On Surviving the Baby Registry Process

Hello! It’s been a few weeks since I published something new here. Thank you for cracking open this post and spending some time with me.

Before we begin, sharing some answers to my biggest FAQs

• How much longer do you have until the baby’s out of there? I’m now roughly five weeks out from my due date with a baby that is as long as a bunch of Swiss chard, as big as a Care Bear toy, and slightly heavier than a 5-pound dumbbell.

• How are you feeling? I am tired. I am round. My belly’s aesthetic is reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh’s. I don’t feel “ready,” but I figure that I am as ready as I can be—and that anyone who thinks they’re truly “ready” is naive.

• How is your 2026 so far? The last two weeks have been spent in the haze of “before, during, and after” of my baby shower and in responding in as personal and timely a fashion as possible to the semiannual update email I send (not on Substack) to various people I’ve known from childhood to college to my last set of colleagues. I’ve also spent a lot of time honing my leave plan at my day job.

Related to the baby shower, this post will focus on some thoughts regarding baby registries, including:

• My sole previous (and very pleasant) experience with registries: my wedding registry

• Why I found the baby registry experience particularly challenging

• How I ultimately managed to build a baby registry (even if lazily)

• The things I ended up being happiest to receive–on and off of the baby registry

Let’s dive on in.

My wedding was just over two years ago, and while the wedding certainly had its stressors, the registry was low on the list of them because…

• My husband and I both like to cook, so almost everything on our registry was culinarily inclined and made to last: I didn’t feel weird putting nicer cookware on our registry because I knew we would put those items to work—also because the things like Le Creuset Dutch ovens, Kitchen Aid stand mixers, and All Clad pots and pans are made with a reputation for longevity.1

• In addition to promising “good mileage” in terms of their use, the wedding registry items promised to accumulate good memories over time: I love breaking out the nicer bowls, plates, and glasses when hosting friends for dinners. I get a kick out of using a Waterford cake cutter when I’ve made the kind of cake that’s worthy of using it. Every item on the wedding registry gets more precious with use because of the memories we get to create with the items over time—most of which with people we love.

• We knew what we needed or liked, so it was easy for me and my husband to say “no” to any so-called “must haves” of wedding registries. When the inevitable wedding-related marketing began, it was a no-brainer to ignore campaigns about table lamps or bathroom towels, because we simply didn’t care for them. With a few exceptions, we stuck to the kitchen and entertaining-related items, and had no regrets or ‘what ifs.’

The experience of managing my baby registry could not have been more opposite from my experience managing my wedding registry because the experience is inherently more vulnerable.

Even with friends and opinions that I trust, it has been hard for me to not to feel vulnerable in the face of the “marketing machine” for baby stuff as a first-time mom for a few key reasons:

• Baby-related marketing is much harder to ignore than wedding-related marketing. Throughout my wedding registry process, I felt confident in saying I didn’t need a certain set of decorative pillows. Meanwhile, in the baby registry process, every influencer, advertiser, or brand has something to gain by telling me I’ve made some horrible mistake if I don’t buy a SNOO2 or haven’t invested in a specific kind of baby laundry detergent.

• Compounding the impact of the marketing machine, the hormonal surges of pregnancy make every baby-related product decision seem more serious and more urgent than it might actually be. Questions like, “Am I a bad mother if I don’t get hypoallergenic and pthalate-free diapers?” and, “Will I be hurting my baby if I don’t get a smart sock to monitor his vitals?” abound on Reddit forums. I find that they toe the line between conscious shopping and anxiety stoking. There’s no quicker way second-guess yourself and end up with a ton of stuff you don’t need than by reading mom blogs with conflicting opinions on so-called “must have” products.3

• The consequences of a bad baby registry product isn’t just lost money and two grumpy adults—it’s discomfort and possible damage to an innocent, helpless baby. Receiving a ghastly-looking chip and dip as a wedding gift isn’t likely to hurt two newlyweds.4 Using certain types of baby bottles—allegedly—can give babies more gas. Getting a bad car seat can throw a baby’s life into danger.5 While not everything on a registry has life-and-death consequences, some of the stuff is legitimately more important.6 The problem is that the “pregnancy-industrial complex” and baby-related marketing machine are incentivized to make you think that a lot of unserious stuff is actually serious.

• Pregnancy makes it impossible to be compos mentis. Your hormones are jacked up. Your body isn’t fully yours. You’re not sleeping well. When your physical state is heavily compromised and everyone in your life and on the internet has an opinion on what you need (or don’t), it’s hard to trust your own instincts and maintain a clear-headed approach to what matters most and what you’ll need.

• Typical items on baby registries, with few exceptions, are generally crappy7: they’re not built to last, the things that aren’t already disposable are fairly short lived, and even the nice stuff gets outgrown quickly.8 The stuff on baby registries that is built for wear can either be obtained secondhand (strollers) or shouldn’t be obtained secondhand (car seats). Almost everything else is not built to wear and has weeks to months of useful life—especially the newborn-sized apparel.9 Longevity-wise, the closest thing to a Le Creuset Dutch oven in a baby registry is a good children’s book.

I didn’t take a scientific approach here and opted for the path of lease resistance:

• I went on Babylist and used their checklist feature to populate my registry with the bare minimum.10

• I looked at items deemed essential within their respective categories (feeding, diapering, bathing, etc.) and opted for the products that were most reviewed and highest reviewed in their category.

• When friends wanted to get me something off-registry or had a really strong point of view on something they thought would be helpful to me, they reached out to me directly. I either let them buy the item they recommended, bought it myself, or added it to the registry for someone else to buy.

This was as easy and as stress-free a part of the process as it could have been, short of someone else making the whole registry for me.

Aside from the most straightforward essentials of diapers and wipes, this is the roster of items I was happiest to receive from friends and loved ones who wanted to contribute to my imminent mom era:

1. Anything related to comfort while nursing: It is weird to ask people to buy things for my imminent role as a milk machine, but of the things I was most excited to get, anything to help me with my dairy-cow-style life was near the top of “most wanted.” Milk storage bags. Nursing pads. A nursing pillow. The list grows. “Dress for the job you want,” they tell you: in my case, my imminent new job involves wearing the equivalent of silver sewing thimbles on the nipples.

2. Non-obvious baby health/hygiene stuff: I mentioned the nosefrida aspirator in a previous post: my boss insists this was a life-saving product for his family. Aside from that snot-sucking tool, other standouts include:

   1. A few different nail trimming devices to prevent my baby from clawing his face off. Who knew baby nails were so sharp?

   2. A better baby thermometer. A college friend and father of two boys strongly encouraged me to trade the rectal thermometer on my registry for a no-contact one he wanted to gift me.11

3. What people were willing to do for postpartum help was the best intangible thing I got from my registry and shower. Next to the guestbook at my baby shower, I had a list of specific tasks that I could foresee wanting support with in the first few months after birth. I made some cards that people could fill out with what they might be willing to do, ranging from walking the dogs to coming over to watch a movie to doing a grocery run. Thanks to this unconventional baby shower activity, I now have a priceless gift: a list of people willing to cook, babysit, or be on call for moral support via text in my “fourth trimester.”

I’m sure there is something I will need for the baby that I did not have on my registry or on hand. So be it.

For all the problems of the modern day and my skepticism as tech worker by day, it is nice to know that anything I can’t get for my baby at a grocery store can probably arrive at my house within 48 hours.

The most precious gift isn’t on the registry, but in the reason for it: the little creature that takes 40 weeks to make. And by the grace of luck and faith, the little guy should outlast most products on his registry by a lifetime.

I’ve got five more weeks until my due date, and while there’s no predicting when I’ll actually have this baby, there are a few more things I hope to write about here before *birth* and the postpartum era when things become really unpredictable.

I hope to see you here for this home stretch.

Thanks for reading and see you next time,

EZ

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