Since I'm well into my 1st year of parenthood, I think I'm finally sorta qualified to come up with the baby-good-to-have-stuff list together with the approximate pricing.

These items are not compulsory- as parents before us were fine without em - but I think most of em are useful in their very own way and has been a great help in the baby department.

Let's start, shall we?

o1. A sterilizer & warmer set.
Since I'm sorta ocd in my very own way, I've been using the sterilizer to sterilize the storage and feeding bottles everyday since Myra was born. If you're familiar with ebm, you'll come to notice that they are very very oily (hence the fattygoodness for the baby), so I'll usually double wash the bottles. 1st round using hot water and bottle cleanser, 2nd round with another batch of hot water before finally dumping em in the sterilizer for a good steaming. Within few minutes, you'll have a sparkling clean sterilized bottles, ready to be used. he he. Tak payah nak risau of over boiling the bottles on the stove top sampai bottles cair whatsoever. Yea, stuff like that happened to people I know. he he.

As for the warmer, we've been using it daily to warm up the ebm(whilst I'm at work) and the baby food that I've prepared in the morning. Easy peasy, hassle free. :) Owh, ours is the elcheapo Little Beans and I'm not recommending it since the sterilizer already died on me few weeks back, it probably cannot stand the daily use and I'm still searching high and low for my new sterilizer. So yea, feel free to explore others since most of the stuff that you'll find in the market, basically gonna serve it purpose - we got ours for less than RM200. Ya just hafta find one that fits your tight or extremely loose budget. We're just a bunch of cheapskate. :P

o2. Fisher Price Newborn-to-Toddler Portable Rocker

We got our hand on this one when Myra was around 2 months old since I'm forever determine not to use any sort of swing for our baby tho I was a swing-baby myself and I could recall rather vividly on how mum used to tell me that moi parents hafta drag along the swing(the tiang besi and all) whenever they go else I won't sleep! Yikes, absolutely the trouble that I don't wanna get myself into plus I have my own safety concern when it comes to swing, but that's more of personal thing, so yea, feel free to use whichever best for you.

 So yea,moving on, this rocker allows the baby to be rocked gently to sleep (if she ever feels like it) when you're down with severe kesakitan pinggang and later be used as a portable chair when she's bigger.

These days, Myra has been using it as her very own version of lounge chair as more often than not, she'll be sitting on in whilst watching her favourite shows (Read: baby cartoons & upin n ipin) on tv and we'd sometimes use the rocker during mealtimes when Myra's too active for her highchair.

You could easily get it for less than RM300 when it's on sale - which is sorta often if ya ask me. Few days back, I think I saw it's selling on groupon or something for RM230 which is the cheapest price I've seen so far - tho it's of the old blue model not like the one we had, but whaddaheck, it's still the same stuff.

o3. A reliable thermometer
This is a must. I don't know how some could live without em. hi hi. I'm no doctor, but thermometer helps to rule out some unwanted possibilities when the baby's cranky.

Cranky baby + thermometer = normal temp = baby's not having fever so let's figure out something else to soothe the baby (which in my case, the boob always work.haha).

Owh, still on the thermometer, it's great to have a good-reliable-takes-temperature-within-seconds thermometer as one of the hardest thing to do is to take the body temperature of a wiggling baby. So buying one of those stuff where you hafta wait foreveeerr before getting the reading,adelah meaningless beyond words (like the 1st thermometer that we bought, to my defense it's super cute tapi gagal T_T). The one that we've been using now is the Microlife ear-thermometer (which comes with a handy bag), it takes less than 10 secs to get the reading( & we'd usually do the reading thrice) and it has been great so far. I think we got it for less than RM150 when it was on sale last year.

o4. Baby carrier.
Our one and only baby carrier is a red BabyBjorn. Bought it together with the carseat and stroller way before the baby was born. he he. I'd say that it's a good buy since Myra loves to be strapped to us when she gets too restless for the stroller and having a carrier is awesome since you'd have two free hands to do something else, say, shopping. he he.

Some say that crotch carrier is bad for a long run, and I'm not saying otherwise, to my defense, we just use it for less than an hour each time(which is not regular at all,most probably once/week or less) and I blame it to our lack of research-time. he he. We're too excited about baby stuff, so we just hauled everything that grabbed our fancy. Our bad. So yea, I'd probably get another baby-safe carrier for our next baby(whenever that will be). he he. Perhaps one of those custom-made SSC (soft structured carrier) or another version of BabyBjorn. This carrier cost less than RM300 kot, I can't really recall the exact price as it has been more than a year and a year is pretty long. :P


o5. Stroller & car seat.


Car seat is important.Safety 1st. Period. I'm an ocd mum so my mind goes wild on the unwanted possibilities sometimes, I cringed whenever I read the news bout babies being thrown out of the car, yada yada. So yea, get a car seat - tho I know strapping your child onto the seat does not guarantee that everything gonna be merry, but well, at least we try kan? The rest, leave it to Allah lah to protect us.

Anyway, we got our Ferari car seat for less than RM700 after discount and it's supposed to last from newborn until the little precious is 18kg which I don't know when lah.

Whilst car seat is a must for me, can't say the same bout stroller as sometimes adelah malas(& Myra tends to hate the stroller sometimes much to her daddy's annoyance, "Dah beli mahai-mahai apsai tamau duduk?". Macam la si kecik tu paham.ha ha. She wants what she wants okeh?) and some places are not stroller-friendly. Anyhow, a stroller is quite handy for long shopping spree, eating out (when the kedai doesn't seems to have a baby-safe highchair,we strapped the baby in her stroller instead.Apekah highchair tanpa safety harness?) and whatnot, so when we were stroller hunting, we made it a point to choose one that could be compact-folded and could be handled(fold and unfold) and steered with one hand.

Yea, we can do that with our PregPreego. We initially thought that we'd go for something lightweight, but most of lightweight strollers come with lousy padding so that's why we ended up with ours - tho at 10kg it's not exactly light for me. :P

We bought ours during the year-end sale for a little less than RM1.2k tho you'd probably get it for less during baby expo and whatnot - my parents bought me a Combi stroller 27 years ago and it cost them RM100++, tu pon they claimed that it has been overpriced, imagine their shock when we told bout ours, he he. Depa lum tengok lagi the prices of other expensive strollers in the market.he he.Ours adelah versi separa budget.  Maybe 2nd stroller boleh beli black-red Recaro stroller(idaman hati daddy) or a purple McLaren!(idaman hati mummy coz she digs purple) . :D

o6. Breastpump.
This is not for the baby, but for the mummy so she could efficiently provide the best milk for the baby tho she's away at work. he he. :P

So yea, my 1st bp is a Medela Swing (which has been sold months back since I couldn't bear looking at it collecting dust), bought it a month before the delivery, used it for probably 2 months before getting my hands on the Medela Freestyle(FS) which is loveeee. :P I love the fact that it's a double pump, the battery is rechargeable just like ones in the mobile phones and it's owh so light and handy - tho I'm a little bit sad to admit that I'm yet to use its handfree accessories. My bad.

The freestyle is double the price of Swing. I got Swing for RM600 whilst FS for RM1.5k, but to watch your little one growing up all healthy and owh so clever make it worth every penny.

So now with the Swing gone, I've been rotating between the FS at work and Avent manual( which I bagged for only RM144, super cheap!) for home use.

o7. Food storage.

Myra started on solids when she was 6mth old, but I've been scouting around for the equipments, storage and whatnot probably a month or two earlier.

So far I've got my hands on 3 types of storage solutions for baby food.


a. MAM storage solution - RM 45.00 for 5 pcs
It's BPA free, comes with a twist lock lid. Suitable for freezing, sterilization and could be used in microwave(tho it's not that I do). It could store up to 4oz of food which is perfect for a single meal. :)

b.Tomme Tippee food pot - bought it during baby expo, can't recall the price - probably less than RM30 for 3pcs.
It's pretty much the same with MAM pots(mine is in blue), but you hafta be careful with the lid as it leaks sometimes and a bit on the smaller side and so I'd usually use it to store Myra's snack - homemade mango yogurt , mashed potato and stuff.

c. Baby cubes - RM 29.90 for 8pcs (35 ml / 1oz)
I'd usually use this to freeze the puree, be it fruit puree, vege puree or even meat and fish. It's pretty neat as you could just dump the cubed puree into the porridge and within minutes, food is served. Now that Myra's a bit over 1 year old, I hardly make any fruit or vege puree anymore as I'll just chop em to smaller bits before dumping em in the porridge, but as for the poultry and fish, I still make fresh batch of em every weekend as Myra new sprouted teeth can't really handle the fibrous texture yet, so I'd usually steam the chicken/meat/fish with some herbs and puree them for later use.

Still on food storage, I also got my hands on a couple of thermal food containers so that I could keep the baby food warm whilst we're out jalan-jalan.  The 1st one is similar to a mangkuk-tingkat, tho I hafta say that it's of the cute version but the keep-warm power is rather lacking (tho it's a Thermos) so I went ahead and got myself this

Yea, fashion food jar (tak bleh blah betul, feeding the baby whilst looking pretty? he he), but yea, it's cute and it does the job to keep the food both hot and cold pretty long so I'm sold. I got both the food jar and the bottle for a little less than RM120 online which is cheap, so these days, when we're out jalan-jalan, I always have a jar of hot porridge, ready to be fed to the baby whenever she's hungry - as she's on the no junk-food policy except the occasional baby biscuit. he he. :)

 That's about it, it's not a complete list but it's all I could think of right now.

To future mummies, happy shopping and the already-mummies, happy shopping lah jugak - shopping, like parenting, is a never ending job. he he. :P

Have a good week.