I Wish

You know, it's funny how us new parents take for granted everything we have to make our lives with our babies easier. Everything you could ever want, need or imagine is available to us. There are a few things that have come out even in the past 5-ish years that people tell me they wish they had when their babies were small.

Some of those items are:

1) The Bumbo Seat - for those of you who don't know, a Bumbo chair is a foamy formed seat that hold babies up when they can't quite sit by themselves yet. I've also found it handy to feed Vaughn in since he is a squirmy little dude and can't still for more than 2 minutes at a time. At least with the Bumbo chair, I can keep him better contained and it's easier to get the food in his mouth.

2) The Sleep Sack - oh Sleep Sack, you are divine! The sleep sack is like a little sleeping bag for babies. What I like most about the sleep sack is that Vaughn cannot get his legs stuck between the crib rails, causing him to scream in the middle of the night. I found this out when Vaughn outgrew his first sleep sack and I hadn't bought him a new one yet. They are delightful.

3) The Travel System - I don't know how long they have been around, but I'm guessing not very long since I've been told how lucky we are to have one. The car seat clicks into the stroller so you don't have to transfer baby back and forth. Especially handy when baby is sleeping and you have mega shopping to do.

4) The electric double breast pump - Sorry if this one makes you uncomfortable, but hey, it's my blog and I can write whatever I want on it. Most people know we had trouble with breastfeeding, and since I was able to buy a hospital grade breast pump, my boy was still able to get my milk with relatively little effort on my part - I have a machine that takes care of it for me. Had I not been able to get one of these machines, Vaughn would have been on formula (not that there's anything wrong with that, but wasn't my first choice) and it would have cost us a lot more to feed him. Sure, pumping has been a minor inconvenience, but it really is just part of my day.

5) The heat click bottle warmer - I have a bottle warmer that has a metal disc in it that you snap. The snap causes a chemical reaction in the gel-like substance, causing it to harden and warm up. You wrap it around the bottle, and voila! you have a nice warm bottle a few minutes later. To reset the chemical, you just boil it in water for about 10 minutes until it goes soft and clear again.

6) The Diaper Genie - a wonderful disposal system for diapers. It contains the smells and makes removal oh so easy.

These are just a few of my favourite things. I've also been thinking about things I wish I had when I was pregnant, or wish I had now:

1) Baby Radio - there should be a radio station that has baby sounds 24/7. This station would help one to prepare to be a parent with a baby in a vehicle. It would start with lovely little baby sounds such as cooing and giggling that make you smile, but then slowly change to a whine and then downright screaming crying - these sounds will play right when you are stuck in heavy traffic and can't pull over. Then, just as you pull over, baby radio will change back to the lovely cooing and giggling. Then, baby radio will laugh at you.

2) "Real Baby" baby scented products - why are babies portrayed as such sweet smelling little angels? There should be a line of baby products expecting parents can buy that ease them in to the odors that are about to enter their lives. Baby puke body spray (you're going to be wearing a lot of it), breastmilk poo scented candles to start (tealights and maybe votives), graduating to the ever-fragrant just-starting-on-solid-food poo scented candles. Also, there's nothing like the smell of yeast that grows in baby's fat folds - perhaps that could be a diffuser scent.

3) Poop stoppers - I don't know what it is that turns a baby's bum into a power tunnel that ends at their hairline, but you would think that the people who make diapers could engineer something that stops crap from creeping up so far.

4) Glow in the dark soothers - this should be a standard - nothing is worse than trying to fumble around in the dark when Vaughn is crying and just needs his sucky thing.

I'm sure there's more, so feel free to add your ideas...