From antique moa-hair baby blankets to NASA-designed ergonomic shoes, Spinoff Parents editor Emily Writes takes a look at the must-have items for your precious child.
Having a baby is a wonderful time to spend all of the money you have. Once baby has arrived, they basically take care of themselves if you have all of the necessary hardware that goes with them. That’s what this list is for. It can be confusing knowing what you need and what you also need, so I thought I’d create a list for you. Thank me later, in the form of photos and gifs of Alexander Skarsgård as Tarzan photoshopped to make it look like he wants to take me to his jungle, swing from my vines and bare his necessities to me, if you know what I mean (I mean fornication).
1. A baby blanket knitted with antique moa hair made by narcoleptic racoons from the Andes
Sure a blanket from K-Mart on special for $2.99 might be fine and less scratchy and less prone to weird kinkajou viruses. But you’ll be the only one at coffee group without one and do you really want to deal with that kind of stigma? It will probably follow your child all the way through life and when they go for a job the boss will be a baby from your coffee group and they’ll say HOLD ON MY MUM TOLD ME ABOUT YOU – YOU ARE THE K-MART BLANKET BABY.
2. A punching bag
Every time someone says “Is she a good baby? Is she sleeping?” when you’ve had 10 minutes sleep in two days you can punch the bag instead of your great aunt Ethel. When an old lady at the supermarket says your three day old baby needs solids you can punch the bag instead of getting arrested. When your partner pretends they’re asleep WHEN YOU FUCKING KNOW THEY ARE NOT ASLEEP: Go to the bag, punch the bag.
3. A white noise machine
You need a white noise machine to drown out the crying when you drink wine in the shower. It’s not even for sleeping LOL SLEEP AS IF. It’s just a nice calming backdrop for attempting to remember what it was like to shit by yourself.
4. 8000 pairs of shoes that only fit your baby before they actually start walking
The purpose of these shoes is for your baby to pull them off their feet and leave them around the house. Your baby cannot walk. Has no interest in walking. They are purely for decoration/inconvenience. They also have zero resale value. When you go to pack them away, as none of them fit your now walking baby, half will be unworn and half will not be able to be paired up. When you move house, you will find six individual shoes that don’t match under your couch.
5. An $800 pair of ergonomically designed shoes made by a team of NASA scientists so that your child will walk properly
Were you going to put them in normal shoes from The Warehouse for $4.50? No judgement, but you’re a fucking monster.
6. A car seat that rear-faces until your child is 37
It comes with a complementary smug response to use in Facebook groups when people have bought the wrong car seat.
7. Six different Thomas the Tank Engine tracks that do not match each other
This may seem like jumping the gun, considering you’re only eight weeks pregnant, but it’s never too early to buy overpriced shit that doesn’t match and is just left all over your house to drive you crazy. Each track only costs about 16 million dollars, and the good thing is your child will play with it for eight seconds and then say “The tracks don’t match, I need the tracks that work”. And you will drink.
8. Your body weight in alcohol
Obviously.
9. A baby book
For you to fill in until they’re three months old. Then you’ll just throw in random photos and vaccination cards and hope somehow the book fills in itself.
10. A never-ending box of tissues
You’ll spend the next million years alternating between happy tears and sad tears and you won’t want to change a thing even though everything is awful because it’s only awful for an hour or maybe a day or maybe a week if the walls are dripping with vomit. You’ll need a box of tissues for late at night when you’re so grateful the kids are asleep so you can look at photos of them on your phone and think about how much you love them. You’ll need a box of tissues for when you see someone you haven’t seen for ages and they say “what are your kids like?” and you start falling over your words – they’re brilliant, hilarious, gentle, loving, kind, cheeky! They’re the best thing that ever happened to me. They’re my world. They’re everything. Hand me a tissue.
Emily Writes is somehow editor of The Spinoff Parents and also a weekly columnist because she chooses columnists and she chose herself – nepotism tbh. She also writes stuff sometimes on her website and you can find her objectifying beefcakes on Twitter and crying about not sleeping on Facebook. She’s often heard talking about things at events and on radio – not even invited or anything, she just sets up a trestle table and starts ranting. Her book is coming out soon you should buy it. She also wrote this bio. Self-Nepotism.