Babies require a lot of stuff. There are the cribs and strollers and car seats, breastpumps and bottles and bibs, cloth diapers and wipes and diaper pails, plus mountains and mountains of miniatures clothing, receiving blankets, and crib sheets. I’ve been putting together a baby registry and trying to stick to out principles but, frankly, putting together the registry has been exhausting and I’m not even done yet.
It doesn’t help that we’re academics. We’re trained to research and make informed decisions and with all the info there is on the web, there’s always just-one-more-site to read. So I’ve spent a good amount of time reading safety specifications for cribs, the most recent recommendations for avoiding SIDS, which bottles are safest for baby, which nipples are least-likely to cause nipple confusion, how-to’s for cloth diapers, … Plus, there are all the online reviews. Which means that just about every purchasing decision is an agonizing process. Lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping because my brain is a jumbled mess of baby-bottles, bassinets, and car seats. Plus I’ve also got final exams, manuscript revisions, and qualifying exams floating around in there too.
I know in the long-run it will pay off because our baby will be safe, healthy, and happy and we won’t breaking the bank or the planet. And it won’t always be this bad because most purchases – rubber duckies, diaper bags, teddy bears – won’t be a safety and health concern the way that cribs and car seats and bottles are. Still I’m looking forward to the day when I can go to bed without my head full of BPA, SIDs, and other scary acronyms.