How To Create The Perfect Baby Registry

You want to register for the best and most useful baby stuff, sure. But the amount of choices have you either in a frenzy or frozen in place.

Take a breath and relax. We’ll tell you the best way to approach this task (and make it fun!). Here's some tips on creating the perfect baby registry that covers all the bases, yet is personal and unique. 

Oeuf Fawn Crib with Child in Crown

The king of the house enjoying his Oeuf Fawn crib. Thank goodness you registered for it!

In This Article:

The Best Approach To Making A Baby Registry

Find your inner Marie Kondo. Making a baby registry is all about organization. There are a finite amount of categories that you’ll have to get a hold of, like strollers, cribs, feeding, bath, toys, and clothing. The trick is to find the things in each category that spark joy and will do the job!

Oeuf Fawn Crib

Oeuf's Fawn Bassinet/Crib is a popular registry pick!

Prioritize The Big, Important Stuff

As you’re diving into the whole registry thing, you first want to prioritize. What are the big, important decisions that take more research? 

In our mind, the biggest decisions are in the category of mobility. That is your stroller, car seat and baby carrier. A happy parent is one who can get around and live their life with relative ease. Happy parent, happy child.

After mobility, the next decision that’s a critical one is the bassinet, crib, changer, and rocker or glider – especially because these tend to have longer lead times. 

These are the decisions that you should start with. A lot of other registry decisions will flow out of these. 

Go Online 

As you’re getting ready to think about a certain category, it’s great to go online and see what people are saying about the brands and products.

There is no shortage of opinions online, so take it all with a grain of salt. You don’t know who’s talking and if their lifestyle and preferences are like yours, and for every “thumbs up” you're probably going to get a “thumbs down”. 

Just take note of what people say they liked and didn’t like about a product as it may or may not apply to you. For instance if a stroller is heavy – well that’s a negative if you have a walk up or you’re carrying it a lot. But if you’re in an elevator building, it’s not such a big deal, as the most you’ll be doing is folding it and lifting it into the car every once in a while. 

If you want to get a head start in looking at some of the most popular things to register for at Babesta, check out our Registry Must Haves that brings them all together on a page. We have the top models of strollers, car seats, bathtubs, high chairs, nursery items, and more that city families are clamoring for.

Cybex Gazelle Stroller

Cybex Gazelle Stroller is a good option for a growing family

Look Around

Before clicking the “add to registry” button, spend a couple days looking at other parents in your neighborhood. It’s not saying you have to have what they have, but generally good products are “good” because they work for a similar lifestyle.

For instance, if you live in New York City in a doorman building, check out what others who are living in your building have chosen. This is particularly helpful in categories like strollers. Strike up a conversation with parents you see and ask them what they think.

Woman with baby in Baby Bjorn carrier

Baby Bjorn Mini Carrier is perfect for your newborn

Ask Friends

Now it’s time to look at your friends. Any of them have kids? Ask them how they made their decisions, and what they really liked. 

Don’t feel as if you have to follow their advice exactly. Depending on where they live, what sort of building they’re in (walk up vs elevator), whether they have a car, how often they drive and travel – all sorts of things can influence what a good product is for someone.

But they know you, so their advice probably takes “you” into consideration, an insight strangers wouldn’t have. 

Between what you’ve observed and what you’ve been told, you have a lot of info going in. Now it’s time to hit your local baby store.

Stroller and gifts at Babesta

Fun registry items at Babesta

Visit Your Local Baby Store

Find a baby store near you (we hope you come to Babesta!) and make a plan to check out the various products people have talked about. Those folks on the internet, your friends and your neighbors have experience in a particular model or product, but remember these things change all the time, so there will definitely be more options or updates.

Your local baby store will know when new models are coming out, and will probably be knowledgeable about the feedback you’ve heard. They can help you understand how to apply it to your lifestyle. 

Spend some time talking to the associate about whatever products or categories you’re curious about. We at Babesta, for instance, have been doing this for nearly two decades, so although the models have changed over the years, what city families need from their gear has not. 

We hopefully can give you some context and guidance!

The Perfect Baby Registry: High-Low-Let’s-Go

OK, that was a Ramones reference. You get the tune. What we’re trying to say is that you’ll have lots of different people shopping from your baby registry wanting to pick out something special. You want to curate your list so that there’s something for everyone to feel good about buying at every price point.

Stokke Steps High Chair

Stokke Steps high chair

High/Low

A registry will have the big, big ticket items that will probably either be purchased by the registrants themselves, close family, or will be group gifts. These are often $700+ and may or may not be on the registry shared with friends. 

Once you know the “big stuff”, it’s a great time to add all the accessories that go with these big ticket items. For instance, if you’ve chosen a stroller, register for the cup holder, organizer, seat liner, car seat adapters, and snack tray for instance. And don’t forget seasonal accessories as well, like sunshades and footmuffs. 

You can do this for each category: 

  • Crib: Add the mattress, mattress protector, sheets, and toddler conversion kit. You can also add a soother, swaddles and sleep sacks for comfy sleep.
  • Travel Crib: Don’t forget the sunshade, extra sheet, and travel bag.
  • Car Seat: You'll want to register for the rain cover, sunshade, extra base, seat protector, and footmuff.
  • Carrier: Add some teething pads to go with it.
  • Bouncer: Be sure to add the toy bar!
  • Bathtub: Include the towels, bath toys, and bath organizer as well.
  • High chair: Add bibs, bottles and feeding accessories like plates, sippy cups and first utensils. You may also want pacifiers and teethers.
  • Bookshelf/Storage: Include a bunch of books too, for bedtime stories
  • Changer: You'll want to add a diaper pail, wipes case, diapers, wipes, creams/lotions, changing tray, changing pad, changing pad cover and small baskets.
  • Glider/Rocker: Don't forget the ottoman as well as a breastfeeding pillow.

Funny

It's great to have a few things on the registry that'll give them a chuckle. The FridaBaby goodies are always a crowdpleaser. They provide both practical and comical appeal, created to address life’s less pleasant realities — Frida’s Musts include the “Snotsucker” and “GasPasser” for instance!

New York Goodies At Babesta

A selection of NYC goodies at Babesta

Personal

You might add a band tee or New York onesie, to add some pizazz to the registry. There are also some great books to add like the Baby Zodiac series board books!

Baby Toys at Babesta

Baby toys at Babesta

Also don't forget the toys! There are lots of developmental toys that are fun to register for and fun to buy. The Nogginstik is a must, as well as anything by Fat Brain. Plan Toys also offers some great wooden toys for the littlest. 

Gift Cards

You should also register for some gift cards, so that once the baby arrives, you can pick out some more special things. These are particularly good for baby fashion (as opposed to basics); since fashion is seasonal, it's a tough one to register for. 

As many of the clothing brands we carry are not mass produced, once a garment’s gone it’s gone. Generally, when it comes to fashion items, a gift certificate that the parents can use at their leisure is the best way to go! 

If you’ve got your heart set on a fashion item, you can add it, and if it goes out of stock, just know there will be something else super cool in store pronto.

Where To Register

For registries it’s not only what you’re registering for, but also where.

Most stores have their registries online so you can either pop on the site or go into the shop and ask about their registry and the registry process. Do they have any special services? Any benefits to being a registrant? Do they work with other companies that host store-agnostic baby registries (e.g. BabyList)?

Ideally, you want to make your registry process simple for you, and simple for those purchasing the products. One of the big keys to registering is to make sure you have humans (not bots) to talk to along the way in case anything goes awry, if you need to change something or if you need any advice along the way. 

Exterior of Babesta Tribeca

The best baby registries are made at Babesta!

How To Make A Babesta Baby Registry

At Babesta, we give you two choices of registry. You can do one or the other, or you can do both! We want to make sure that it’s all as easy as it can be for you and your friends and family. 

Babesta Registry

First, we have our own Babesta Registry. You'll find a handy button on the site Add to Registry that will do just that if you're logged in. If you're not logged in yet, it will prompt you to make an account. Adding to registry is just like shopping, only it creates a registry or wish list that will be shared with others. 

Note, if you want others to see it you'll either want to make it public (where they can look up your registry with your name), or make it private, where you'll have to provide them a special link. If it's private, and someone doesn't have the link, they won't be able to see the registry.

Everything that’s purchased using the Babesta registry will get all of the special Babesta services. You can choose to “hold it til you need it” or “free assembly”, for instance. 

You will also be able to call us at any time and we can track your registry and help answer questions if there is an issue.  You’ll also get our registry closeout benefits when you register with Babesta.

If there’s something that you want to register for and thought we carried it but don’t see it online, ask us. There are some items that are “live” on the site, so if it’s out of stock now but it comes back in stock tomorrow we can let you know and turn it on for you. Our "Registry Must Haves" should always show available so you should always be able to register for them. They will either be in stock and read "ready for pick up" or they will give you a time estimate for fulfillment.

If we are holding your registry items at the store — something we do for lots of people, so that they can choose a delivery date and get everything at once — all purchases will be routed to the store. 

BabyList Registry Linking To Babesta

We also have a button to add to your BabyList Registry. BabyList is an aggregator so you can register with BabyList and add links to the things you want from any store you like. When your family and friends purchase items, the store you registered for that particular item will fulfill the order. 

If you already are working with BabyList, you might just want to add links for the things you are registering for at Babesta. Just click “Add to My BabyList Registry” button that’s to the right of each product on the site. 

If you’ve registered for Babesta goods through a BabyList Registry and you’d like to take advantage of our services (like if you don’t want us to ship as soon as the order comes in but rather hold it til you’re ready) we’re happy to, but you have to let us know

As BabyList manages this registry, we do not know any details, so we will ship directly to you when the order comes in.  If you let us know what items you have added from Babesta, we’ll flag the orders when they come in and give you our suite of services as you wish!

Registering With Both Babesta And BabyList

Many people will register with both BabyList and Babesta, so that BabyList manages all the stuff we don’t have or that you want the ease of one registry for, and you can put all the “big, important stuff” on your Babesta list. That way you get all the awesome services we offer and you have people to talk to for any questions. 

For any friends and family who are not internet savvy or prefer the phone, they can even call us and place the order over the phone. We can also split sales if several people want to go in for something. We try to make it as flexible as possible and work with you to figure out what will be best!

Sometimes the registrants themselves, their parents or close family choose to purchase the ‘big stuff’. This is an option too. Doing this takes a lot of pressure off the rest of your registry, and you’ll get all of our special services like hold it til you need it, free stroller assembly, white glove, and delivery.

Child with Loulou Lollipop blanket

 

Who doesn't love Loulou Lollipop's Safari Blanket? A perfect registry item!

Ready, Set, Go

Do you feel ready to take the plunge and start your registry? When you get to the point you’re ready to come in person and try stuff out, please come by to our shop on Warren Street. 

You can wheel the strollers outside on the street, try the carriers with our “fake” baby, Eli, and chat with our associates about your lifestyle, needs, and preferences. We can even walk through each category and help you understand the different models and trade offs so you can decide what to add. 

And as we mentioned earlier, don’t forget to also consult our Registry Must-Haves which make the whole thing super simple. We also have a blank registry form that you can print out if it helps! Our mantra is “don’t lose your cool shopping for your baby” and we mean it. Whether you’re shopping or whether you’re making the perfect baby registry, we’ve got your back!