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A long-delayed baby post
Published Saturday July 9, 2005 · Permalink
A colleague of mine, who is having a baby pretty soon, was asking me about my experience with baby products during this last year or so.
Good products:
- Nappies (diapers for the US visitors): Huggies (by Kimberley Clark). Yes, disposables to keep what is left of my mental health. If you are into cotton nappies get a cleaning service. There is very little time available and I prefer sleeping over washing nappies.
- Baby wipes: stick to huggies again. I prefer the unscented ones, but some days I wish for any perfume to overcome the smell.
- Bottles: we tried three different brands: Pigeon, Pur, and Nuk. By far, the best ones were Pigeon with peristaltic nipple. Prefer wide neck over narrow neck, because they are easier to clean. Pur bottles (either normal or self-sterilising) tend to leak and nuk bottles have the weirdest looking teats of them all. When have you seen a real nipple like this?
- QV bath oil: really good in the bath, no smell.
- Infrared forehead thermometre: at first we tried one of those ear thermometres but they are hard to use with a baby moving.
Most useless things:
- Bath thermometre: one does not need this piece of useless crap. Even worse, the maximum temperature allowed in the thermometre was still too cold bor a decent bath (probably a lame attempt at avoiding lawsuits).
- The motion sensor that comes with the baby monitor. If used it will drive parents mad, because will go off at the most useless moments. In addition, it is not certified for monitoring babies susceptible to cot death. Just a gimmick for worried parents. Do yourself a favour and buy a simple monitor.
- Sterilizer: if you live in a civilised part of the planet, hot soapy water will do the job and save you time; good thing that we did not buy one. Only used it while in hospital.
- Baby packs: are used to carry clothing, bottles, nappies, etc. Packs designed for parents are often overpriced, low quality and not very functional. Buy a nice, properly designed backpack: it will save you money and you will get something useful. You will not have a Disney character printed on the pack, but baby will not care.
Worst products:
- Nappies: Snugglers (odd, by Kimberley Clark too)
Ambiguous
- Changing table: I rarely used it, prefering a bed with a cover for accidents, which happen!
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