Moving across the country forces you to reconsider what you actually need for Baby #2. If it’s not an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY, we don’t want to unpack it, so we’ve had to take a good hard look at which items make the cut.

When I was pregnant with Peaches, we were fortunate enough to have a beautiful shower, and settled enough so that she came home to a painted, decorated nursery stocked with furniture and baby gear. I feel like we pretty much tried it all (except a wipes warmer, because everyone we talked to agreed: nah). This time around, as we sifted through all the boxes of stored infant belongings, we only pulled out the essentials.

A mama friend recently challenged me to narrow it down to my three top mommy must-haves in each category. Not the obvious stuff like prenatal vitamins, but the comfort-and-peace-of-mind stuff. For pregnancy, no problem; but for Part II (the newborn phase), I’ll have to list a few more than three. No getting around it.

PREGNANCY.
With P, I bought every book known to mankind, pounds of lotions and butters, and a huge yellow exercise ball to sit on. I spent way too much on a maternity wardrobe and ended up actually wearing about half of it (at least I didn’t have to buy anything for pregnancy #2!). I’m slowly learning that moderation is key. When I found out I was expecting this time, I knew there were only a couple items I would NEED to have on hand: Continue reading →