the baby registry saga

I have spent hours no days on our baby registry. After Brian and I physically went to Babies R Us and spent 3 hours tagging stuff with our laser gun, I then went home, jumped online and have spent countless hours changing everything.

Baby registries aren't like wedding registries where it was all fun and like, "Oooh!! Look, we need those crate and barrel plates! And henkel knives, sweet!" No. It's "Which brand of baby bottle doesn't leak? Has the best nipple to make breast to bottle feeding smooth? Helps with colic-y babies?" And, "Which cribs are the best? Sturdiest? Don't scratch? Should I get the crib bedding set with bumpers?(they ALL come with them, btw) Are diaper pails necessary?"

Then after you gather all the best information, it really will all just depend on what your baby likes anyway. And you won't know that until AFTER the baby is here.

But you can't wait to buy everything cause baby stuff is expensive and my shower invites go out soon. I need to have my registry tightened up by then. So, the research and online changes continue. From friend recommendations, I bought the Baby Bargains book. I would definitely recommend this book to every first time parent!

It's been super helpful as it covers pretty much every baby item you'd need, takes parent feedback then ranks them by brand. It's helped me to wade through the craziness that is BRU and narrow things down. But then I still spend even more time reading reviews on the BRU site about items I'm considering. Sometimes this makes me change my mind or leads me to more research.

Interestingly, Facebook has been helpful too. So many of my FB friends have babies so I've asked a few questions and have gotten pretty good feedback. Ah, the online social networking world we live in.

Then, as I continued to update my BRU registry, I started to get annoyed at their limited clothing and bedding options. Especially bedding. My revered Baby Bargains book tells me that not all crib sheets and clothes are made the same. Some shrink after a first wash and apparently places like Baby Gap have much better quality. So, I checked out their website and LOVE their organic bedding! I don't necessarily care that it's organic (although that doesn't hurt) but the design is so much nicer than the stuff at BRU. I want THESE! But a new snag...Baby Gap doesn't have a registry. Seriously?? So, after more googling I found Wishpot.com. It's a website where you can create wish lists and registries from any website out there. Genius!

So, I created a Wishpot registry for all my Baby Gap stuff. I'm not sure how well this wishpot site will work though. The url to share with folks is some crazy web address. Clearly, this site needs some refinement. But, it's there and if anything I can email folks with a link to my wishpot.

And so, the saga continues. I'd say I'm 3/4 of the way done with our registry. I hope...