Baby Essentials: 6-12 Months

I read a lot of baby, parenting, and “mommy” blogs these days. I doubt this statement comes as a surprise to, well, anyone — but it seems worthy of mentioning as a form of introduction to this post. Some of my favorite posts are about what different people list as their “essentials” for a given period of their child’s life, so it only seems appropriate to play along.

1. Sippy cups. We have 3 different varieties of the Playtex Lil’ Gripper cups — one smaller version where the top has handles, the version pictured above, and a version with a straw top. Emma started with the one with handles, but pretty quickly moved on to the non-handled version. I think we started sippy cups a little late, so she didn’t ever really need the handles since she could grip the cup itself just fine. We haven’t used the straw tops much yet, but should probably start…

I didn’t have any particular reason for picking these cups other than they seemed simple and straightforward, and they’ve worked well for us. They don’t leak at ALL, and even when Emma slams them down on the table, they only splatter a few drops of milk. And the cups and lids are all interchangeable between the 3 different styles of cup which is a huge bonus.

2. Baby food pouches. We made a lot of Emma’s baby food at first, but as she got older, we got lazier and started buying the bulk of it. We started with the little Gerber containers but eventually switched over to pouches because they were so easy to take on the go. In particular, I really liked the Ella’s Kitchen brand — not because they’re organic (although that’s nice) but just because they seemed to have a lot of really good food and flavor combinations. Emma eats table food all the time now, but I still pick up a few of these from time to time for convenience when we eat out.

3. Puffs. This was the first thing Emma was able to pick up and eat on her own. (I’m guessing it’s the same for a lot of babies.) She still loves them. I’ve tried a few different brands, but like the Gerber and HEB ones the best.

4. Booster seat. We intentionally skipped buying a high chair because a few friends had told me that a booster seat was just as good and was a lot more portable. Those friends were 100% right! We like this Fisher Price booster seat and have used it daily (obviously) since Emma started eating solids. We took it with us to the beach in June, and over to Erin’s when she babysat for us, which wouldn’t have been possible with a normal high chair.

We have it strapped to one of the chairs at our breakfast table, and these days Emma will walk over to it when she’s hungry. She definitely recognizes it as her eating spot!

5. Outlet covers and cabinet latches. Ah, 6-12 months…the era of mobility. There’s not much to say about this other than outlet covers and cabinet latches are definitely an essential to keep Emma from sticking her finger in an outlet or swallowing windex.

6. Baby gate. Our house is really open but we did want to prevent Emma from attempting any unsupervised stair climbs. This Munchkin baby gate was way more than I expected to pay for a baby gate, but it was worth it. We needed something extra-wide to fit our stairwell, and I really like that I don’t have to remove the whole gate every time I want to go upstairs. Instead, you just open the gate-within-a-gate. Easy.

7. Shape sorter toy. This Fisher Price “cookie jar” was an impulse buy when we were at Barnes & Noble one day back in the spring, but it’s still one of Emma’s favorites. She loves to take the pieces out of the jar and dance to the music, and now that she’s older she is learning how to push the pieces through the holes on the sides (with some help).

8. Convertible car seat. Emma started pushing the height limit on her infant car seat in June, and she was getting heavy enough that carrying her in the seat was a pain, so we went shopping for a convertible car seat. We checked out several models at the store and ended up choosing the Britax Pavilion. It’s good up to 70 pounds, so hopefully it’ll last Emma for quite a while — I’m crossing my fingers that she can use this one until she gets to booster seat age, but we’ll see. She’s still rear-facing right now (where it’s good to 40 pounds) and we’ll probably leave her that way as long as she tolerates it.

9. Shoes. Emma’s daycare started requiring them to wear shoes once summer rolled around and they started taking the babies into the playroom and onto the playground. I had bought a few pairs of soft booties, but I wanted a sturdier pair. We looked at Target didn’t have much luck — Emma has thick feet, it seems — until we found these pink “water shoes.” She has basically worn them non-stop ever since. They STINK after a while but we just scrub them every week or two and that helps.

I’m not sure what we’re going to do when the weather cools off! Maybe Emma will rock the socks-with-sandals look…

10. Walker. Soon after Emma started crawling, I ordered this Sit-to-Stand walker. The front panel is detatchable, which meant Emma could play with it right away. Once she started standing, we would help her walk with this on carpet (it would fly out from under her on hard flooring). Then one day in June, she crawled over, pulled herself up, and just started pushing this thing around the house!

It was a full 2 more months before she started walking on her own, but she loved to push the walker around until then — and still does sometimes today. She also eventually learned how to turn it to go around corners and avoid other obstacles.

So that’s it! Ten items we couldn’t live without from February to August! I hope to go back and revisit 0-6 months sometime soon.