I agree that those little receiving blankets were essentially useless after the first few weeks. They were too small to swaddle my son after the newborn stage. I did, however, find the Swaddle Designs Ultimate Blanket AWESOME and used those for months (along with the Miracle Blanket and the SwaddleMe).

Hmmm, I did pretty well figuring out ahead of time what I'd use, but I thought the swing and Boppy were almost useless. My son HATED the swing and lived in the bouncer instead. And even when I did try breastfeeding, I never really got the Boppy and found regular pillows worked just as well. I figure I might still use the swing for another baby, but the Boppy will probably remain relegated to the closet.

Neither of my kids had any interest in swinging at all, and the baby bjorn was too cumbersome to use 90% of the time. The super expensive "play gyms" went largely unused as well, as tummy time was primarily spent with mommy on the floor making faces, or cooing at the dogs.

I got a few colorful soft hanging pad covers only to discover that all they did was get soaking wet with pee and would have to be washed. I just use a pad with no cover so it can be wiped off in case of a accident or spill.

My daughter never liked to be swaddled so both the receiving blankets and the SwaddleMe/Miracle Blankets were useless. We also never used any bottles. The little mobile above her crib was never used either because we coslept most of the time and by the time she was in her own crib, she didn't care about it.

We were told to buy the cute little hats in bulk by everyone we knew, so we did. And then the day our son was born it was 95 degrees out, and two weeks later it was well into the 100's! We never used them, and if we did he just wiggled out of them anyway. The receiving blankets were useless to us as well. He kicked himself out of them whenever we tried swaddling him. At 13 months old now, he uses them to chew on or carry around the house to play peek-a-boo with!

I'm sure they're very useful for those with droolers or babies who spit up, but we have stacks of bibs that were never touched. One third of the number we ended up with would've easily done the trick, but maybe we'll get to use them with the second baby.

our playpen never really was usefull in any way. maybe it will be for the next one?

that half circle pillow ( boppy, http://shopboppy.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1&gclid=CP_1wK...) that we are told to use for breast feeding (it goes around your waist) and then the baby can be propped up with it. zero use with all 3 kids. it was awkward around my waist and the girls hated being propped up.

The diaper pail. We used ours for a month, but then found changing it to be a bigger task than just having a separate smaller pail under the sink, with some baking soda and a lid, much easier, and didn't smell awful when we changed it.

i received a 'bottle warmer' at my baby shower.. never used it. microwave for 15 seconds and thats about it

the boppy was useless to me too...and the receiving blankets, in fact i just gave away about 10 that had never even been opened. I also stocked up on bottles (because i thought thats what babies needed) and only used the bottles that came with my pump on the very rare occasion that i actually used the pump.

Baby bath. I loved the little full-body sponges way more. I found the bath to be too slippery.

The bottle warmer — once they moved to formula, I never heated it.

I'm six-months along now and would LOVE to see a good list from experienced moms. Anyone care to post a quick list of their favorite tops picks, including brands?
thanks!!

thejuiceboxx.com
I would say the Diaper Genie. Nothing against the brand, but a special pail for the stinky diapers was not necessary. I just threw them in a plastic grocery bag (recycle folks!) and put them in the trash..and got them out of the house ASAP. Who wants to smell that?!?!

di_2526, so much of this depends on YOUR baby. Mine hated to be swaddled, but lots of babies love it. My baby loved her swing, but some babies hate it. My advice is to be conservative with what you buy and only get the absolute basics until your babe is born. That way you can see your baby's personality and guess what might please them and what might be useless.

Newborn and 0-3 month clothing.. I was totally prepared and had everything washed and folded and ready to go for my impending sleep deprivation and then popped out a 9 pound 1 oz 21 inch long baby who didnt go ANYWHERE near to fitting into her clothes> i had to unfold everything and put them back into the packages (a good 10-15 packages of diff things, onsies, body suits, etc, she was born in winter) and bring them all back a few days after i got out of the hospital. We had 3-6 month stuff, but not in stockpile.

Funnily enough, most of the things people didnt need, I swore by. i LOVED having a bajillion receiving blankets on hand, the big flannel ones though, not the tiny ones. I bought 15 bottles and it ended up not being enough as she was going through those before the day was out. If i have breastfeeding issues wiht the next one, im going to do liners.. i had the ventaire ones that have 5 pieces each.. and it was grueling to wash nightly as tired as i was.

i wish i had gotten a changing table. I listened to everyone who said they never used theirs and it was a waste of money, and just changed her wherever. For her first christmas/birthday, the inlaws bought her the giant step 2 walki in kitchen, and the box was in her room covered in a blanket and it was the perfect height for diaper changes, lol. It made me realize how much i despise changing them on the floor or on the bed with my body twisted all around. So much easier to stand in front of them. I will be purchasing one the next time around.

that being said, the boppy was really the only thing we bought that didnt get used much. She hated tummy time, and we didnt buy any of those expensive tummy time mats. We got her the fisher price rainforest jumperoo and she LOVED it.

I would say the most useless thing for me was the jumparoo. My son used it maybe twice. I also couldn't stand the padded crib bumper, it made changing the crib sheet so awkward, I would have to remove the bumper most of the time... I will buy one of the ventilated ones next time.

I used the boppy all the time for nursing my son, I wish I had 2 - one for the bedroom and one for the living room. And for us the swing was the best! My son would sleep in it for hours. It was also really useful if he was congested, the doc suggested to have him sleep in his car seat, but we would use the swing. I think he used it until he was about 9 months old.

The Diaper Champ came in handy for about the first 5 months, but when you start feeding the baby solids the poop starts really stinking so I wouldn't throw the poopy diapers in it. The good thing about the Diaper Champ is that you can use regular trash bags.

As for the receiving blankets, I used them, but not really for swaddling. My son would also kick them open. We used them as blankets or for nursing. I wouldn't say that they weren't useful.

Boppy, the miracle blanket and swing didn't work for us. I however would use 4-10 of those little flannel receiving blankets a day. My son had GERD pretty bad for 10 months and I used them as spit up cloths. I love seeing how different these things worked for different babies/situations.

Macgirl, my son had reflux, too, but we used the plain white cloth diapers as spit-up cloths. I still use them daily, but now for dust cloths and such. Heh. I guess I could have also used the little receiving blankets for that, but I think I felt bad that they were so cute.

di_2526, i have a 5 month old boy who doesnt like pacifiers, but love being swaddled.

so here's the list of things that we cant live without: baby monitor, swaddleMe (note that different materials have different levels of warmth), onesies of different sizes (he grows up so fast), pampers of different sizes, wipes, cloths (i never use the receiving blankets for swaddling, since my boy has GERD, we use them as burp cloths), sterilizer, bfree bottles, medela pump in style, tiny love first book that doubles as a bumper crib, fisher price peekaboo piano, black, white and red books (which i copied and put up the copies on th e walls), changing table of the right height, fisher price bouncer, baby bjorn baby sitter.

things that i've bought and the baby doesnt use : rainforest gym, rainforest mobile (he's allergic to both the gym and the mobile, i ended up getting a different rainforest mobile - the australia version i think, that is really bare, no big leaf etc, and he likes that better), cushiony bumper crib, miracle blanket (swaddle me works a lot better for us).

things we have that we only used for a brief moment : boppy and its cover (i stopped latching him at about 2 months because of my oversupply problem). pacifiers (he loved it the first 10 minutes, but he's been spitting them out after that).

things i wish we had : wipes warmer - to ease changing diapers in the middle of the night. i think by now the baby is used to it. but the first few weeks were rough.

sorry i forgot - other things we cant live without: carseat, stroller, waterfall mp3 i got from itunes (he sleeps with this white noise).

other things we only used for a while: baby bjorn synergy (hurts my back after a while), rockin baby sling (he doesnt like to be too confined after the first month).

i guess i got really lucky. my son loved everything we had. we used it all.
the pack and play bassinet for the first few months, crib, swing, bouncer, burp clothes can be used for so much more that spit up. wiping up spills now at 16 months.i also didn't buy into all the fad stuff either.

I guess I also got really lucky. A few dressy items of clothing that we received as gifts were not really used (just for pictures), but we used all of the gear: bouncer, swing, boppy, bumbo chair, receiving blankets (only larger ones), play yard bassinet, etc. I think the only thing that we could have gone without was the Tiny Love Gymini (playmat) because she likes playing on the floor with some toys just as much.

the diaper genie... was a total WASTE (anyone want one lemme know), the jumperoo thingie, another waste, but I gave it to a friend who's little one may like it... but that's really not so bad. we did well w/the boppy... our lil guy liked it.

I put the swing together and took it apart within a week. People insisted I get a swing because every baby likes it, but you know what, the baby doesn't know what he is missing if he has never been in a swing! My baby didn't like it at all so what was the point? For us, a rocker was the best!

My dad bought my this boppy full pillow that I used maybe twice and now it just sits around the house. Cute idea but no point to it at all.

White noise was a must for us. It was fantastic. We had our daughter sleeping through most of the night by 2 months. I also couldn't live without my changing table and bassinet. We used the bassinet by our bed until she was sleeping through most of the night. When we moved her into her room we started using the changing table more. Now that she's 15 months old she knows right where to go to get her diaper changed and she doesn't wiggle nearly as much when we use it.

We never really used the diaper genie either, it smelled horrible when you opened it and it was expensive to refill! So we just use a regular trashcan. If you aren't breastfeeding, you totally don't need a boppy, we only used ours for the first 6 weeks while I was on ML then we never used it again.

I also had an abundance of receiving blankets that I really didn't need. Although I did use them as spit up cloths..... I would say that I just had too many blankets, more than I could possibly use. Especially as you can't use loose blankets in the crib. Which leads me to the best item I had - Halo SleepSack. It's a wearable blanket that replaces loose blankets. My little guy wore this every night and I didn't have to worry about him suffocating or being cold. You can buy them at Babies R Us - http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2317632

I also had an abundance of receiving blankets that I really didn't need. Although I did use them as spit up cloths..... I would say that I just had too many blankets, more than I could possibly use. Especially as you can't use loose blankets in the crib. Which leads me to the best item I had - Halo SleepSack. It's a wearable blanket that replaces loose blankets. My little guy wore this every night and I didn't have to worry about him suffocating or being cold. You can buy them at Babies R Us - http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2317632

I have two boppy pillows that still come in use even with my 3 month old...but a better breast feeding pillow that my lactation consultant let me use when I went to visit was called 'my breast friend'. I believe the product can be found on the web easily.

wiper warmer... and a diaper pails... not necessary!