Things We Can Live Without

Well, I never got around to doing the "things we can't live without" post when Hadley was first born like the rest of you did. But now that she is almost 10 months old, I decided there were a lot of things we could live without. Here are the things we did not need over the last 10 months:

1. An expensive layette set to take the baby home: I spent like $50 (kind of embarrassed about the amount, but I was nesting, so I had an excuse) when I was pregnant on what I thought was the cutest little nightgown, cap, sock and mitten outfit for Hadley to wear home from the hospital. I bought it online in "newborn" size. Well, let me tell you, it just now fits her at 9 1/2 months. It was HUGE when I got it in the mail. I couldn't even roll up the sleeves or anything, it just swallowed her. And now that she is 9 1/2 months and very active, nightgowns are not really appropriate.

2. Any brand of socks other than Nursery Rhyme brand, which can be found at Belk. These are the only socks I have been able to find that stay on Hadley's feet. All the other ones just fall right off.

3. Onesies that don't come with matching pants. I think this is just a pet peeve of mine, maybe because Hadley was born in the middle of winter, but the baby sections all have these cute little onesies. But then they either don't have matching pants to go with them, or the pants that are supposed to go with them have a weird pattern that does not match the onesies. I finally found Hadley some jeans and some solid colored pants. Don't other babies wear pants?

4. Different levels of nipples for bottles. We are still pretty much using level 2 nipples. We bought some higher ones when Hadley had an ear infection to see if they would help make it less painful for her to drink her bottle, but they did not help at all, and I generally just think they are another gimmick to make us spend more money. Breastfed babies don't get different nipples, and they do just fine with cups when the time comes, so I don't think bottle fed babies need them either.

5. Inclined sleep positioners. Some people do not use sleep positioners at all, but I really liked using them. When the reflux issue started, the doctor told us she needed to be on an incline, so we looked and found several different inclined sleep positioners. None of them worked. Because of the incline, Hadley would slide down the positioner. We ended up just putting towels under the mattress to incline the mattress, used a flat sleep positioner, and took one of the positioner pillows from the several extra sleep positioners we had and put it under legs right below her butt so she wouldn't slide down. Thank goodness she has grown out of all of that now!

6. The Medela breast pump. I hated that thing. Definitely designed by a man! The Playtex was much gentler, and I think more effective too. Thanks for the tip, Emily!