Top Five Pieces of Gear I Could Not Live Without

One thing you’ll quickly learn as a noodad is how much gear is available to make parenting easier. You’ll probably have more baby gadgets in your home than Bob Vila has tools on his pegboard by the time you’re through, and the importance of each piece of gear is, of course, determined by how much easier it makes your life. Here’s my Top 5 list of baby gear essentials (in no particular order) that I can’t imagine doing without:

Nasal Bulb Syringe/Aspirator

Guess what? Infants get colds. Guess what else? An infant can’t blow his nose. That’s why you’ll worship this simple little snot-suctioning device. Instead of lying awake at 3:00 AM listening to the monitor for the next time your kid gags on the mucus piling up in the back of his throat, you just clear it out with this mini turkey-baster. You’ll all sleep better with one of these in the house.

Nuk Pacifier

Babies suck. Not like getting dragged by your wife to Linens N’ Things to shop for a comforter on a Saturday afternoon sucks; but literally. It’s how they soothe themselves. We tried other makes and models, but our kids preferred Nuk pacifiers. We keep a few in the crib in case any fall out during the night, which keeps our little suck-junkie happy and lets us get a good night’s rest.

Kelty backpack

The Baby Bjorn has its place in human-mounted baby transport; however, once the little bobblehead’s neck is strong enough to support the weight of his squash, the Kelty backpack is the only way to go. You’d be amazed at how much you can get done with a kid on your back instead of on your gut. I’ve worn mine while folding laundry, raking leaves, mowing the lawn, and shopping for groceries. Another article on noodad.com showed one way to check e-mail while keeping a kid at bay. Not only is the Kelty backpack more comfortable, but you don’t run the risk of having to explain to the emergency room doctor how that coat hanger got jammed into your ass. The frame is made of lightweight aluminum, the nylon material is durable and easy to clean, and the adjustable shoulder and waist straps are comfortable and offer great support. If you’re not sold on this yet, what kind of man are you if you pass on a baby product that has both a cockpit and an auto-deploy kickstand? Kelty offers models for everything from backcountry hiking to running errands; and accessories like a detachable diaper bag and a rain/sun shield are available.

The First Years 3-stage Feeding Seat

Highchairs are cumbersome, take up too much room, and can give you sticker shock. Fortunately, there’s an alternative. The First Years 3-Stage Feeding Seat straps on to any chair, reclines, and is portable. If your kid falls asleep while eating like all those cherubs on America’s Funniest Videos, just swivel the chair back and let him enjoy his food coma. Another great feature of this chair is the clean-up. It’s almost impossible to remove all the pureed peas that get stuck in the hinges, straps and buckles of a highchair after your Jackson Pollack wannabe finishes another masterpiece. Not so with this chair. The whole damn thing breaks down and fits in the dishwasher. ‘Nuff said.

Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow Bottles

If you fed my second son a bottle, you’d have the same probability of wearing used food as you would riding the Tilt-A-Whirl next to a carnival patron with a belly full of bad clams. He spit up all the time and cried from gas pains. We used some other remedies like Maalox and Mylicon drops, but we saw the most improvement when we switched from Avent bottles to Dr. Brown’s Natural Flow bottles. The secret is in the patented venting system that gets rid of both the vacuum and air bubbles created while your kid slurps away. There are a few more pieces to clean than other bottles (bottle, valve, valve stem, collar, and nipple), but everything can go in the dishwasher. Even if you could only wash these bottles and components with Q-Tips, they’d still be worth it for their anti-gas and spit-up reducing powers.

As I said, these are the things that worked wonders for me. Let’s hear what worked for you.