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Now that my little one is approaching 4 months, I feel like I’ve gotten a good feel for a lot of our baby devices. We regularly used our car seat, baby stroller, diaper bin and more in our day to to day parenting life. Below is a list of the items that we use most often and a little review about them. Enjoy!

Strollers: Aura Select Travel System from Evenflo (product here)

• Rating: (4 stars)
• Thoughts: The Evenflo stroller was our choice because it comes with a car seat plus lots of storage space below. It has locking wheels, a place for wipes, 2 cup holders and a sliding cover for our baby. The design feels rather sturdy without being too heavy making it easy to remove/pack into car trunks. Our biggest complaint with the stroller is how it unfolds. The latches are easy use but it unfolds in a strange way. When you release it, the stroller starts to transform but there is no place for your hands, so you have to move them around to avoid getting pinched! What I normally end up doing is laying it down on the ground, release the latch and then pull up the seat (the one meant for bigger kids facing forward). About half way through I have to switch to the handle which has enough leverage to complete the transformation. Like I said, not a big deal but something that’s annoying that we did not think of before we got it.

Bouncy Chair: Woodlands Friends Bouncer (product here)

• Rating: (2 stars)
• Thoughts: This was one of the most useless baby items that we got. We did use it every night until we realized the power of a swing chair. That fateful day that Diane brought that out of storage, the Woodland Friends became obsolete. And that my friends is why I’m giving it 2 stars. We literally used it for about a month and now it sits in storage. As for the features it offers, it also comes with a vibrating option that was never effective, some brightly colored animals that hang from a removable cross bar and straps to hold your baby. Overall the craftsmanship was solid, I never hard to worry about our daughter falling out or flipping over in the thing. She was also to young to really enjoy the animal creatures so that was useless in the end as well. I’m not saying this is a bad product, just our time that we used it versus the cost was not equal in any way.

Diaper Bin: Diaper Champ from Baby Trend (product here)

• Rating: (5 stars)
• Thoughts: We love this diaper bin so much. It is an amazing product that is great at keeping the smell to a minimal but still is easy to use. The design is simple and clean and requires minimal effort to work. What you do is easy, just place a diaper in the top and flip the top unit over. There is a weigh in the top which is pulled down by gravity and pushes the diaper into a bag. The weight has rubber around the edge creating a snug fit and helps prevent odor from escaping. The only problem we’ve encountered is when the thing gets close to full, the flipping motion gets stuck and you either have to really put some muscle into it or remove any diapers that are stuck on the weight.

Baby Bottles: Soothies from The First Year (5 ounce and 9 ounce)

• Rating: (3 stars)
• Thoughts: Baby bottles. Yes, I’m throwing in something about the baby bottles. I’m doing this because people often don’t think about bottles because they’re cheap but you use them a lot (if you’re bottle feeding, otherwise it doesn’t really matter)! We originally got our Soothie bottles and a few special other ones from friends and family. The specials ones can be found here (Ventair) and they were really nice at first. They didn’t drip at all until pressure was applied meaning the little one would only get food when she sucked on the nipple. It also had some sort of suction tech on the bottom that allow air to flow into the bottle and make milk flow easier. All of these things made it an amazing bottle until it got stuck. We found this out when we were shopping one day, using the bottle to feed and the little one was not getting any food! She was getting really upset since she was getting no food for her effort and it took us about 10 minutes to figure out what was going on. Now, the Soothies don’t have this issue, infact they have the opposite. The nipple will drip milk actually (do to a larger hole) but the flip side is they never get clogged. In this case, we just need something that works and that bottle is the Soothie.

Overall we have some fairly decent products. The only one that didn’t pull it’s weight was the bouncer chair. But as with all things it was simply out grown. As a parent the Diaper Champ is a must own if only for the fact that it will save your nose. The other items are great but not necessary. It all comes down to trying out the products and finding out what’s best for you and your child.

Did I totally bash your favorite item or feel that something received to much praise? Feel free to leave comments below, I welcome the tech debate.