For me, the first month after my baby was born was one of the most frustrating periods of my whole life –  the first two days my baby cried so hard day and night;  she had diaper rash which looked so scary; she throws up every now and then even after we burp her for every ounce of milk she drinks, and sometimes the milk just shoot out from her nose; even her poop frequently changes color and smells extremely unusual…

Of course, now that when I look back, most of things happened to my baby are common and most of them were self-healing— my baby stopped crying on the 3rd day once my milk was let down and she had enough milk to drink;  diaper rash was mostly cured by the diaper rash cream; the strange pop color/smell was perfectly normal; she gradually stopped throwing up at about 3 months, when her digestion system became more developed …  All the extra stress was there just because I was a new mom!

After the first toughest month, I gradually became much more confident, after learning to seek advices from various sources: friends, doctor, google search, baby forums, weekly e-mail from babycenter.com, and books.  I check my weekly e-mails from BabyCenter.com every day, so that I know about my baby’s expected behaviors for the current weeks; I learnt to read the book “What To Expect the first year” when I am not sure about something with my daughter; I succesfully made my daughter sleep over night after following suggestion from book ”On Becoming Baby Wise“. I learnt to read Amazon product reviews, ask questios in the baby forums when I need to buy some products for my daughter…. Life just became so much easier!

Here, I would like to share with you the things I would recommend buying during baby’s first year.  The product picks reflect many hours of my own research and also many of my friends’  inputs. Hope this would help your life easier, too!

Recommended Products For the First Year (In addition to the NewBorn Baby Shopping List):

Books For Parents:

1. What To Expect the first year (This book answers almost all the question you might have during the baby’s first year, it was really a bible to me.)
2. On Becoming Baby Wise (It teaches you how to establish your baby’s feeding and sleeping schedule so he/she can sleep through the night. More importantly, both your and your baby’s daily schedule will become more organized and predictable.)

Toys:

1. Fisher-Price Lil’ Laugh & Learn Bouncer
2. Graco Compact Infant Swing
3. Baby Einstein Seek and Discover Activity Gym
4. Teething toys (the most popular one: Winkel)
5. Graco Baby Einstein Discover & Play Activity Center / Exersaucer
6. Alphabet PlayMat (can be used from when the baby starts crawling until many years old)
7. Fisher Price Laught and Learn Music Table (6 months - 3yrs)

Clothing/Sleepwear:

1. Sleeping Sack
2. Carter’s body suits (By far the most practical clothing. Best priced at Costco)

Booster Chair/ High Chair:

1. Fisher-Price Healthy Care Booster Seat
2. Fisher-Price Rainforest Healthy Care High Chair

Car Seat:

1. Evenflo Tribute V Convertible Car Seat - Abby II (a good car seat under $100).
2. Or if you bring the baby out a lot, you might consider paying an extra $100 to get the best rated Britax RoundAbout CarSeat.

Walk Assitant:

1. Chicco Little Driver Baby Walker
2. Walking Wings Learning to Walk Assistant