Creating Your Registry
Creating a registry is exciting and fun but can also be so overwhelming! There are so many products to choose from and you may wonder how to pick the right ones for your baby. Read more to find out our favorite items and what we didn’t end up using.
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Meesh
I was really excited to build a registry but once I started I had no idea where to start. Luckily I had some new mom friends I was able to ask for their must haves items. After getting their input on the basics and their favorite items, I read countless blogs (this seems to be a theme with me- over preparing…) to get ideas and deep dive on reviews. My strategy was to add anything and everything I was considering (for example, I added the 6 different baby monitors) and then once I had everything I could then pair back and decide what items make the final cut. To be honest, I wish I had added more fun things and things she would need after the first year (eg. high chair, plates, sippy cups and toddler silverware). But my reason for not adding them was I was just feeling overwhelmed. I couldn’t wrap my head around thinking that far ahead and doing MORE research on plates and bowls just felt daunting. I felt like future meesh could do that, and she did! So I think if you have the time and the mental energry just do a little research or use your parent network and add it to the list because that stuff is EXPENSIVE. I used myregistry.com and found it was an okay site to use. What I liked about it was it had a chrome extension I could use and just click the little button when I was on Target.com or Amazon.com and it would easily add that item. However, this only worked on desktop and their mobile app wasn't great.
We’ve combined our recommendations into one large list for easy searching:
Bassinets:
Snoo: We were a Snoo family. Get it off marketplace! You don't need to pay full price for something that is gently used for only 6 months at a time. We bought ours used for $850 and resold it for $700!
Baby Monitors:
Meesh: Loved the built in breathing monitor on the sleep sacks when we sleep trained it gave us such peace of mind. It’s also nice to check in on her when mom and dad are having a fun night out!
Mon: You’ll need two baby monitor cameras if you aren't sharing cribs. We went through 3 and finally ended up with the Nanit with two cameras and love it. One of my favorite things is that when they are napping at home and I am not there I can check in on them from my phone. Also, the breathing feature helped with my anxiety when we moved them into their own room.
Sound Machine: We all love the HATCH!
Hatch Sound Machine: Super easy to use and love that you can color train when your kiddo is old enough.
Bouncers and Swings:
Baby Bjorn Bouncer: Our lovely friends let us borrow theirs but Thea didn’t love it so I ended up buying a Bjorn bouncer off marketplace!
4moms Swing: A friend gave us their 4moms swing and Thea LOVED it. We loved our swing and used it all the time until she was about 4 months old.
Toys:
Contrast cards: I bought the Lovevery newborn through 1 year play kits. The newborn kit had super cute and fun contract books she played with for 6+ months!
Loungers
Snuggle Me Lounger: We were also gifted this as a hand me down. We LOVED this and used this 24/7 until she got too big for it at about 3 months old. I ended up buying a knock off doc a tot off amazon, so if you’re adding one to your registry, I recommend a doc a tot or register or the larger snuggle me so you can use it longer!
Dock-a-tot or a dock-a-tot dupe- The boys were obsessed with these and we would pop them in them and put them on the couch and they would just chill. Which is so nice when you have twins and are barely sleeping.
High Chairs:
Lalo High chair: Meesh didn't add a high chair to the registry because I didn't know what one I wanted. We ended up getting the Lalo. I like the look but the tray is hard to get off!
Highchairs- What Mon love about these high chairs is that they have grown with them and are easy to clean. However, the buckle on the harness was extremely difficult to unbuckle and that drove me crazy.
Bottles":
Avent Bottles: *Mom tip* Register for the variety pack! Your baby may not like Dr. Browns- mine didn't! We went through 3 different types of bottles until we found the Philips Avent bottle!
Pacifiers:
Pacifiers: *Mom tip* Order a variety pack in these as well! Your baby may not like the aesthetically pleasing ones you want them to love ;). Thea ended up being super picky but ultimately became obsessed with the Tommee Tippee ones.
Swaddles and sleep sacks:
Swaddles: We ended up loving the Happiest Baby Sleepea “Swaddles’ for night and bassinet sleeps. However, those first couple weeks and snuggle naps, we used muslin blankets.
Sleep sacks: Nanit for breath monitoring and a softer one for when they’re a little older.
Clothes:
Onesies: She basically lived in onesies 24/7 for the first 3 months of her life- old navy for budget friendly and in bulk and for bamboo soft ones i’d recomment the below:
Little Sleepies- Our favorite! They run big and STRETCH. Thea was in her newborn one until 5 months. Shes still in her 6-12 mo and she’s almost 2
Kyte Baby- Controversial but super soft but not as stretchy. They have the rubber footies which are key when they’re learning to crawl and walk.
The Boyds loved these onesies (they were pretty much only in onesies the first 5 months). The ones with double zippers were a lifesaver. You are so tired in the beginning you just need easy.
Another tip we have is to put clothes in different sizes on your registry. I’d also put the clothes that are going to be expensive to buy. For example coats. Think about what age will they be in the different seasons and ask for that size range.
Carriers:
Babyborjn Mini Carrier: We used this ALL THE TIME and loved how not bulky it was.
Wraps- You can YouTube how to wear them both with the wrap. You can’t do much with your hands but you will be able to walk around and they are comfy on you and absolutely love that closeness with both you and their twin. I was intimidated to wear them first at both but just try it for short times and you will get more and more comfortable with it.
Diaper Pails:
Munchkin Diaper Pail: with lots of refills!
Changing Pads:
Nursing Pillows:
Boppi: Great for bottle feeding, tummy time and sitting support.
Car Seats:
Carseat: Meesh got the nuna pipa infant car seat for easy click in and out. When she turned one we splurged and got the Evenflo Revolve 360 and it was a game changer! It’s so easy to pop her in and out. It’s pricey but worth the money as it grows with them!
Infant Carseat- Mon started off with the snap and go car seats and had 4 bases in each car. This made it much easier when they were little to get them around. Graco had a great snap and go twin stroller to go with the car seats and I found it super easy and could even do it while still recovering from a c section.
Travel and Car Carseats-. I would actually suggest four car seats for a two car family. Switching back and forth between cars is not fun. In one car we have travel car seats, that we take on the plane, and in the other we have regular ones.
Strollers:
Bob Stroller: We were given our BOB and its the best. We don't have sidewalks in our neighborhood so I knew a normal stroller wouldn't have the best shock absorption. I’m sure any jogger would be fine for this though! I also wish I had registered for an umbrella stroller as it’s great for quick trips, travel or when you don't want to lug a big stroller around. We have this one, but it doesn't recline much.
Teethers:
Teethers for Ice or fruit!
Misc:
Backpacks-We love to hike and so having two of these is super fun.
Cribs and double set of sheets and sleep sacks
Any toys from 11 months to 2 years. They started to want to play with the same exact toys around 11 months.
Things Meesh didn’t use:
Bottle warmer
Wipe warmer
Mon
We were really overwhelmed creating a registry. I had no idea what having a baby would require and let alone twins! I read a lot of blogs and a lot of them contradicted each other.
Quite a few blogs said you don’t need two of things but If you ever want your hands free you absolutely need two of a lot of things. Below are the things we are so glad we had two of:
Twin specific things I love:
Twin Z pillow for bottle feeding or nursing
My Breast Friend- If you plan on mostly nursing this one is way easier to tandem nurse with but you can't bottle feed in it.
Non twin specific things I loved
Onesies (they were pretty much only in onesies the first 5 months). The ones with double zippers were a lifesaver. You are so tired in the beginning you just need easy.
Sleep sacks. Honestly it takes some figuring out which ones they like best. But the love to dream worked best for them as babies and now as toddlers they don’t seem to mind the type as much. We use these Burts Bees ones.
Wipe warmer. People even love them or hate them. But the boys hate cold wipes so this one probably depends on your baby. For me anything that makes changing time easier is a win!
Breast pump. Make sure to check if your insurance covers a pump.
Lovevery Toy kits. I also love their app and they have super helpful advice and will even send me two things if it an item the boys are fighting over.
Teethers
There are so many options for used items on facebook, join your local multiples page and you are bound to find a lot of this stuff.
Another thing we did is at our baby shower we had people give their favorite children's book with a note in it. The book could be used or new. We got so many books from this, and the cute notes inside are so sweet and the boys love hearing who their different books are from.
Grace
One thing that I noticed when it came time to create a registry is that everyone who has had a kid sends you a huge list of items and brands that you MUST have. It was extremely overwhelming but now that I’ve gone through it myself I totally see where they were coming from and I want to do the same to help others! The thing to remember is that every baby is so different. One baby’s favorite item might be your baby’s least favorite item, so everything is kind of trial and error until you figure out their preferences. That being said, I found it helpful to put more things on the registry because I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. You can always sell or donate things that your baby doesn’t need or like! Another nice thing is when friends look at your registry and have those things lying around from when they had their babies and they just hand them over if you don’t mind them being used. We were given so many things it was insanely helpful and friends let us borrow things like bassinets so we didn’t have to buy our own. Babies are only in certain phases for so long so sometimes it didn’t make sense to us to buy an expensive item you’re only going to use for a few months when we could just borrow it.
We used Babylist for our registry. I like the convenience of the app and I felt like it was very user friendly. I built our registry with ideas from Instagram, pinterest or just browsing the app. I kind of went nuts putting stuff on there that I liked and then reeled myself back in later and deleted things we really didn’t need or that friends had given us. I highly recommend getting at least two different styles of things like bottles, pacifiers and teething toys because you never know what preferences your baby will have. Parker doesn’t really have preferences on these things and will take pretty much whatever you give her, but I know that’s not the case for every baby! When it comes to our least used items, we don’t use the bottle warmer or wipe warmer only because Parker doesn’t give a shit if things are cold or not. Imagine if she did though, we would be in trouble if we didn’t have those things! When it comes to clothes people tend to go rogue, so even if you have cute clothes that you love on your registry, I found it unlikely to get those particular ones. I thought it was very sweet of people to get us gifts and I appreciated them, but I wish I would have gotten a few more of the clothing items that were on my registry and more our style (not like it really matters when your baby shits themselves daily and has a million outfit changes anyways though). I was just trying to consider sizing and how big she would be in different seasons so we had some clothes as she got bigger and grew out of the previous size.
A lot of moms-to-be also put some postpartum items on their registry which is a great idea! Friends and family should want to take care of mom as well. I didn’t really put any postpartum items on mine though because I wanted to get my own stuff after asking my friends what I needed. Sometimes it’s helpful to get some pp stuff after birth because you don’t necessarily know what you need until you see how your birth goes. If I could go back in time I probably would have added a few comfy nursing clothing items though!
Things we use the most:
Hatch - I HIGHLY recommend a hatch! It’s great because you can control it with the app and it has so many helpful features. It’s also good to have one or two small portable sound machines as well for on the go
Bouncer
Swing
Floor mat
Contrast cards
Doc a tot - They are a little spendy but you will definitely need some sort of lounger. It is a real game changer in those early days when they aren’t mobile and you need to set them down. My sister in law gave us their old one and I was so happy we had it. It has a little handle so we would easily carry it from room to room with us and Parker was very comfortable in it.
High chair (don’t need for a while so if no one buys it off your registry you can always get one later!)
Bottles - dr browns
Pacifiers - Parker doesn’t really care which style of pacifier we give her, but we got a big pack of these and they’ve been great! Keep in mind when ordering pacifiers that there are different sizes so newborns will need smaller ones and you can up the size as they grow.
Halo or Kyte Baby sleep sacks - When Parker was small the Halo sleepsack swaddles were amazing! She slept great and I felt like she was safe in them. It was nice that they were adjustable too because as she got older she started sleeping with her arms out and then once she outgrew the smaller one we switched to a Kyte Baby sleepsack. They are super soft, cozy and long so I feel like it will last a while!
Teethers
https://amzn.to/48GDELx - I feel like every baby loves Sophie! Just keep in mind these have a squeaker in them so they are also loved by dogs.
https://amzn.to/3ZLMCmx - these are great because you can put them in the fridge
https://amzn.to/48HiWet - Parker loved these and it was great having multiple so they were around the house and in the diaper bag
https://amzn.to/3rGdKH2 these are amazing! Another favorite of Parker’s
Onesies - Parker basically lived in onesies 24/7 for the first 3 months of her life and we would just get cheap ones from Old Navy. They were great because they were inexpensive, decent quality, and have zippers. For the love of God DO NOT get any onesies that have the snaps/buttons because at 2am when you’re half asleep changing a shitty diaper with just the glow of a night light the last thing you’re going to want to do is snap a bunch of buttons.
Carrier or wrap - I love this one because it’s not bulky and it’s super easy to get Parker in and out
Good baby monitor - I didn’t want one on my phone so we got this one. It’s been great and we’ve had no problems with it in the 12 months we’ve had it.
Diaper pail with lots of refills and extra deodorizers
nursing pillow - Make sure to get one that’s nice and soft and that has a removable cover because you’ll be washing it a lot!
Carseat
Stroller (bob)
Things we don’t use:
Bottle warmer
Wipe warmer
Muslin swaddles (we only really had Parker swaddled at night and we used velcro swaddles then. We would use the thicker blankets we got during the day for cuddling though)
Changing pad cover (they are so cute but get dirty too quickly)
Owlet sock (I’m thankful I have this on hand if I ever feel like I need it though)
Bottle cooler with Ice pack (this is such an awesome thing to have on hand and I wanted this to store my milk if I needed to pump on the go I just really didn’t pump as much as I thought I would)
