Bottles, Bottles, and More Bottles

Well, we did it. We finally faced our biggest fear and walked into Babies R Us this weekend to register. I've honestly been postponing it for as long as I thought we could as I was dreading the experience. I've heard so many horror stories of couples taking 3-4 hours because the choices were overwhelming and they had to read every single label to make a decision. Well, I was bound and determined this would NOT be us. Knowing a) Josh's attention span and b) that his Dad happened to be with us, I knew we were in trouble. Luckily, I will say that while ours was not the best experience I've ever had, it was also not the worst. I had done some planning ahead of time which I think really helped. 2 things that helped us survive: Baby Bargains book (http://www.babybargainsbook.com/babybargains/default.html) and an email from my mommy friend Julie who just went through this process a little over 2 years ago. I cannot say enough amazing things about this Baby Bargain book. It literally goes over every item you are going to need and provides a letter grade on each brand as well as a recommendation. It also goes as far as providing a sample registry in the book (although we did not see this part until after we were 80% done). This was our saving grace. Rather than read every little thing, we could easily open the book, see the one they recommended and scan. Done. The problem arose when they had a recommendation for a specific brand, but not a specific type within that brand. Ex: the book highly recommends Graco pack and plays. What it fails to say though is that at Babies R Us, there are NINE different Graco pack and plays. WTF! They all look the same except for the price so how the heck are you supposed to chose. Well, enter mommy friend email with brand recos. Ahh, bliss. When the book was out of recos, we turned to our email and voila. 9 out of 10 times this worked. Don't get me wrong, there were still many moments when Josh and I were fighting over the fact that the baby DOES need toys to hang from the stroller and yes we DO need a mirror for the back seat. But hey, in the end, I must say that I'm lucky we did a little planning ahead of time. I'm still convinced, however, that they should give you an "I survived my 1st baby registry" shirt on your way out.