Baby Saturday

After several months of not wanting to read about anything "baby", over the weekend, I had a revived interest. I think it was sparked by continuing the registry process. We visited Half Price Kids Stuff in Bayview over the weekend. This is a great store. I went hoping to find some cute used maternity clothes but did not find anything. However, once we actually have the baby, this will be a great resource. We also went to USA Baby, which was recommended to us first by HB who said they have every stroller under the sun and then by the C's who claimed it was more tranquil than Babies R Us. USA Baby was also rated one of the top 21 baby stores in the country by Baby Bargains.

Well, since we were at USA Baby, we might as well register, right?! ha ha ha. The main reason we registered here is that they have the cheapest price on the Pump in Style - therefore I took it off the Target registry and put it on there. Moms to be in the MKE area take note - get your breastpump at USA baby! The Pump In Style retails for $279.99. At USA Baby it is $237.99 all the time! They also have some variety (although not huge) in cloth diapers available in store. I was a little disappointed that there stock of Maclaren strollers was dismal. However, they really do have almost every type of stroller imaginable. Of course we got a bag of literature for registering and some samples of Mustela baby products. Overall, this is a very nice store - has a lot of beautiful furniture and a good selection of products. The store is not nearly as overwhelming as Babies R Us. We only stuck with cloth diapers and the breast pump for this registry. This may be kinda dumb to have this registry, but maybe not. I'm not really sure.

After USA Baby, I begged my husband to go to goo goo gaa gaa. We really have no use for this store yet because it mostly harbors cute cute CUTE clothes. But it is fun to look!

Since we were disappointed with the strollers at USA Baby, my husband suggested that we might as well head to Babies R Us (cue scary music). We went in and headed toward the registry table. "Did you pre-register?" we were asked. What?! Um, no. So we had to fill out a form. While we were filling out the form, there was a couple sitting next to us debating the brake systems on strollers. They also had their Babies R Us registry book out with EVERY SINGLE ITEM CHECKED. We got the scanner, the book containing the registry checklist and the instructions to register for a ton of stuff because, "the average person buys 4-5 things from a registry". This was going against my "we are not registering for a ton of stuff" mantra. Already I had a headache.

Babies R Us did have a bunch of Maclaren strollers. I think I first wanted one of these strollers while pushing my friend, AH's son M, in one on our way to the ATL Consignment sale last year. Then, when we visited the Harley museum with the Bs, A had a Maclaren Quest Sport which I loved. The Maclaren Quest Sport (MQS) is the stroller I wanted to register for (also they come highly recommended from Baby Bargains). Well it turns out that the MQS must be going through a product changeover because those were on clearance (which are you strongly discouraged from registering for clearance items) or only the really ugly colors left. So we went with the Triumph in the green. Nate mentioned that the standard baby gift that his office usually buys people is the stroller so we kind of already know that we will get this.

The car seat was another item we registered for. We decided to go with the Chicco Key Fit 30. Why? Several pediatricians that I work with told me to buy that one. Since I work in injury prevention (e.g. motor vehicle crashes), I figure they know what they are talking about. Thus, I didn't even research other options. My boss also recommended this carseat from a parent perspective. I didn't want one of those travel systems where they include the big bulky stroller so I took the advice of HB and registered for a snap n go which you can hook the infant carrier onto and it is much less cumbersome.

We did register for some smaller things (e.g. "fluff") at Babies R US just to have something on the registry. However, if you looked at the Babies R Us Registry "Must Have" Checklist, we maybe crossed 15 of the 150 items off on there. It is shocking to me what they all suggest to buy - I think there were FIVE strollers on the list. FIVE. I was also disappointed that Babies R Us has ZERO in terms of cloth diapers. They have 50 trillion different types of bottles and loads of everything else you could possibly think of but no cloth diapers. Annoying. (I have yet to check out their online only selection which may have more than the store.) We still stayed away from registering for clothes and toys. I'm not sure infants need much in the way of toys and I'm still anticipating that we will get a ton of clothes, because it seems that everyone always says you get a ton of clothes. We did venture into blanket and sleep sack territory though. I LOVE sleep sacks - they are just so cute!

The "gift" for registering at Babies R Us was a photo album and an Avent Born Free 4 oz bottle. Of the two other stores we went with, they also are the only store that does a 10% off coupon for completing your registry. So we might be adding a bunch of stuff right before the baby is born (when they lock your registry) to take advantage of that!

I think we are done registering. I'm sure we will tweak them a bit but no more walking around stores with a scanner. I also will probably have to cross check the three to make sure we didn't double register for something!