Registry & Planning

Minimalist Baby Registry: What You Actually Need (and What You Can Skip) Baby registries have a way of spiraling. You start with a car seat and a crib, and three hours later you’re adding a wipe warmer, a bottle sterilizer, and something called a “diaper stacker” to your list. The parenting product industry is enormous….

The baby product industry would love you to believe that your child needs a top-of-the-line smart bassinet, a premium stroller, and a wearable monitor before they even arrive. Some of those products are genuinely useful. Most of them are not required. The gap between “what a baby needs” and “what companies want to sell you”…

The average baby registry has over 100 items on it. Your newborn needs maybe 25. The baby product industry is very good at making you feel like you need a special version of everything, but the reality is that babies in the first three months need surprisingly little: a safe place to sleep, a way…

Packing a hospital bag sounds simple until you’re staring at a suitcase at 36 weeks, wondering if you really need that aromatherapy diffuser your cousin swore by. We pulled together recommendations from hospital systems, midwives, and parent communities to build a checklist that separates what you actually need from what just takes up trunk space….