Minimalist Baby Essentials: What you actually need (warning: long!)

From the beginning of my pregnancy, I went a little crazy doing research for what we would actually NEED vs. what was just a fun extra. Since we live in a very small one-bedroom apartment, I knew that minimalist was the name of the game.

In case you're like me and have to read every dang thing ever written about a subject before making a decision, I wanted to share some of the excellent resources I found for creating a "bare minimum" list of baby essentials. Obviously I'm not speaking from experience here, since my baby isn't even born yet! But these are the websites I found most helpful in researching what I could (and couldn't) live without.

(By the way, it's embarrassing how long it took me to put text on that picture. Anyone want to teach this Luddite some basic graphic design??)

I started with this great post from Katrina called Five Favorite Baby Essentials. She says that all you really need is something for baby to eat, a place for baby to sleep, a carrier and something that makes white noise. Ok! We can do that!

Next I loved this positive post from The Minimalist Mom called A minimalist guide to baby essentials. She added clothing, burp cloths and a high-backed chair to Katrina's list, but mostly it was the same.

This Minimalist list of newborn essentials cracked me up because of this great observation:

You don’t need everything before your baby is born.

I know, right?! Who would have guessed? See, your baby won’t be able to roll over for at least three months, and probably won’t be crawling for at least seven. She won’t be able to grasp toys or sit up or really do much of anything for months. Which means you actually have tons of time to get stuff like rattles, play pens, baby gates and high chairs. (You might even find you don’t need them at all.)
This also means she won’t be getting dirty for months, either. You hardly need any clothes for the first few months. (After the solids start, though, look out: the laundry will start a-pilin’.)
The other thing is this: barring a natural disaster or zombie apocalypse, stores will still be selling baby things after your munchkin’s arrival. No kidding! So if you all of a sudden realize you need a soother or a hairbrush or baby nail clippers, you can buy them then. After the baby is born.

Somehow that incredibly obvious observation never occurred to me! I love it though. Now Frank and I quote it to each other all the time: "The store's not going to sell out of strollers. They're not going to stop making diapers. We can always buy this stuff after the baby is here." Such a freeing thought! That list added nursing bras and pads, receiving blankets, a bathtub and a car seat.

I enjoyed this list of 5 Baby Gear Essentials for Living With Baby in a Small One Bedroom Apartment—right up my alley. We ended up taking her suggestion for the portable, "grows with your baby" crib (more on that in a later post). The comments are great too.

Now for my favorite posts in this whole list—a 7-part series on Baby essentials that aren't. This series was fascinating! I especially loved the posts on why you don't need a crib, don't need an infant car seat carrier, and why you don't need a stroller. Even though we ultimately ended up getting all three of those things (all were gifts), I found that series to be eye-opening and incredibly helpful.

I also stumbled upon two discussion threads that were very helpful in that early stage of gathering information. Mothering.com has a great forum called Bringing Baby Home to a One Bedroom Apartment, and DCUrbanMom.com had a similar thread called Tips for Raising Baby in One-Bedroom Apartment.

I also enjoyed Grace's posts on favorite baby gear, 10 practical baby gifts and 10 more practical baby gifts, but since I knew we didn't have space for some of that stuff (like a high chair or exersaucer), I picked and chose from her lists rather than taking them as definitive. I love that she has tequila on the last one. That woman is my hero.

All this research led me to decide that we would try to co-sleep and breastfeed (only for the sake of cost and convenience—if they don't work out for us, I'll chalk it up to adaptive response and be fine with it.) So I also did a heap of research on those.

I read (and loved) Prof. McKenna's book Sleeping with your Baby; his guidelines for co-sleeping are summarized here. As for breastfeeding, I read the La Leche League book (and I plan to pack it in my hospital bag for post-birth reference) and I bookmarked this article on ecological breastfeeding.

Ok, so after all that, here is the list I came up with for what we actually NEED:

Necessary:

Clothing (onesies/sleepers, hats, socks, etc.)

Swaddling/receiving blankets

Burp cloths

Somewhere to store clothes/blankets/diapers (currently the bottom drawer of my dresser)

Somewhere for Baby to sleep (options include snuggle nest, bassinet, small crib, co-sleeper or floor bed)

Baby carrier (options include ErgoBaby, Baby Bjorn, K'tan, Moby, ring slings, etc.)

Fold-up, portable changing pad for travel and general use

Cloth diapers: 24–30 all-in-one diapers (along with diaper sprayer, diaper pail and/or wet bags, and doubler inserts) plus disposable newborn diapers for the first week or two

Wipes (cloth or disposable)

Car seat (infant or convertible)

Nursing bras

Nursing pads

Something that makes white noise (options include a white noise machine, the radio, white noise websites, etc.)

Infant bathtub and/or bath sponge

Bath supplies (body wash, lotion, nail clippers, baby hairbrush, nasal aspirator, etc.)

Breast pump?

Cheap bottles?


Nice to have but not necessary:

Stroller (at least for the first few months—eventually you need one, right?)

Nursing cover

Nursing pillow (Boppy or My Brest Friend or Kushies)

Bath towels or bath wraps

Mobile with realistic images

Pacifiers or Montessori teething ball or Sophie the giraffe

Diaper bag (we plan to use a basic backpack)

Humidifier

Swing


Whew! That's a lot of information! Hope you guys don't mind me rambling on and on. This is basically a giant brain-dump of everything I've been doing research on for the last four or five months. Experienced moms, what do you think? Is there anything I'm missing on this list, or anything that actually is not essential?

The funny thing is, what we actually ended up with is quite different from this list. I'll be doing a post next week about what we actually have ready for Baby. Let's just say we're not quite as minimalist as I thought we would be!