The Baby Registry List I Wish I'd Had the First Time

I am extremely type A. I am a planner. And my biggest fault when I was pregnant with Jamie was genuinely believing that the next search, the next Reddit thread, the next blog roundup, the next TikTok was going to have the secret best thing to buy for baby. There was always one more review to read. One more "ultimate newborn must-haves" post to get through. One more comment section to fall into at midnight.

None of them had the secret. What they had was the same 40 items, every single one described as "a great option" or "a fan favorite." No opinions. Just vibes.

So I kept notes. Every appointment, every phase, every product that earned a permanent spot in our routine or got posted to Facebook Marketplace after six weeks. By the time Jamie turned one I had a full spreadsheet: every item we registered for, what category it falls into, and my honest take on whether it was worth it.

Now I'm pregnant with our second and rebuilding the list from scratch, and I realized the spreadsheet I made is exactly what I wanted when I was sitting on my couch at midnight clicking "add to registry" on Target.com with absolutely no idea what I was doing.

So I cleaned it up and I'm sharing it.

What's in it

The full list covers every category: baby gear, carriers, bath, feeding, sleep, diapering, and play. For each item I included what I actually thought. Not "this is a popular choice" but "we used this every single day for six months" or "this sat in a closet and I donated it" or "this is totally baby-dependent, don't buy in bulk until you know."

I also noted what I bought seconds of. We live in a two-story house and have two cars, so sometimes having two of something was genuinely worth it. Sometimes it was a complete waste of money. That's in there too.

A few things you'll find in there:

• The one item I think should be on every single registry in America, no caveats, no asterisks. You'll know it when you see it.

• The carrier I'd skip entirely the second time around and what I'd do instead.

• The bottles I started with, the ones I switched to, and exactly why. Which saves you from buying a million different bottle styles while your newborn screams at 3am.

Why it's worth your email address

It's a spreadsheet, not a blog post. You can sort it, filter it, share it with your partner, bring it to the baby shower. It's the resource I would have paid for when I was pregnant with Jamie and couldn't find anything that felt like an actual honest opinion from an actual real person.