Motherhood: A few baby essentials

Some essentials that helped me through, well, one and a half years.

The little one is turning two in May and I just can’t believe it. An interesting thing I’ve noticed for the past year or so is that she really doesn’t have that much toys. One excuse was because we’re moving house and another was, well, I didn’t really think it was so necessary to drown her with toys (I also asked for books and gift certificates for her first birthday). But then whenever we go to a friend’s house or even at the Kita she’s so mesmerized by the new toys and plays non-stop, which then makes you think “does she not have enough?” What is enough anyway?

So we bought her a new toy kitchen. A small one. It’s white and grey. Very simlar to the real kitchen that we have. It’s from a Dutch company called Bandits and Angels. Their collections are adorable. Check out the kitchens.

And then I looked around and recalled all the things we had bought for A. The highchair. The kitchenware. The bottles. The formula. The clothes. The stroller. So many things it’s ridiculous. So I tried to come down with some essentials, for future moms out there.

One must for us is the high chair, which we brought from Stokke. The Tripp Trapp is such a gem and lifesaver and it’s quite common to find these chairs everywhere, from daycare, restaurants, hotels and more, at least around Europe. A goes up to her chair whenever its mealtime and it was a bit difficult for her to eat when we were in Seoul because she didn’t have her chair. I recently came across an interesting report on the best high chairs in the market on reviews.com (OXO is such a great brand but I didn’t know they make high chairs too) and since this was mainly based on the U.S. market, I did some digging about the best high chairs in Germany.

According to Alles Beste, a German website focused on product reviews, the overall best was given to Evomove’s Nomi. The classic high chair was, not surprisingly, Stokke’s Tripp Trapp (how pretty are their new colors? Right on trend indeed), best on a budget was Hauck’s Alpha (which looks a lot like the Tripp Trapp) and the most practical was IKEA’s Antilop (how many times have I tripped because the legs are spread out? Every single time). If you want a more detailed list, check here (only in German).

As for bottles, our little one used Avent and for sippy cups, we tried using the ones from DM but didn’t like them because the bottles were not transparent and I couldn’t tell how much liquid was left in there. You would think it doesn’t matter, but it actually does. For mostly sippy cups and other basic kitchenware, I bought a lot from a Korean lifestyle brand called Jaju. It’s very similar to Japan’s Muji and I do think the company launched the brand to compete with the Japanese counterpart, so very minimalistic, neutral palette, a bit cheaper, but very comparable quality and has a wide range of everything lifestyle.

For skincare, we use Weleda, and I think this works the best for us. I’ve tried other brands, but Weleda products were the only ones that we could really feel the difference. Yay.

The stroller. We initially bought a stroller from a German brand called Bergsteiger, but wasn’t satisfied (that thing was so heavy) so we later brought a lighter one from Chicco. It’s light, not too bulky, easy to travel with but not the most stable stroller in the world. Or maybe it’s because we’ve been traveling around with it so much, it just gave up a little. So that’s our fault. (Her little bag that you see below is from Fjällräven, mostly known as the Kanken bag. I have two big ones for the parents and a small one for A. We love.)

We also bought a mini kitchen/walker for her when she was around 6 months which was this one. We loved it, she loved it, it’s adorable, so sturdy and was so useful. She’s outgrown this one so we bought a bigger toddler kitchen. I was thinking of just buying the IKEA one, but I liked that the one from Bandits and Angels was white and grey, had a bit more features and came with some nice, matching utensils.

The nightlight and humidifier was a bit tricky because I didn’t want to buy something too loud (both literally and figuratively), so I went for the small diffuser from Muji. Works well, very quiet, comes with two different light features and compact.

Now we’re searching for a bed, a closet, new drawer and maybe a table and chair set. No big deal, right? Let’s see how it goes. If you have any suggestions, let me know. I need all the help I can get.

Stokke photos from Stokke website. Rest photos by rachelsanghee. March, 2018.