For a while I have been thinking about writing down about what products I found useful in taking care of babies. So plug your nose, here it goes:

Strollers

When Trev was born we inherited a standard travel system stroller with the car seat attachment. Ours was Evenflow but I don’t see too many differences between the other manufacturers. We used it quite a bit. One of the important features is that the handle on the car seat can be moved to the back with one hand and that the stroller can be folded and unfolded with one hand. Eventually, as Trev passed the four months milestone and did not need to lie down the whole day, it become too big for our purposes. After carrying the big stroller with Trev in it over twenty meters in knee deep snow, I splurged and got a good quality umbrella stroller. The travel system stroller fell apart half way through the third kid but it was not its fault. I was using it to carry two kids on it for over a year, something that it definitely was not designed to do though it handled it gracefully till the end. The umbrella stroller is still functional with no obvious damage other than being extremely dirty (like everything else I own).

The biggest challenge with the stroller was carrying two small kids. If I had to do it again, I would splurge in the beginning and get one of those yummy mummy strollers where one kid fits under the other. Since we’re done having kids the four figure price tag was not worth it for us at this point. I am a bit particular about the baby being able to lie down in the stroller and not be in the car seat for too long so we ended up getting a regular double stroller from kijiji. It works fine despite being rather humongous.

Bathtubs

At home have one of those blue plastic bathtubs with uneven baby/toddler shaped floor, green anti-slip foam and temperature sensing plug. I like it well enough though I wish that the legs could not get the water in them as it is a bit fussy to clean. After the kids were able to sit securely, I used regular bathtub, or if I had mor e than one kid in the bathtub or wanted to save water, I used those red Ikea storage bins inside the bathtub. We also bought a bath thermometer when Trev was born, but I found it was not useful.

Mostly rectangular fabrics

I was surprised at how often I used burp cloths, face cloths and baby blankets. I particularly loved all the handmade blankets I got. Once I get really good at knitting I might make some for other people. I opted for paper rather than cloth diapers though I could have gone for either. I used an old wrap around skirt as sun shade for the stroller.