Baby registries

After I returned from my vacation back east, Tim and I were under the gun to get our baby registry done. It was only a month to our first baby shower in Michigan, and the invites had to be mailed. So the first Saturday I was back, we headed to Babies 'R Us (BRU) to check it out.

We were so overwhelmed. We spent three hours and twenty minutes browsing the aisles and selecting items for baby. It was too exhausting to continue, even though we felt there was so much more to look at. When Tim's administrative assistant saw our registry online on Monday, she was shocked: "You have hardly anything picked!" Yep, we knew that.

Before we had gone to the store, we did a little research. We looked at a list of "must haves" and written down the categories, including car seat, stroller, high chair, and monitor. Then we went online to Consumer Reports (CR) and wrote down their highest rated items for those categories.

At BRU, we picked up a scanner to assist in adding things to our registry. Then we headed over to look at car seats. I wasn't too impressed with the colors (day-glo orange?) and we had a hard time finding the top rated ones. So we scanned one that we liked best. Then we headed over to the strollers. Again, it was difficult finding the brands listed by CR but we did find one that came with a car seat. As it turned out, they were both top rated, and we loved the sage green color. But the proof is in the pudding, and we spent about ten minutes collapsing and setting up the stroller, attaching the infant car seat and removing it, etc. It worked like a dream. So then we scanned that to the list. These two items alone took us about an hour! (After I got home, I removed the first car seat from the list.)

In the first aid aisle, there were about fifteen thermometers to pick from. We talked about the different features on them, and finally picked one. A woman standing next to us, with a baby in a carriage, politely asked us if we would mind if she told us that she didn't like the thermometer we picked. Honestly, we were thrilled. She said it wasn't very accurate, and showed us the one her pediatrician recommended, saying it was much easier to use. So I jokingly asked, what else do you suggest?

We went home shortly after that, and then I looked at our registry online. The nice thing about the BRU web site is that it allows people to place 1-5 stars and comments on each product. So we read the comments for the items on our registry, and changed a few things, and deleted others.

We have also opened up a registry at Amazon.com because there are some things that BRU does not carry, like an extra car seat base, so we can have one in each of our vehicles.

There will be another shower here in our town in October, and by then, I hope to add things like diapers and lotions, and who knows what else. I did learn from friends that you don't need to register for clothes and blankets, people love buying those things anyway! =)