exist. Fortunately, and despite what the baby shower industrial complex may tell you, babies do not need much. There are some things, however, that we found to be essential for a new parent and/or truly useful/fun for your kid to have, and this document collects them all—the result of painstaking searching that added years to our biological age within a period of months. We fought in this war so you don't have to, and perhaps, one day, we'll hear someone say "Thank you for your service."
This is a one-off post—we have no plans to pivot to mommyblogging. But not since moving into our first apartments twenty-some years ago were we faced with such a totalizing new consumer category, and the experience has been nauseating. In part this is because of the structure of commerce now: distributed, digital, low-trust; and in part because the mainstream object-world of babies can be such a turn off: all of the pink and blue driven by the fear of strangers misgendering your 2 week old, and the default alternative of 'sad baby' beige; all the Disney motifs, cooing baby animals, and saccharine slogans; all of the over-performance of care and coziness and safety; all of this unnecessary stuff! It's an old trope that we build our identity through consumption but scrolling new parent product advice posts felt distinctly traitorous to our (or at least my, Carly's) pre-parent self/ves. Is it too far-fetched to imagine that an aversion to the mainstream new-parent object world is even a factor (however minor) in the declining birthrate among younger generations in cosmopolitan regions? And because that demographic has been entering the baby products market at a declining rate, they are ever-less factored into manufacturer's notion of the target consumer?
In any case, we were having a baby so had no choice but to enter the realm of baby things. In the NM Discord, there's a channel called #raising-gen-alpha where we floated the idea of making a collective product list. The resulting document would, in the short-term, serve new parents. And then as the product selection ages, it would also serve as a snapshot of this particular era of retail and the object world of NM parenthood circa 2024.
Note: Every family will have their own preferences but these are the products that worked well for us as new parents with a small apartment and an aversion to disposability and clutter. Feel free to share this with anyone you think might find it useful. Not that it matters, but there are no affiliate links.
Note: Products are linked to manufacturer pages with full prices listed. Most things, however, we were able to find second hand via Germany's Kleinanzeigen and Vinted.
Stokke Sleepi Bed ($669 w/o mattress / €300 used, incl. mattress)
Stokke's beds and highchairs have the kind of construction you might associate with mid-20th-century elementary schools—no frills, solid hardwood, steel bolts, impervious to daily wear, lasts forever. Stokke's Sleepi bed model has two mattress heights, adaptable length, can be mounted on casters, and transforms into a toddler floor bed by removing some of the rails. If buying second hand, note that the entire crib can be easily dis/reassembled to fit in the trunk of a car/cab.
MoonBoon Moon Pillow (€60)
Nursing pillows are ugly and cumbersome but nursing/feeding/holding baby for an extended period without some kind of arm support is hell on your neck and back. This pillow alleviates the strain while remaining useful whether as a prop for tummy time or for exhausted parents reading in bed. It's filled with natural fibers and has a removable/washable cotton cover that feels really nice on the skin.
Boba Wrap (€40)
A giant piece of cloth that you tie in a way humans probably figured out 20,000 years ago. It allows your baby to sleep while you cook/clean/eat/walk. There are other brands that are also good. We were gifted this one and used it constantly—truly an external womb for the so-called 4th trimester—before switching to the Ergobaby carrier around 4 or 5 months.
Ergobaby Omnibreeze Carrier (€200 / used €120)
Number one most important item for being mobile with your baby. This model is durable, breathable, and allows your child to either face in toward you or out toward the world. It's also a magic tool for getting your kid to sleep. Ours is tactical black—aggressive—very 'wearing the baby to Berghain.'
Baby Bjorn Bouncer (€150-200 / used €75)
Because sometimes you need to eat/cook/shower without a child attached to your chest. Use as a secure seat for first year, then as a bouncy toddler chair when your kid outgrows the baby harness.
Sitting Point Brava Sitzsack (beanbag chair) XL 220 (€48)
Block out your co-working space associations and never mind that this chair gets its structure from tens of thousands of non-eco plastic beads—(are you really going to shell out €400 for Kapok husk filling and an organic cotton cover? If so, here you go. Or for purportedly more eco-friendly beads, check here)—but every home with a kid under 5, especially one without room for a proper couch (like ours) needs a soft place to climb/read/chill and this beanbag is great. Furthermore, it's a 2-for-1 purchase as it comes (fully filled) inside a "house" (below right).
Leander Changing Mat (€129 / used €60)
We first encountered this changing mat at our daughter's pediatrician. It's durable, well-constructed, and easy to clean (just wipe it down) but it's also remarkably soft and, unlike regular plastic, warm on bare skin. Somewhere around 9 months, your baby will outgrow the changing table and this mat can transition with you from table to floor.
WeToo Diaper Pail (€60)
Some reviewers complained that because this bin held only 25 dirty diapers, they had to empty it every day. If you like living beside a tower of human waste, or find it difficult to do small, daily chores, do not get this bin and seek professional help because a trial of a thousand tasks awaits. However, if you want something that effectively contains odors, is easy to empty, unobtrusive, and works with any trash bag, it's a strong contender. Tip: To maximize ergonomic flow, elevate bin on an Ikea stool or similar, placing a piece of self-adhesive silicone between bin and stool (for friction when removing lid.)
Tommee Tippee Electric Nail Buffer (€20)
"Like doing surgery on a grape," new mom Dena Yago quipped while lamenting the struggle to file her baby's nails. This task does not get easier as your baby becomes more mobile; in fact it becomes essentially impossible. And left unattended those little nails will become micro-daggers, an unwitting self-defense mechanism capable of drawing blood. I apologize for previously making fun of this device. I'm not sure if one needs to spend €20 on it. There are many cheaper clones on Amazon. However this is the brand and model our local DM drugstore stocks so this is the one we bought. It runs on AA batteries. No complaints, only a feeling of relief.
Stokke Tripp Trapp Highchair (€299 / used €75)
If you have a kid in Germany, you are legally obligated to teach your child to eat in this highchair. Ok, that's not true, but it might as well be as there are, at the time of writing, 1,902 for sale on Kleinanzeigen, with some pre-dating the Kingdom of Prussia (also not true, but might as well be). These are really good highchairs: they grow with your child from the time they can sit up on their own to (technically) adulthood, and are so basic and durable they could be used by your kids' kids and their kids' kids. But also, the simple construction means the chair doesn't trap errant oatmeal/peas/yogurt/avocado and so is easy to clean.
Yoto Mini Player speaker (€70)
It's a rechargeable mini-speaker with an 16x16 pixel screen and two dials (volume and track number) that even a 1 year old can easily manipulate. The Yoto card system lets you purchase branded, kids content, but unlike its competitors, Yoto is hacker friendly. The build and speaker quality absolutely merits the price, and it comes with a "Make Your Own" Yoto card. You can add any mp3 / m4a's you have—Aaliyah albums (Coco's favorite singer), mobilegirl mixes (Coco's favorite DJ), NM podcasts (jk, jk), and even make your own icons—and then your kid can select the track and set the volume themselves. Technically, you're adding these mp3s to a Yoto server, and then the player downloads them into internal memory via wifi. But once the device grabs the data, it functions without internet. You can even hack cheap AliExpress NFC cards to be read by the Yoto if you really want to. But its also possible to use speaker without any card, accessing Yoto's in-house daily kids podcast and radio station (which, tbh, is pretty cute) instead.
Cybex Beezy Stoller (€300 new model / < €200 for older models)
A stroller is one thing you probably do want to get new because, from rainy days to sandy playgrounds to air travel to roadtrips, they take a major beating. This is also because you probably want a stroller that's lightweight enough to easily carry up and down stairs, and designed to efficiently fold (perhaps even with one hand) when entering a restaurant or for storage during travel, etc. Currently, the main players in the stroller market are Cybex, Stokke's Yoyo line, and Buggaboo. We went to a big-box baby store where we could test-drive available options over simulated pavement and cobblestone surfaces. You, too, should test-drive before you buy. There are so many variations that it's (duh) more efficient to physically interact with the products than to try to make this decision by doing product-comparisons online. We choose the Cybex Beezy because it handled well, features one-hand folding (do not underestimate the value of this function), and had a reasonable price point. It was also black, had zero frills, and was compatible with the Cybex carseat we'd just gotten new via Kleinanzeigen. Verdict 15 months in? Great choice, at least for us.
APPS, WEBSITES, NEWSLETTERS: Three resources that I (Carly) found helpful during the first year:
• Emily Oster's ParentData
Author of Expecting Better, Emily Oster is a data scientist. ParentData started as a Substack for soon to be and new parents where common concerns and new research is put into perspective. When pregnant and as a new parent, you obviously want to make decisions that are optimal for your baby. At the same time, you don't want to start living the nightmare of Todd Haynes's Safe. Oster gives data- and common-sense-based guidance on all issues from diet (incl. supplements, coffee, and alcohol consumption) to nursing & weaning to sleep schedules to screentime. In short, ParentData is an antidote to the paranoia-machine that is the IG explore page.
• Philip's Baby+ app
I never managed to keep an analog baby journal. This app, however, helped me mark our daughter's developmental milestones, along with personal thoughts, photos, and height/weight records. Since I could access this platform via my phone, I could easily engage with it while nursing. It also gives you well written daily articles relevant to your baby's developmental stage, and summaries of what to look out for next. In my first year as a mom, this app was an indispensable guide.
• Solid Starts app & site
There are aspects of Solid Starts that feel comically bourgeois—a kids' food database that includes arctic char, quail eggs, and camembert—but their baby-led weaning philosophy is a refreshing (albeit now mega-trending) departure from the idea that babies can only manage store-bought purees. Solid Starts encourages including your child in the family meal from their first solid bite, finding ways of serving 'adult' food in baby-compatible ways. The Solid Starts claim is that introducing a child to a range of textures and flavors early on will make them less picky eaters as toddlers. Moreover, letting them literally play with food of different textures and flavors is cognitively beneficial—or, from a babies perspective, is just fun (look at these new, interesting substances that i am actually allowed to put in my mouth!). Solid Starts is nice because it very clearly illustrates developmentally appropriate ways to serve babies a large range of different food (including warnings on what not to serve: camembert must wait until > 12 months). I find their resources helpful, have taken from them what intuitively feels right, and at 15 months, Coco is star dinner guest in training.
